Philosophical Biographies
Last updated: September 12, 2024
Biography is a good way of learning about philosophy when it’s done well. Some excellent philosophical biographies have come out in the past few years. An exceptional biography of Ludwig Wittgenstein, who had a big influence on 20th-century philosophy, was a landmark. The author, Ray Monk, showed that it was possible to do a highly intelligent, well-researched biography of a difficult thinker that could appeal to a wide audience. Monk was able to put Wittgenstein's philosophy in the context of his life. Published in 1990, it paved the way for a much greater interest in the philosophical biography genre—as opposed to philosophy just being about key texts.
“What I loved about this book is that it takes you right into Nietzsche’s life. This is particularly important with him because the life and the work are not so easily separable. For Nietzsche, there’s a sense that his life is actually part of what he’s trying to do.” Read more...
The Best Philosophy Books of 2018
Nigel Warburton, Philosopher
“How to Live is the story of the quirky 16th-century genius Montaigne, who was transformed by a narrow escape from death and by the early loss of a friend and became a reflective writer, retiring to his study to write brilliant and sometimes strange essays that can seem peculiarly modern. His digressive writing, often intimately confessional, playful, and challenging, all at the same time, is completely compelling. I challenge you to read Bakewell’s book without turning to the essays themselves. She gives their flavour and context, and discusses the best of them in a way that is both true to her subject, and is immensely satisfying to read.” Read more...
Philosophy Books to Take On Holiday
Nigel Warburton, Philosopher
Socrates in Love: The Making of a Philosopher
by Armand D'Angour
***🏆 A Five Books Book of the Year ***
“Socrates felt that the written word was a bad thing for philosophy (and life) because although it looked intelligent, every time you asked a question it always gave the same response, whoever asked the question.” Read more...
The Best Philosophy Books of 2019
Nigel Warburton, Philosopher
“Becoming Beauvoir is not just an outstanding philosophy book, it’s one of the best books I’ve read for a while. It’s of interest far beyond the narrow area of philosophy. Whether you love her or hate her, Simone de Beauvoir was a really significant cultural figure and it’s great to have such an interesting new biography of her.” Read more...
The Best Philosophy Books of 2019
Nigel Warburton, Philosopher
“This book is brilliant. It’s written by Samantha Rose Hill, who must know as much as anyone about Hannah Arendt. She’s dived into Arendt’s surviving papers, notebooks, and even poetry, spending many hours in the archive. And what’s so great about this as a biography is that Hill has done something that biographers rarely do—she’s been highly selective in what she’s included. As a result, we don’t get the feeling of being overwhelmed by details of an individual life but rather get to understand what really mattered.” Read more...
The Best Philosophy Books of 2021
Nigel Warburton, Philosopher
An Event, Perhaps: A Biography of Jacques Derrida
by Peter Salmon
Peter Salmon has written an accessible and interesting biography of Jacques Derrida, the doyen of Deconstructionism. That is quite a feat given the opacity of much of what Derrida wrote.
“It’s a very sympathetically written book with a marvellous instinct for the psychology of the subject. It gives you an intelligible picture of Wittgenstein. To what extent it’s true, I can’t answer. (That’s a problem with all biographies.) But it’s a convincing picture which renders his life intelligible to a considerable degree. It also gives one a good idea of his philosophy. The biographical material is interspersed with philosophical discussion, and that is attractively lucid. It makes clear how fascinating Wittgenstein was in his endeavour to confront the problems of philosophy and resolve them. It makes clear where his genius lay. I’d certainly recommend reading Ray Monk’s book and I’m fairly sure that most people who do read it will become captivated by the personality of the man and interested in his ideas.” Read more...
The best books on Wittgenstein
Peter Hacker, Philosopher
“This is a one-volume biography by Leo Damrosch. It’s quite racily-written, very readable. There are other biographies of Rousseau, some of them very scholarly…Rousseau was a biographer of himself, an autobiographer. The most famous of his autobiographical writings is the Confessions, but there’s also Reveries of a Solitary Walker, and the famous Dialogues, where you have a very paranoid Rousseau in conversation with another character, ‘the Frenchman,’ concerning the faults of an alter ego, Jean-Jacques. So Rousseau did tell the story of his own life, but Damrosch tells it very well in English.” Read more...
The best books on Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Chris Bertram, Philosopher
“David McLellan didn’t invent the humanistic Marx, but he popularised it for an Anglophone audience.” Read more...
The best books on Marx and Marxism
Terrell Carver, Political Scientist
