It is not widely enough appreciated how much the character of a book changes from early to final draft. Often the work develops in such a way that the original title has to be replaced with another, usually similar-sounding, one. This often happens in philosophy, as is illustrated by the following examples.

Les passions de l'âne ... Descartes' aim was to establish that the experience of animals is as rich as that of humans, and he began an eloquent description of the loves, fears, and ambitions of a donkey. He soon realized, though, that this aim would be disapproved of by the church and was unlikely to impress any princesses, and so he removed all the examples, leaving the basic doctrine unchanged but usefully open to misinterpretation.

Crickets of Poor Reason ... Kant's fascination with French literature led him to draft a philosophical poem of great directness and simplicity inspired by la Fontaine's "la cigale et le fourmis", in which he contrasted the speculative attitude of the cricket with the practical but petty attitude of the ant. So reluctantly was Kant forced to the conclusion that the cricket was wasting his time, that his many additions and qualifications make the original lucid verses very hard to discern.

Track taters lodge - fill your esophagus ... While studying in Manchester Wittgenstein spent a lot of time at the dog races, eating the potato chips for which the dog track was famous and thinking about life, while sheltering from the rain in a trackside cafeteria known as "track taters lodge". He concluded that metaphysical agony is best cured by a full stomach ("the world of a hungry man is different from the world of a well-fed man.") Later, at Cambridge, Russell converted him to a more austere attitude towards life, though it took him years to rewrite the hedonistic work he had originally planned.

Sessel ... Between his early and his later philosophy Wittgenstein defended the possibility of apriori knowledge, and in particular the use of arm-chair reasoning for establishing the basic nature of language. In addition, an armchair is a comfortable place to eat potato chips.

Being on Time ... Heidegger was fascinated by efficiency, and later in his career lent his efforts to the attempt to get the German trains to run on time. His first attempt at ergonomics, however, got side-tracked when he considered the case of an artisan working in a large empty space facing nothing and with a large array of tools to hand.

Walden Object ... Quine began writing a book on Thoreau and his experience with the simple life in the wilds of Massachusetts. However, reflecting on Thoreau's attempts to dismember the rabbits he had trapped, Quine was led to deeper thoughts about the conditions on which a biographer can refer to the same individuals as his subject, indeed how any two people can co-refer.

Forked Friction and Freak-assed ... Nelson Goodman's interest in the visual arts is well known. Less well-known is his career as a pornographer, in which he wrote this work, which was the origin of the now familiar "gruebleen", a person who is straight until time t and gay henceforth, and the "counter fuck-you tool", a social trick which allows one to turn any humiliation into an advantage.