New Books

Raymond Geuss's Tracks in Chaos: in praise of philosophy without a map

The philosopher who has pressed the most persistent objection to the moralising of political philosophy returns to the problem of orientation in a new collection from Polity. The title alludes to Heidegger's image of the forest path: most of them lead nowhere, but they become paths by being walked.

Lawlor's defence of reasonableness: why is being rational not enough?

The Stanford philosopher's new book from Harvard University Press prises apart rationality and reasonableness. For Lawlor, the reasonable person is not merely the one who infers correctly but the one who can see what matters. The New Yorker named it among the year's best.

Rebecca Goldstein's 'Mattering Instinct': the one need that drives and divides us

Goldstein's new book follows a single drive: the need to matter. On her account that need lies behind humanity's greatest achievements and behind its most stubborn afflictions — loneliness, polarisation and extremism alike.

Rebecca Goldstein

Rorty's writings on religion to appear as a book in September

Columbia University Press publishes in September the texts in which Richard Rorty looks for common ground between philosophy and religion. The introduction is by Gianni Vattimo, the foreword by Jeffrey Robbins.

Philosophy books for autumn 2026: algorithms, ethics and a new Zarathustra

The September-October lists of the university presses are out. Philippe Huneman's critique of profiling, Stephen Batchelor's comparison of the Buddha and Socrates, and Stanford's Nietzsche volume stand out.

Two books from Žižek: 'Liberal Fascism' is out, 'Signs from the Future' in October

The Slovenian philosopher's collection of essays on authoritarianism packaged in the language of the free market has been published. The second book arrives on 29 October 2026.

Slavoj Žižek

Yuk Hui's 'Kant Machine': reading Kant again in the age of artificial intelligence

The new book by the Erasmus University philosopher of technology asks whether machines can be moral, and whether there is an algorithm for perpetual peace.

Yuk Hui

Harari's graphic Sapiens series continues in November with a fourth volume

'The Age of Revolutions', the next volume of Sapiens: A Graphic History, is out in November. The third book in his children's series Unstoppable Us appeared in February.

Yuval Noah Harari

A philosophy of risk from Duncan Pritchard: 'not probability but fragility'

'Tempting Fate', published by Princeton University Press, proposes a theory that explains risk through fragility rather than probability. Pritchard's example is Alex Honnold's ropeless ascent of El Capitan.

Duncan Pritchard