Magnum opus in the context of "Voltaire"

Gilles Louis René Deleuze (18 January 1925 – 4 November 1995) was a French philosopher who, from the early 1950s until his death in 1995, wrote on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus (1972) and A Thousand Plateaus (1980), both co-written with psychoanalyst Félix Guattari. His metaphysical treatise Difference and Repetition (1968) is considered to be his magnum opus.

An important part of Deleuze's oeuvre is devoted to the reading of other philosophers: the Stoics, Leibniz, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, Spinoza, and Bergson. A. W. Moore, citing Bernard Williams's criteria for a great thinker, ranks Deleuze among the "greatest philosophers". Although he once characterized himself as a "pure metaphysician", his work has influenced a variety of disciplines across the humanities, including philosophy, art, and literary theory, as well as movements such as post-structuralism and postmodernism.

Capital: A Critique of Political Economy (German: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie), also known as Das Kapital (German: [das kapiˈtaːl]), is a foundational theoretical text in Marxist philosophy, economics, and politics by Karl Marx. His magnum opus, the work is a critical analysis of political economy, meant to reveal the economic patterns underpinning the capitalist mode of production. Das Kapital is in three volumes, of which only the first was published in Marx's lifetime (1867); the others were completed from his notes and published by his collaborator Friedrich Engels in 1885 and 1894.

The central argument of Das Kapital is that the motivating force of capitalism is in the exploitation of labour, whose unpaid work is the ultimate source of surplus value and profit. Beginning with an analysis of the commodity, Marx argues that the capitalist mode of production is a historically specific system where social relations are mediated by commodity exchange. He posits a labour theory of value, contending that the economic value of a commodity is determined by the socially necessary labour time required for its production. Under this system, the worker's capacity to labour (their labour power) is sold as a commodity, but its use-value—the ability to create new value—is greater than its exchange-value (the wage), allowing the capitalist to extract surplus value. This process drives capital accumulation, which in turn fosters technological change, the creation of a reserve army of labour, and a long-term tendency of the rate of profit to fall, leading to economic crises and intensifying class conflict.

The Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie (Rohentwurf) (German: [ˈɡʁʊntˌʁɪsə]; lit. "Foundations/Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft)") is a lengthy, unfinished manuscript written by Karl Marx in the winter of 1857–1858. Comprising seven notebooks of economic studies, the work represents the first major draft of Marx's critique of political economy and is widely considered the preparatory work for his magnum opus, Das Kapital. The text was written for self-clarification during the Panic of 1857, and remained unpublished during his lifetime. A first edition was published in German in Moscow in 1939 and 1941, but the work only became widely available and influential in the 1960s and 1970s; a full English translation appeared in 1973.

The manuscript's scope is vast, covering all six sections of Marx's intended economic project. It explores key themes such as alienation, the nature of capital as a self-expanding process or "value in motion," and an analysis of pre-capitalist economic forms. It contains the well-known "Fragment on Machines," in which Marx analyses the effects of automation, foreseeing a point where social knowledge becomes a direct productive force, a concept he termed the "general intellect." The work also outlines the dialectical method Marx considered "scientifically correct," which proceeds from simple abstract categories to an understanding of the concrete world as a "rich totality of many determinations and relations."

Adam Smith (baptised 16 June [O.S. 5 June] 1723 – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish economist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the field of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. Seen by many as the "father of economics" or the "father of capitalism", he is primarily known for two classic works: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). The latter, often abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations, is regarded as his magnum opus, marking the inception of modern economic scholarship as a comprehensive system and an academic discipline. Smith refuses to explain the distribution of wealth and power in terms of divine will and instead appeals to natural, political, social, economic, legal, environmental and technological factors, as well as the interactions among them. The work is notable for its contribution to economic theory, particularly in its exposition of concept of absolute advantage.

Born in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Smith studied social philosophy at the University of Glasgow and at the University of Oxford, where he was one of the first students to benefit from scholarships set up by John Snell. Following his graduation, he delivered a successful series of public lectures at the University of Edinburgh, that met with acclaim. This led to a collaboration with David Hume during the Scottish Enlightenment. Smith obtained a professorship at Glasgow, where he taught moral philosophy. During this period, he wrote and published The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Subsequently, he assumed a tutoring position that facilitated travel throughout Europe, where he encountered intellectual figures of his era.

Atlas Shrugged is a 1957 novel by Ayn Rand. It is her longest novel, the fourth and final one published during her lifetime, and the one she considered her magnum opus in the realm of fiction writing. She described the theme of Atlas Shrugged as "the role of man's mind in existence" and it includes elements of science fiction, mystery, and romance. The book explores a number of philosophical themes from which Rand would subsequently develop Objectivism, including reason, property rights, individualism, libertarianism, and capitalism and depicts what Rand saw as the failures of governmental coercion. Of Rand's works of fiction, it contains her most extensive statement of her philosophical system.

The book depicts a dystopian United States in which heavy industry companies suffer under increasingly burdensome laws and regulations. Railroad executive Dagny Taggart and her lover, steel magnate Hank Rearden, struggle against "looters" who want to exploit their productivity. They discover that a mysterious figure called John Galt is persuading other business leaders to abandon their companies and disappear as a strike of productive individuals against the looters. The novel ends with the strikers planning to build a new capitalist society based on Galt's philosophy.

Franz Clemens Honoratus Hermann Josef Brentano (/brɛnˈtɑːnoʊ/; German: [bʁɛnˈtaːno]; 16 January 1838 – 17 March 1917) was a German philosopher and psychologist. His 1874 Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, considered his magnum opus, is credited with having reintroduced the medieval scholastic concept of intentionality into contemporary philosophy.

Originally a Catholic priest, Brentano withdrew from the priesthood in 1873 due to the dogmatic definition of papal infallibility in Pastor aeternus. Working subsequently as a non-denominational professor, his teaching triggered research in a wide array of fields such as linguistics, logic, mathematics and experimental psychology through the young generation of philosophers who were gathered as the School of Brentano.

The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia is a travelogue and the magnum opus of Scottish painter David Roberts. It contains 250 lithographs by Louis Haghe of Roberts's watercolor sketches. It was first published by subscription between 1842 and 1849, in two separate publications: The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea and Arabia and Egypt and Nubia. William Brockedon and George Croly wrote much of the text, Croly writing the historical, and Brockedon the descriptive portions.

Described as "one of the art-publishing sensations of the mid-Victorian period", it exceeded all other earlier lithographic projects in scale, and was one of the most expensive publications of the nineteenth century. Haghe has been described by the Metropolitan Museum of Art as "the best and most prolific lithographer of the time".

Long Day's Journey into Night is a play in four acts written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill in 1939–1941 and first published posthumously in 1956. It is widely regarded as his magnum opus and one of the great American plays of the 20th century. It premiered in Sweden in February 1956 and then opened on Broadway in November 1956, winning the Tony Award for Best Play. O'Neill received the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for Drama posthumously for Long Day's Journey into Night. The work is openly autobiographical in nature. The "long day" in the title refers to the setting of the play, which takes place during one day.

It has been called the finest work of American theater, by critic Pauline Kael.