Philosophy audiobooks

Think Better Analytically

By: Instafo & Meredith Larissa

Narrated by: Instafo

Length: 40 minutes

Abridged: No

An Analysis of Your Own Thinking
Over the past few years, there have been many different types of thinking that have emerged, promoted as the best one: positive thinking, out-of-the-box thinking, critical thinking, and so on.
How does one obtain these magical thought processes? Really, all these varieties of thinking are related to analytical... Read more

The Ascent of Humanity

By: Charles Eisenstein

Narrated by: Steve Wojtas

Length: 27 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

The author of The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible explores the history and potential future of civilization, tracing the converging crises of our age to the illusion of the separate self
 
Our disconnection from one another and the natural world has mislaid the foundations of science, religion, money, technology, economics,... Read more

The Futilitarians

By: Anne Gisleson

Narrated by: Anne Gisleson

Length: 8 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

A memoir of friendship and literature chronicling a search for meaning and comfort in great books, and a beautiful path out of grief.

Anne Gisleson had lost her twin sisters, had been forced to flee her home during Hurricane Katrina, and had witnessed cancer take her beloved father. Before she met her husband, Brad, he had suffered his own... Read more

Critical Thinking Junkie

By: Howie Junkie

Narrated by: How-To Junkie

Length: 36 minutes

Abridged: No

From the Desk of the How-To Junkie for the "Critical Thinking Junkie":

Howdy friend, who wants "to develop critical thinking,"

In the old days where famous Greek philosophers - like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle - would conglomerate in the public square Agora of Athens, people from all over would gather around to listen attentively to... Read more

A Preface to Politics

By: Walter Lippmann

Narrated by: Robert Bethune

Length: 7 hours 52 minutes

Abridged: No

Walter Lippmann still stands today as one of the foremost figures of American political journalism, social commentary, and cultural criticism. At the age of 24, he published A Preface to Politics; that same year, along with Herbert Croly and Walter Weyl, he founded The New Republic magazine. In short, he burst upon the scene. He went on to... Read more

The World as Will and Idea

By: Arthur Schopenhauer

Narrated by: Leighton Pugh

Length: 17 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

In this final part to Schopenhauer's momentous and hugely influential work, his original and wide-ranging observations are as lively as ever. Though cast as a 'pessimist' by history, he is anything but that to read - and listen to. Here are the last supplementary comments his original work (published 1818), the fruit of decades of further... Read more

The Three Pillars of Zen

By: Roshi Philip Kapleau

Narrated by: Sean Runnette

Length: 14 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

In this classic work of spiritual guidance, the founder of the Rochester Zen Center presents a comprehensive overview of Zen Buddhism. Exploring the three pillars of Zen—teaching, practice, and enlightenment—Roshi Philip Kapleau, the man who founded one of the oldest and most influential Zen centers in the United States, presents a personal... Read more

Self-Reliance

By: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Narrated by: Phil Paonessa

Length: 1 hour 22 minutes

Abridged: No

In an 1841 essay, American transcendentalist philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered a stirring call for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency and to follow their own instincts and ideas. It contains one of Emerson's most famous quotations: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by... Read more

Änglar i elden

By: Dann Stadler

Narrated by: Ann Katrin Andreasson

Length: 5 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: No

När Dann och Tracy Stadler var med om en frontalkrock med en rattfull förare blev Tracy fast i den brinnande bilen. Ett ögonblick senare kom en främling ut ur skogen intill och räddade henne från en säker död innan han försvann igen. Genom de svåra tider som följde med månader på sjukhus växte Dan och Tracys tro på Gud och på änglarna i hans... Read more

Surfing with Sartre

By: Aaron James

Narrated by: Tristan Morris

Length: 12 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

From the bestselling author of Assholes: A Theory, a book that—in the tradition of Shopclass as Soulcraft, Barbarian Days and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance—uses the experience and the ethos of surfing to explore key concepts in philosophy.

The existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre once declared "the ideal limit of aquatic... Read more

The American Scholar

By: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Narrated by: Phil Paonessa

Length: 1 hour 2 minutes

Abridged: No

The American Scholar was a speech given by Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1837, to the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard College. Emerson argues that American culture, still heavily influenced by Europe, could build a new, distinctly American cultural identity. Emerson uses Transcendentalist and Romantic points of view to explain a true American... Read more

Prudence

By: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Narrated by: Phil Paonessa

Length: 36 minutes

Abridged: No

The essay on Prudence was given as a lecture in a course on Human Culture, in the winter of 1837-8. It was published in the first series of Essays, which appeared in 1841. In it, Emerson describes Prudence as The virtue of the senses and admits to having little of it in himself. Read more

Heroism

By: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Narrated by: Phil Paonessa

Length: 34 minutes

Abridged: No

Building on and enriching ideas set forth in Self-Reliance, Emerson argues that true heroism is self-confidence and persistency in the face of corrosive pressures to conform to society. Read more

Compensation

By: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Narrated by: Phil Paonessa

Length: 1 hour 2 minutes

Abridged: No

Emerson's discourse on the laws of compensation, takes on the notion that one who has money must be wicked and those who do not must be good, among other topics. It appeared in his book Essays, first published in 1841. Read more

Circles

By: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Narrated by: Phil Paonessa

Length: 38 minutes

Abridged: No

Circles is an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson, first published in 1841. The essay reflects on the vast array of circles one may find throughout nature, and what is suggested by these circles in philosophical terms. In the opening line of the essay Emerson states The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout... Read more

Friendship

By: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Narrated by: Phil Paonessa

Length: 46 minutes

Abridged: No

Emerson's treatise on the nature of friendship. The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one. Read more

Manners

By: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Narrated by: Phil Paonessa

Length: 1 hour 2 minutes

Abridged: No

In Manners, Ralph Waldo Emerson expounds on the meaning of customs and politeness in civil society. He argues that the purpose of manners is more to facilitate the creation and proper working of society, and not to establish hierarchies. Read more

Gifts

By: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Narrated by: Phil Paonessa

Length: 11 minutes

Abridged: No

In Gifts Ralph Waldo Emerson muses on the function of and expectations surrounding the giving of gifs. He touches on what gifts communicate about the nature of the giver and receiver, and how the best kind of gift is a gift of love. Read more

Nature

By: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Narrated by: Phil Paonessa

Length: 51 minutes

Abridged: No

This version of Nature is an 1843 revision to the popular essay written and published in 1836. In the original essay, Emerson put forth the foundation of transcendentalism, and suggested that reality can be understood by studying nature. Within the essay, Emerson divides nature into four usages: Commodity, Beauty, Language and Discipline. These... Read more

Shakespeare; Or, the Poet

By: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Narrated by: Phil Paonessa

Length: 54 minutes

Abridged: No

In The Poet, an essay by U.S. writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, the author expresses the need for the United States to have its own new and unique poet to write about the new country's virtues and vices. It is not about men of poetical talents, or of industry and skill in meter, but of the true poet. After reading the essay, Walt Whitman consciously... Read more

Buddhism 101

By: Arnie Kozak

Narrated by: Fred Sanders

Length: 7 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

Learn everything you need to know about Buddhism in this clear and straightforward new guide.

Buddhism was founded thousands of years ago, and has inspired millions of people with its peaceful teachings. Buddhism 101 highlights and explains the central concepts of Buddhism to the modern reader, with information on mindfulness, karma, The Four... Read more

Conscience of a Conservative

By: Jeff Flake

Narrated by: Milton Jeffers & Jeff Flake

Length: 4 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A thoughtful defense of traditional conservatism and a thorough assault on the way Donald Trump is betraying it.”—David Brooks, in his New York Times column

In a bold act of conscience, Republican Senator Jeff Flake takes his party to task for embracing nationalism, populism, xenophobia, and the anomalous Trump... Read more

The Sensational Past

By: Carolyn Purnell

Narrated by: Liz Thompson

Length: 7 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

Sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch-as they were celebrated during the Enlightenment and as they are perceived today. Blindfolding children from birth? Playing a piano made of live cats? Using tobacco to cure drowning? Wearing "flea"-colored clothes? These actions may seem odd to us, but in the eighteenth century, they made perfect sense. As... Read more

101 Amazing Philosophical Quotes

By: Jack Goldstein & Jimmy Russell

Narrated by: John Harnish

Length: 17 minutes

Abridged: No

Every one of us has - at one time or another - wondered about what it means to be human.
Do we have a soul?
What is the mind's eye?
Where do dreams come from; where do they go? The greatest thinkers of our time have considered these questions and more; after much time mulling things over they have summed up the human condition in short - but... Read more