PublishedViking, July 2019 |
ISBN9780241304556 |
FormatSoftcover, 704 pages |
Dimensions23.4cm × 15.3cm × 4.2cm |
The story of philosophy is an epic tale- an exploration of the ideas, views and teachings of some of the most creative minds known to humanity. But since the long-popular classic, Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy, first published in 1945, there has been no comprehensive and entertaining, single-volume history of this great intellectual journey.
With his characteristic clarity and elegance A. C. Grayling takes the reader from the world-views and moralities before the age of the Buddha, Confucius, and Socrates, through Christianity's dominance of the European mind, to the Renaissance and Enlightenment, and on to Mill, Nietzsche, Sartre, and philosophy today. And, since the story of philosophy is incomplete without mention of the great philosophical traditions of India, China and the Persian-Arabic world, he gives a comparative survey of them too.
Accessible for students and eye-opening for philosophy readers, he covers epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, logic, the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language, political philosophy and the history of debates in these areas of enquiry, through the ideas of the celebrated philosophers as well as less well-known influential thinkers. He also asks what we have learnt from this body of thought, and what progress is still to be made.
The first authoritative and accessible one-volume history of philosophy for decades, remarkable for its range and accessibility, this is a landmark work.
Bill is one of the founders of Boffins and has been involved in selecting the books we stock since our beginning in 1989. His favourite reading is history, with psychology, current affairs, and business books coming close behind. His hobbies are reading, food, reading, drinking, reading, and sleeping.
At last coverage of the past 75 years, and the inclusion of the rest of the world, give us an up-to-date history of philosophy to replace Bertrand Russell’s 1945 classic “A History of Western Philosophy”. A superb book.
