Jake Featherston’s “Over Open Sights”
Oh, wait, that didn’t really happen…
Plato’s Republic
Issac Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Previously, it was generally assumed that heaven and Earth were different, with different laws and rules. Newton proposed instead that gravitation was constant and what applied on Earth would apply just as well anywhere in the universe.
I figured this the beginning of the end of assuming heaven was special, and thus the beginning of the end of religion itself, though Newton himself wouldn’t have seen it as such. The political effect was profound.
Il Principe was a brief pamphlet. Discorsi was a detailed treatise.
Machiavelli wrote Il Principe to curry favor with his political enemies. Discorsi gives advise on how to run a government he approves of.
‘On the origin of the species’ was not intended to be a political publication, however very many other manifestos, publications etc have been based upon the idea of Survival of the most fit.
True that this was preverted into ‘survival of the fittest’ and was used for the foundation of eugenics, communism, fascism and ultimately was used in the most odious of ways.
It’s impossible to describe the modern world without it though, and its still the source of huge fundametalist arguments in the Western world since it dealt creationism a huge blow from which it has sought to recover for the past hundred or so years.
I think this, Principia Mathematica , and the Lutherian notices probably rate among the most important works ever, especially as two of them fundamentally change the relationship of God with Man, and today all the worlds religions struggle to cope with the implications of these.
I’d toss a vote in for “The Wealth of Nations” by Adam Smith.
It’s hard to lock down a particular text in regards to the modern system between John Locke, Thomas Paine, Adam Smith, The Federalist Papers, and the Cato Letters, as well as others.
But essentially the most important work would have to be one of those or one of Karl Marx’s offerings. Personally I’d nominate Democratic Republics/Capitalism over Socialism of the two since while certainly Marx had a large effect, his ideas were stupid and in the end lead to the deaths and murders of more people on the planet than any other disaster ever. I’m not sure I want to say thus that his writings are “significant” except (hopefully) as a historical sidenote.
The US Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. It is for you to decide which.
Whatever damned post I’m currently typing!
Well, I don’t actually CARE if it’s significant to YOU.
I just like to rant, is all…
Significance isn’t an honorific. Hitler and Stalin were significant figures in history.
Though, I think the obvious and indisputable choice would be, ‘The Bible’. 
Magna Carta
Das Kapital
Seconded.
Sure, but if I could only preserve one for future generations of the planet, I’d rather pick one that worked!
How about The Spirit of Laws by Montesquieu.
I once read in one of William Durant’s histories of philosophy that Voltaire is not much read, any more, because he was so successful in putting his ideas across – mainly the idea that the Church should not have any authoritative position in political, moral and social matters – that most of what he said, though revolutionary at the time, seems commonplace now.
The Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizen, adopted by the French National Assembly in 1789.
As members of the English-speaking world, we tend to over-estimate the importance of Anglo-American constitutional evolution in the history of free thought. The British (and even more so, the rebellious Americans) were outliers, and aroused little emulation, in the Eighteenth Century. It was the French Revolution that brought freedom into the mainstream of European thought (and, via European military domination, into the mainstream of world thought).
The Declaration of Independence.
If we are going to talk about something that works, then the Declaration of Independence is highly significant. It is the first time people got away with saying that a government could be overthrown if the people didn’t approve of it. That’s not to say it wasn’t highly influenced by Locke and others.
Then again, you can see traces of Plato’s Republic almost everywhere.
In the end I’d have to go with the philosophy responsible for overthrowing a great deal of the feudal governments.
Do you think that actually happened or do you think that Voltaire would only saturate in the best of all possible worlds?