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Nigel Warburton's Top Book Recommendations

Want to know what books Nigel Warburton recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Nigel Warburton's favorite book recommendations of all time.

1
Critical thinking is a set of techniques--you just need to learn them.

This helpful book is your personal toolkit for demystifying critical engagement. Author Tom Chatfield will show you how to sharpen your critical thinking by developing and practicing this specific set of skills, so you can... Spot an argument and understand why reasoning matters Discover errors and evaluate evidence Understand and account for bias Become a savvy user of technology Develop clear, confident critical writing
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Recommended by Nigel Warburton, and 1 others.

Nigel WarburtonClearly written and accessible. Chatfield teaches a point, then asks you to test yourself to see whether you’ve learnt the moves that he’s described. It’s very wide ranging: it includes material on cognitive biases as well as more logical moves and arguments. (Source)

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2

Causing Death and Saving Lives

The moral problems of abortion, infanticide, suicide, euthanasia, capital punishment, war and other life-or-death choices. less
Recommended by Nigel Warburton, and 1 others.

Nigel WarburtonWhen I was an undergraduate, this book made me think philosophy was really worth studying. It showed me that philosophy isn’t nitpicking or school debating societies, but rather a subject that gets right to the heart of what matters. Like Peter Singer, Glover believes that your thinking about philosophical issues should make a difference to your life. (Source)

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3

Justice

What's the Right Thing to Do?

"For Michael Sandel, justice is not a spectator sport," The Nation's reviewer of Justice remarked. In his acclaimed book―based on his legendary Harvard course―Sandel offers a rare education in thinking through the complicated issues and controversies we face in public life today. It has emerged as a most lucid and engaging guide for those who yearn for a more robust and thoughtful public discourse. "In terms we can all understand," wrote Jonathan Rauch in The New York Times, Justice "confronts us with the concepts that lurk . . . beneath our conflicts."

Affirmative action, same-sex...
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Recommended by Nigel Warburton, and 1 others.

Nigel WarburtonThe reason I picked this book is because I think Michael Sandel is an outstanding speaker and writer in his ability to bring philosophy alive. He can take a thinker like Aristotle and make him completely relevant to the present day, to show how his ideas have applications in our everyday lives. (Source)

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4

The Complete Philosophy Files

Is there a God, should I eat meat, where does the universe come from, could I live for ever as a robot? These are the big questions readers will be wrestling with in this thoroughly enjoyable book. Dip into any chapter and you will find lively scenarios and dialogues to take you through philosophical puzzles ancient and modern, involving virtual reality, science fiction and a host of characters from this and other planets. The text is interspersed on every page with lively cartoons, and there is a list of philosophical jargon at the end..

Stephen Law has a gift for communicating...
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Recommended by Nigel Warburton, Peter Worley, and 2 others.

Nigel WarburtonWritten in short, humorous, easy-to-read chapters, with illustrations by Daniel Postgate, Law addresses most of the big philosophical questions, approaching them through imaginative sci-fi scenarios and thought experiments that are sure to get you discussing them. (Source)

Peter WorleyAfter reading this book, I’ve actually had children explain to me the difference between qualitative and numerical identity. (Source)

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5
An innovative and insightful exploration of the passionate early life of Socrates and the influences that led him to become the first and greatest of philosophers.

Socrates: the philosopher whose questioning gave birth to the foundations of Western thought, and whose execution marked the end of the Athenian Golden Age. Yet despite his pre-eminence among the great thinkers of history, little of his life story is known. What we know tends to begin in his middle age and end with his trial and death. Our conception of Socrates has relied upon Plato and Xenophon--men who met him...
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Recommended by Nigel Warburton, and 1 others.

Nigel WarburtonWhether you accept D’Angour’s theory that the young Socrates was very different from the older man portrayed by Plato – lover, warrior, wrestler, dancer – the elegance of D’Angour’s prose, and the lightness of his touch, make this a very pleasurable read. (Source)

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6

The Grasshopper

Games, Life and Utopia

Recommended by David Papineau, Nigel Warburton, and 2 others.

David PapineauThe overall argument of the book is that in utopia, where humans have all their material needs satisfied at the push of a button, what we would do would be play games. (Source)

Nigel WarburtonSuits thinks games are the highest intrinsic good and he’s found a light-hearted way of getting to that conclusion – by using arguments and considering counter-examples. (Source)

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7

The Path

What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life

For the first time an award-winning Harvard professor shares his wildly popular course on classical Chinese philosophy, showing you how these ancient ideas can guide you on the path to a good life today.

The lessons taught by ancient Chinese philosophers surprisingly still apply, and they challenge our fundamental assumptions about how to lead a fulfilled, happy, and successful life. Self-discovery, it turns out, comes through looking outward, not inward. Power comes from holding back. Good relationships come from small gestures. Spontaneity comes from practice. And excellence...
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Recommended by Nigel Warburton, and 1 others.

Nigel WarburtonIt’s a very easy read, but it makes Chinese philosophy quite fresh. (Source)

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8
Anger is not just ubiquitous, it is also popular. Many people think it is impossible to care sufficiently for justice without anger at injustice. Many believe that it is impossible for individuals to vindicate their own self-respect or to move beyond an injury without anger. To not feel anger in those cases would be considered suspect. Is this how we should think about anger, or is anger above all a disease, deforming both the personal and the political?

In this wide-ranging book, Martha C. Nussbaum, one of our leading public intellectuals, argues that anger is conceptually...
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Recommended by Nigel Warburton, and 1 others.

Nigel WarburtonLurking behind it is Seneca: the Roman philosopher who talked about anger being a useless emotion. (Source)

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9
In a short period - from the early 1640s to the eve of the French Revolution - Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, and Hume all made their mark on Western thought. The Dream of Enlightenment tells their story and that of the birth of modern philosophy. What does the advance of science entail for our understanding of ourselves and for our ideas of God? How should a government deal with religious diversity - and what is government actually for? Their questions remain our questions, and it is tempting to think these philosophers speak our language and live in our world; but to understand... more
Recommended by Nigel Warburton, and 1 others.

Nigel WarburtonI don’t know of a better survey of this period. (Source)

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10
Peter Singer is often described as the world's most influential philosopher. He is also one of its most controversial. The author of important books such as "Animal Liberation," "Practical Ethics," "Rethinking Life and Death," and "The Life You Can Save," he helped launch the animal rights and effective altruism movements and contributed to the development of bioethics. Now, in "Ethics in the Real World," Singer shows that he is also a master at dissecting important current events in a few hundred words.

In this book of brief essays, he applies his controversial ways of thinking to...
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Recommended by Nigel Warburton, and 1 others.

Nigel WarburtonHe manages, in these essays, to address really deep questions in just two or three pages, often saying more than other people say in a whole book. (Source)

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Don't have time to read Nigel Warburton's favorite books? Read Shortform summaries.

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  • Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
  • Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
11
Paris, near the turn of 1933. Three young friends meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and their friend Raymond Aron, who opens their eyes to a radical new way of thinking. Pointing to his drink, he says, 'You can make philosophy out of this cocktail!'

From this moment of inspiration, Sartre will create his own extraordinary philosophy of real, experienced life–of love and desire, of freedom and being, of cafés and waiters, of friendships and revolutionary fervour. It is a philosophy that...
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Recommended by Nigel Warburton, and 1 others.

Nigel WarburtonThis is the best philosophy book that I’ve read this year. (Source)

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12

Utilitarianism

A Very Short Introduction

Utilitarianism may well be the most influential secular ethical theory in the world today. It is also one of the most controversial. It clashes, or is widely thought to clash, with many conventional moral views, and with human rights when they are seen as inviolable. Would it, for example, be right to torture a suspected terrorist in order to prevent an attack that could kill and injure a large number of innocent people?

In this Very Short Introduction Peter Singer and Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek provide an authoritative account of the nature of utilitarianism, from its...
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Recommended by Nigel Warburton, and 1 others.

Nigel WarburtonIt covers what you would cover in a university undergraduate course on utilitarianism, but you can read and take it in in four or five hours or so. (Source)

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13
In the tradition of How to Live and How Proust Can Change Your Life, a philosopher asks how ancient Stoicism can help us flourish today
Whenever we worry about what to eat, how to love, or simply how to be happy, we are worrying about how to lead a good life. No goal is more elusive. In How to Be a Stoic, philosopher Massimo Pigliucci offers Stoicism, the ancient philosophy that inspired the great emperor Marcus Aurelius, as the best way to attain it. Stoicism is a pragmatic philosophy that focuses our attention on what is possible and gives us perspective on...
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Recommended by Nigel Warburton, and 1 others.

Nigel WarburtonStoicism in its modern form, as described by Massimo Pigliucci, is a philosophy for living. (Source)

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14
From one of America’s greatest minds, a journey through psychology, philosophy, and lots of meditation to show how Buddhism holds the key to moral clarity and enduring happiness.

Robert Wright famously explained in The Moral Animal how evolution shaped the human brain. The mind is designed to often delude us, he argued, about ourselves and about the world. And it is designed to make happiness hard to sustain.

But if we know our minds are rigged for anxiety, depression, anger, and greed, what do we do? Wright locates the answer in Buddhism, which figured out...
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Recommended by Nigel Warburton, and 1 others.

Nigel WarburtonWright has a degree of evangelism about him, but he’s not saying this is the only way to achieve a better life. He says it’s a way of eliminating suffering from many people’s lives, and it worked for him. (Source)

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15
"[A] lucid and thoughtful book... In a spirit of reconciliation, Crane proposes to paint a more accurate picture of religion for his fellow unbelievers." --James Ryerson, New York Times Book Review

Contemporary debate about religion seems to be going nowhere. Atheists persist with their arguments, many plausible and some unanswerable, but these make no impact on religious believers. Defenders of religion find atheists equally unwilling to cede ground. The Meaning of Belief offers a way out of this stalemate.

An atheist himself, Tim Crane writes that...
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Recommended by Nigel Warburton, and 1 others.

Nigel WarburtonThis is the kind of philosophy that makes you think again. Whether or not you agree with him, he’s saying, ‘Here’s another way of looking at this.' (Source)

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16
The story of the greatest of all philosophical friendships--and how it influenced modern thought

David Hume is widely regarded as the most important philosopher ever to write in English, but during his lifetime he was attacked as "the Great Infidel" for his skeptical religious views and deemed unfit to teach the young. In contrast, Adam Smith was a revered professor of moral philosophy, and is now often hailed as the founding father of capitalism. Remarkably, the two were best friends for most of their adult lives, sharing what Dennis Rasmussen calls the greatest of all...
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Recommended by Nigel Warburton, and 1 others.

Nigel WarburtonThis book is a really interesting, highly readable discussion of the friendship between the two. (Source)

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17
Offering a seven-point plan that combines personal philanthropy, local activism and global awareness, Peter Singer argues that we need to change our views on what is involved in living an ethical life if we are to put a stop to poverty throughout the world. less
Recommended by Nigel Warburton, Cassie Knight, and 2 others.

Nigel WarburtonI think the central question in philosophy is, How should we live? And that’s a question about which Peter Singer has a lot to say. (Source)

Cassie KnightBecause it’s a really inspiring read. And it’s very nicely set out in terms of having clear arguments and picking up on things that are often said but not thought about. Peter Singer starts with a simple story – if you are walking past a pond and you see a child floundering and it looks likely that the child will drown, despite the fact that your new shoes may be ruined, you will automatically go... (Source)

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18

The Prince [with Biographical Introduction]

Niccolo Machiavelli's "The Prince" is intended to be a treatise on ruling and is considered by many to be a classic of political science. In the book Machiavelli offers many bits of practical advice on how to rule and even though the book was written in the early 16th century its ideas are still very relevant today. Where "The Prince" differs from other political literature before it is in its separation of the lofty idealism of morality and ethics from the practical demands of governing. It is this very aspect of Machiavelli's work that has made his name synonymous with an almost immoral... more

Eric RipertA fascinating study and still wholly relevant. (Source)

Neil deGrasse TysonWhich books should be read by every single intelligent person on planet? [...] The Prince (Machiavelli) [to learn that people not in power will do all they can to acquire it, and people in power will do all they can to keep it]. If you read all of the above works you will glean profound insight into most of what has driven the history of the western world. (Source)

Ryan HolidayOf course, this is a must read. Machiavelli is one of those figures and writers who is tragically overrated and underrated at the same time. Unfortunately that means that many people who read him miss the point and other people avoid him and miss out altogether. Take Machiavelli slow, and really read him. Also understand the man behind the book–not just as a masterful writer but a man who... (Source)

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19
The Art of Thinking Clearly by world-class thinker and entrepreneur Rolf Dobelli is an eye-opening look at human psychology and reasoning -- essential reading for anyone who wants to avoid "cognitive errors" and make better choices in all aspects of their lives.

Have you ever: Invested time in something that, with hindsight, just wasn't worth it? Or continued doing something you knew was bad for you? These are examples of cognitive biases, simple errors we all make in our day-to-day thinking. But by knowing what they are and how to spot them, we can avoid them and make better...
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Recommended by Robert Cialdini, Nigel Warburton, and 2 others.

Robert CialdiniDobelli examines our most common decision-making failings with engaging eloquence and describes how to counter them with instructive good sense. (Source)

Nigel WarburtonThis is an unpretentious book. Dobelli doesn’t claim to be an original thinker himself. He’s a summariser of other people’s thoughts. What he’s done is brought lots of different things together in one place. Each of the 99 entries is pretty short, and it’s the kind of book to dip into. (Source)

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20
Winner of the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography

How to get along with people, how to deal with violence, how to adjust to losing someone you love—such questions arise in most people’s lives. They are all versions of a bigger question: how do you live? How do you do the good or honorable thing, while flourishing and feeling happy?

This question obsessed Renaissance writers, none more than Michel Eyquem de Monatigne, perhaps the first truly modern individual. A nobleman, public official and wine-grower, he wrote free-roaming explorations of his...
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Marc AndreessenHow to get along with people, how to deal with violence, how to adjust to losing someone you love—All versions of a bigger question: How do you live? (Source)

Ryan HolidayMontaigne is one of humanities greatest treasures. If you've not read any of his essays or Sarah Bakewell's magnificent book How To Live [...] you are missing out. (Source)

Austin KleonBook that introduced me to one of my new favorite thinkers: Sarah Bakewell’s How To Live: Or A Life Of Montaigne. (Source)

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Don't have time to read Nigel Warburton's favorite books? Read Shortform summaries.

Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:

  • Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
  • Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
  • Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
21
Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts.

When asked simple questions about global trends—what percentage of the world’s population live in poverty; why the world’s population is increasing; how many girls finish school—we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers.

In Factfulness, Professor of International Health and global TED phenomenon...
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Barack ObamaAs 2018 draws to a close, I’m continuing a favorite tradition of mine and sharing my year-end lists. It gives me a moment to pause and reflect on the year through the books I found most thought-provoking, inspiring, or just plain loved. It also gives me a chance to highlight talented authors – some who are household names and others who you may not have heard of before. Here’s my best of 2018... (Source)

Bill GatesThis was a breakthrough to me. The framework Hans enunciates is one that took me decades of working in global development to create for myself, and I could have never expressed it in such a clear way. I’m going to try to use this model moving forward. (Source)

Nigel WarburtonIt’s an interesting book, it’s very challenging. It may be over-optimistic. But it does have this startling effect on the readers of challenging widely held assumptions. It’s a plea to look at the empirical data, and not just assume that you know how things are now. (Source)

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22
An eye-opening, Gladwellian look at the power of a positive attitude toward failure and its profound impact on our success in any field.

In the airline industry, failure is taken seriously. Every aircraft is equipped with an almost indestructible black box. When there is an accident, the box is opened, the data is analyzed, and the reason for the accident excavated. This ensures that procedures are adapted so that the same mistake doesn’t happen again. With this method, the industry has created an astonishing safety record.

For pilots working in a safety-critical...
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Richard Branson[...] highlights the need for a growth mindset in life. It advocates for changing attitudes towards failure, and understanding that the only way we learn is by trying things and altering our behaviour based on the results. It’s an attitude we found incredibly valuable during my highlight of the year, completing the Virgin Strive Challenge. (Source)

Daniel EkSince reading this book, I’ve literally incorporated this approach to problem-solving into every day. (Source)

Nigel WarburtonAs Syed argues, we progress in all kinds of areas is by making mistakes. He was a superb table-tennis player, and he knows that every mistake that he made was a learning experience, at least potentially, a chance to improve. I think you’d find the same attitude among musicians, or in areas where practitioners are very attentive to the mistake that they make, and how those failures can teach them... (Source)

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23

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Major New York Times bestseller
Winner of the National Academy of Sciences Best Book Award in 2012
Selected by the New York Times Book Review as one of the best books of 2011
A Globe and Mail Best Books of the Year 2011 Title
One of The Economist's 2011 Books of the Year
One of The Wall Street Journal's Best Nonfiction Books of the Year 2011
2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient

In the international bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, the renowned psychologist and winner of the Nobel...
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Barack ObamaA few months ago, Mr. Obama read “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” by Daniel Kahneman, about how people make decisions — quick, instinctive thinking versus slower, contemplative deliberation. For Mr. Obama, a deliberator in an instinctive business, this may be as instructive as any political science text. (Source)

Bill Gates[On Bill Gates's reading list in 2012.] (Source)

Marc AndreessenCaptivating dive into human decision making, marred by inclusion of several/many? psychology studies that fail to replicate. Will stand as a cautionary tale? (Source)

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Don't have time to read Nigel Warburton's favorite books? Read Shortform summaries.

Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:

  • Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
  • Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
  • Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.