Philosophy Now Forum

I'm a philosophy aficionado particularly interested in ethics and political philosophy. I'm currently reading Rousseau's Discourse on The Origin of Inequality. I'd be thrilled to receive some recommendations on 18th century philosophy on ethics, politics or economics.

Greetings from Amsterdam,

Tijgerlelie Wijnhard

Hi!

I can't say I'm an expert in the fields of philosophy you are interested in, however some of the best work on these topics done in the 18th century was by David Hume, Jean Jacques Rousseau and Kant. Kant can be a little complex at times, but the other two are quite accessible and quite brilliant!

Let me know how you get on with them

Welcome.

You might want to check out Isiah Berlin's The Crooked Timber of Humanity, he was a 20th C writer, but the subject is some of the overlooked writers of that period. If you find any of them fascinating, I can't promise their original writings are easy to find though.

Groetjes.
Adam Smith's 'Wealth of Nations' (available free here: https://www.marxists.org/reference/arch ... f-nations/ ) is arguably the most influential book on economics of all time.
Thomas Hobbes' 'Leviathan' ( http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3207/3207-h/3207-h.htm ) is a bit earlier (1651), but important in the development of social contract theories.
John Locke's 'Two Treatises of Government' is another, which some people think was written in part to support the claim of William of Orange to the British throne.
Enjoy.