Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit the Shop.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

Books

Ten Neglected Classics of Philosophy

Mark Dunbar reflects on what makes a book a classic.

Most of the texts chosen by the contributors to Ten Neglected Classics of Philosophy (2016), edited and introduced by Eric Schliesser, were picked because their choosers believe they represent or embody a refutation of the current status quo of professional philosophy, which is male-dominated, analytical, and (ostensibly) race-neutral. Some of the works chosen, such as Edith Stein’s On the Problem of Empathy (1916), have never been fully appreciated, while others were considered classics in their time but have since fallen from scholarly grace, such as Francois Fenelon’s Adventures of Telemachus (1699). Other works have been remembered, but not on their merits, instead being portrayed as the constructions of philosophical villains who momentarily led the field astray until they were put in their place by legitimate thinkers. For example, Jonathan Bennett’s first book Rationality (1966) has been reprimanded as an early attempt to resurrect behaviorism from its intellectual tomb, and F.H.

…