Nigel Warburton
British philosopher and writer; co-host with David Edmonds of the podcast Philosophy Bites; author of Philosophy: The Basics (1992) and A Little History of Philosophy (2011).
Death in a Shallow Pond by David Edmonds
Death in a Shallow Pond is also about a single thought experiment, Peter Singer’s famous thought experiment about a child apparently drowning in a shallow pool of water while nobody else is around.
on fivebooks.com · 5 Dec 2025 · Report
How to Say No by Diogenes and the Cynics, translated by Mark Usher
Diogenes the Cynic was a real character and this book, How to Say No, is in the Princeton series ‘Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers‘, which was commissioned by the editor Rob Tempio.
on fivebooks.com · 15 Dec 2022 · Report
Looking for Theophrastus by Laura Beatty
The book is called Looking for Theophrastus and it’s by Laura Beatty.
on fivebooks.com · 15 Dec 2022 · Report
Thinking to Some Purpose by Susan Stebbing
Which makes the point that books like Thinking to Some Purpose have a huge potential effect on society.
on fivebooks.com · 15 Dec 2022 · Report
Free by Lea Ypi
There’s a passage near the end of Free where Ypi describes how this book was originally going to be an overtly philosophical one about overlapping ideas of freedom in liberal and socialist traditions, but that as soon as she started writing it, the abstract ideas turned into people she knew, people who were the product of social relations for which they were not responsible.
on fivebooks.com · 30 Nov 2021 · Report
On Liberty by John Stuart Mill
On Liberty was published in 1859, the same year as the Origin of Species but wasn’t entirely eclipsed by it.
on fivebooks.com · 2 Jul 2021 · Report
Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein
These ideas then reach their most popular version in the Philosophical Investigations, this posthumously published book.
on fivebooks.com · 2 Jul 2021 · Report
Republic by Plato
Now, that doesn’t give you any idea of why it’s called Republic.
on fivebooks.com · 2 Jul 2021 · Report
Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed
The title, Black Box Thinking, comes from the black boxes which are standardly included in every passenger aircraft, so that if an accident occurs there’s a recording of the flight data and a recording of the audio communications as the plane goes down.
on fivebooks.com · 4 Dec 2020 · Report
Critical Thinking by Tom Chatfield
Of the books I’ve discussed, the ones that are most obviously aimed at that are Black Box Thinking, the Dobelli book, and Tom Chatfield’s Critical Thinking.
on fivebooks.com · 4 Dec 2020 · Report
Factfulness by Hans Rosling
His book Factfulness, which was published posthumously—his son and daughter-in-law completed the book—is very optimistic, so completely different in tone from Kahneman’s.
on fivebooks.com · 4 Dec 2020 · Report
The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli
The Art of Thinking Clearly is a very short and punchy book, while Tom’s is longer, and more of a textbook.
on fivebooks.com · 4 Dec 2020 · Report
Metazoa by Peter Godfrey-Smith
This new book, Metazoa, is about animal minds and the birth of consciousness.
on fivebooks.com · 25 Nov 2020 · Report
Free Speech by Timothy Garton Ash
First published in 2016, but getting more relevant every day, Timothy Garton Ash’s Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected World is the best book I’ve read on the topic by far, written with great elegance, and filled with fascinating examples.
on fivebooks.com · 24 Jun 2020 · Report
How to Live a Good Life by Daniel Kaufman, Massimo Pigliucci & Skye C Cleary
An antidote to Rand’s is How to Live a Good Life, which is a collection of fifteen essays about practical moral philosophy from Buddhism to humanism, taking in Stoicism, Christian ethics, Pragmatism, Existentialism and other schools along the way.
on fivebooks.com · 24 Jun 2020 · Report
Mean Girl by Lisa Duggan
If you want to understand what’s lurking behind the cruelty we’re seeing in the US political arena, try Mean Girl: Ayn Rand and the Culture of Greed by Lisa Duggan.
on fivebooks.com · 24 Jun 2020 · Report
The Meaning of Travel by Emily Thomas
Emily Thomas’s original and fun book The Meaning of Travel is my top pick in a year when travel is going to be difficult.
on fivebooks.com · 24 Jun 2020 · Report
The Plague by Albert Camus
Finally, it may seem a cliché to pick this book, but Albert Camus’s The Plague has justifiably become a bestseller this year.
on fivebooks.com · 24 Jun 2020 · Report
A Theory of the Aphorism by Andrew Hui
It’s A Theory of the Aphorism: From Confucius to Twitter by Andrew Hui.
on fivebooks.com · 29 Nov 2019 · Report
Becoming Beauvoir by Kate Kirkpatrick
Yes, let’s start with what I think is a remarkable book, Becoming Beauvoir by Kate Kirkpatrick.
on fivebooks.com · 29 Nov 2019 · Report
Socrates in Love by Armand D'Angour
I found Socrates in Love completely fascinating.
on fivebooks.com · 29 Nov 2019 · Report
The Grasshopper by Bernard Suits
It’s called The Grasshopper because the central character is, in fact, a grasshopper!
on fivebooks.com · 18 Jul 2018 · Report
Why Buddhism is True by Robert Wright
Some people might wonder why I’m choosing Why Buddhism is True as a philosophy book, because it sounds like it’s not quite that.
on fivebooks.com · 13 Apr 2018 · Report
The Path by Christine Gross-Loh & Michael Puett
The Path is very interesting because it’s written for a popular audience.
on fivebooks.com · 28 Nov 2016 · Report
Everything Nigel Warburton recommends — not just books — on rcmnd →