# List of philosophical fiction authors

This is a list of notable philosophical fiction authors and their works, in chronological order according to the author's year of birth.
| Author | Years | Notable Works and/or Themes |
| Augustine of Hippo | 354-430 | De Magistro |
| Halevi, Judah | 1075-1141 | The Kuzari |
| Abelard, Peter | 1079-1142 | Dialogue of a Philosopher with a Jew and a Christian |
| Ibn Tufail | 1105-1185 | Hayy ibn Yaqdhan: explores the limits of natural theology and the Islamic concept of fitra |
| Machiavelli, Niccolò | 1469–1527 | The Mandrake |
| More, Thomas | 1478-1535 | Utopia: first unambiguous example of utopian and dystopian fiction. |
| Voltaire | 1694-1778 | Zadig Micromegas Candide |
| Johnson, Samuel | 1709-1784 | Rasselas |
| Rousseau, Jean-Jacques | 1712-1778 | Julie, or the New Heloise |
| Diderot, Denis | 1713–1784 | Jacques the Fatalist |
| Sade, Marquis de | 1740–1814 | Atheism; Nihilism; Libertinism Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue Philosophy in the Boudoir |
| Goethe | 1749-1832 | Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship |
| Jean Paul | 1763–1825 | Siebenkäs Titan |
| Chateaubriand, François-René de | 1768–1848 | René |
| Hogg, James | 1770-1835 | The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner |
| Hölderlin, Friedrich | 1770–1843 | Hyperion |
| Stendhal | 1783-1842 | The Red and the Black |
| Carlyle, Thomas | 1795-1881 | Sartor Resartus |
| Leopardi, Giacomo | 1798-1837 | Small Moral Works - Philosophical stories that were greatly enjoyed even by Arthur Schopenhauer. |
| Kierkegaard, Søren | 1813-1855 | Diary of a Seducer - A novel in the highly literary philosophical work Either/Or. |
| Turgenev, Ivan | 1818-1883 | Fathers and Sons |
| Dostoevsky, Fyodor | 1821-1881 | Existentialism Crime and Punishment The Brothers Karamazov Notes from Underground |
| Chernyshevsky, Nikolay | 1828-1889 | Russian nihilism, Utopian socialism What Is to Be Done? |
| Tolstoy, Leo | 1828-1910 | War and Peace Resurrection |
| Pater, Walter | 1839-1894 | Marius the Epicurean |
| Nietzsche, Friedrich | 1844-1900 | Thus Spoke Zarathustra: Well-known example of a modern philosophical novel. |
| Santayana, George | 1863–1952 | |
| Unamuno, Miguel de | 1864–1936 | |
| Pirandello, Luigi | 1867–1936 | |
| Maxim Gorky | 1868-1936 | The Life of Klim Samgin |
| Proust, Marcel | 1871-1922 | In Search of Lost Time |
| Chesterton, G. K. | 1874-1936 | |
| Mann, Thomas | 1875-1955 | The Magic Mountain |
| Hesse, Hermann | 1877-1962 | Siddhartha |
| Andrei Bely | 1880-1934 | Petersburg |
| Musil, Robert | 1880-1942 | The Man Without Qualities |
| Papini, Giovanni | 1881–1956 | |
| Kafka, Franz | 1883-1924 | Existential Nihilism The Trial |
| Céline, Louis-Ferdinand | 1894-1961 | Journey to the End of the Night |
| Huxley, Aldous | 1894-1963 | Brave New World - A critique on the conflict between the human element and animal nature of man as well as the manipulative use of psychological conditioning. Island After Many a Summer |
| Jünger, Ernst | 1895–1998 | Heliopolis Eumeswil |
| Lewis, C. S. | 1898-1963 | Space Trilogy |
| Borges, Jorge Luis | 1899-1986 | Philosophical idealism; Eternal recurrence; Eternalism |
| Platonov, Andrei | 1899-1951 | The Foundation Pit |
| Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de | 1900-1944 | The Little Prince |
| Malraux, André | 1901-1976 | Man's Fate |
| Orwell, George | 1903-1950 | Animal Farm - A fable on the process of communism represented through animals on a farm. Nineteen Eighty-Four - A critique of totalitarianism as well as a discourse on the manipulative use of language. |
| Rebatet, Lucien | 1903–1972 | Les Deux Étendards |
| Gombrowicz, Witold | 1904-1969 | Ferdydurke Cosmos |
| Skinner, B. F. | 1904-1990 | Walden Two |
| Sartre, Jean-Paul | 1905-1980 | Existentialism Nausea No Exit - An existentialist play outlining Sartrean philosophy. The Devil and the Good Lord - An existentialist play outlining Sartrean philosophy. |
| Rand, Ayn | 1905-1982 | Objectivism |
| Beckett, Samuel | 1906-1989 | Absurdism; Quasi-quietism Waiting for Godot: One of the most well-known philosophical plays of the twentieth century. |
| Eliade, Mircea | 1907–1986 | The Forbidden Forest |
| Beauvoir, Simone de | 1908-1986 | Existentialism; Feminism Les Bouches inutiles [fr] She Came to Stay All Men are Mortal The Woman Destroyed |
| Dazai, Osamu | 1909-1948 | No Longer Human |
| Lima, José Lezama | 1910-1976 | Paradiso - Latin American Boom novel that explores desire in pre-revolution Cuba. |
| Camus, Albert | 1913-1960 | Absurdism |
| Ellison, Ralph | 1913-1994 | Invisible Man - Existentialism in America. |
| Schmidt, Arno | 1914–1979 | |
| Percy, Walker | 1916-1990 | The Moviegoer - An existential novel outlining Søren Kierkegaard's philosophy. |
| Burgess, Anthony | 1917-1993 | A Clockwork Orange - A discussion of the role of free will in the context of the application of behaviorism's techniques. |
| Murdoch, Iris | 1919-1999 | |
| Lispector, Clarice | 1920-1977 | The Hour of the Star |
| Dürrenmatt, Friedrich | 1921-1990 | |
| Lem, Stanislaw | 1921-2006 | |
| Mishima, Yukio | 1925-1970 | The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea |
| Markson, David | 1927-2010 | Wittgenstein's Mistress - An experimental novel that demonstrates Wittgenstein's philosophy of language; stylistic similarities to Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. |
| Dick, Philip K. | 1928-1982 | Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? A Scanner Darkly VALIS - A novel version of his longer non-fiction book The Exegesis, outlining his intense interest in the nature of reality, metaphysics and religion. |
| Pirsig, Robert M. | 1928-2017 | Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Pirsig's Metaphysics of Quality |
| Guin, Ursula K. Le | 1929-2018 | Anarchism; Feminism; Socialism; Daoism |
| Kundera, Milan | 1929-2023 | The Unbearable Lightness of Being |
| Wilson, Colin | 1931–2013 | The Mind Parasites |
| Eco, Umberto | 1932-2016 | Semiotics |
| Gardner, John | 1933-1982 | Grendel - An exploration of various philosophical perspectives on finding meaning in the world, the power of literature and myth, and the nature of good and evil. The protagonist is a literary proxy for Jean-Paul Sartre. |
| Berger, Arthur Asa | 1933- | Postmortem for a Postmodernist - A murder mystery that explores postmodernism. |
| Renata Adler | 1938- | Speedboat |
| Atwood, Margaret | 1939- | The Handmaid's Tale - Dystopian feminist novel |
| Strauss, Botho | 1944- | The Young Man |
| Bieri, Peter | 1944-2023 | |
| Bruckner, Pascal | 1948- | |
| Gaarder, Jostein | 1952- | Sophie's World |
| Sant, Gus Van | 1952- | Pink - Absurdism |
| Shirley, John | 1953- | The Other End - A novel about the global effects of an externally implemented planetary higher-consciousness, and an "alternative apocalypse", in gnostic-influenced metaphysics advocating Krishnamurtian/Gurdjieffian style awakening. |
| Alexis, André | 1957- | Fifteen Dogs - Winner of the 2015 Scotiabank Giller Prize, this novel explores faith, place, love, power and hatred through the eyes and experiences of fifteen dogs endowed with human intelligence. |
| Dantec, Maurice G. | 1959-2016 | |
| Stephenson, Neal | 1959- | Anathem - Includes the philosophical debate between Platonic realism and nominalism. |
| Wallace, David Foster | 1962-2008 | Infinite Jest - Criticizes Poststructuralism/Postmodernism; influenced by Wittgenstein & Existentialism; introduces Metamodernism/Post-postmodernism. |
| Yudkowsky, Eliezer | 1979- | Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality: Explores cognitive science, philosophy, rationalism, the scientific method |
| Rebecca Goldstein | 1983- | Atheism; Feminism |
| Dukaj, Jacek | 1997- | Other Songs |