The Great Philosophers

Description

Since the beginning of time mankind has struggled with the big questions surrounding our existence. Whilst most people have heard of Socrates, Machiavelli and Nietzsche, many are less clear on their theories and key concepts. In The Great Philosophers, bestselling author Stephen Law condenses and deciphers their fundamental ideas. Avoiding the technical jargon and complex logic associated with most books on philosophy, Law brings the thoughts of these great thinkers, from Confucius and Buddha to Wittgenstein and Sartre, to life.

Reviews

'Fifty of history's most profound thinkers are introduced in a way you have probably never previously imagined' Good Book Guide.

Author description

Stephen Law is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Heythrop College, University of London, and the author of The Philosophy Gym, The Philosophy Files, The Outer Limits and The War for Children's Minds. He is also the editor of the Royal Institute of Philosophy journal, Think.

Table of contents

Introduction. The Buddha (c.560-c.480 BC). Confucius (551-479 BC). Parmenides (c.510-c.450 BC). Zeno (c.490-c.425 BC). Socrates (469-399 BC). Plato (c.428-c.348 BC). Aristotle (384-322 BC). Augustine (AD 354-430). Anselm (1033-1109). Averroes (1126-98). Thomas Aquinas (1225-74). William of Ockham (c.1288-c.1358). Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527). Francis Bacon (1561-1626). Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). Rene Descartes (1596-1650). Blaise Pascal (1623-62). John Locke (1632-1704). Benedictus de Spinoza (1632-77). Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716). George Berkeley (1685-1753). David Hume (1711-76). Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78). Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). Georg Hegel (1770-1831). Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860). John Stuart Mill (1806-73). Soren Kierkegaard (1813-55). Karl Marx (1818-83). Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914). William James (1842-1910). Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). Gottlob Frege (1848-1925). Edmund Husserl (1859-1938). Bertrand Russell (1872-1970). George Edward Moore (1873-1958). Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951). Martin Heidegger (1889-1976). Gilbert Ryle (1900-76). Karl Popper (1902-94). Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-80). Hannah Arendt (1906-75). Simone de Beauvoir (1908-86). Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000). A.J. Ayer (1910-89). Peter Strawson (1919-2006). Judith Jarvis Thomson (1929-). Saul Kripke (1940-). Peter Singer (1946-). Index.