Classics of Philosophy: Volume I: Ancient and Medieval

by Louis P. Pojman

Book Overview

Classics of Philosophy: Volume I, Ancient and Medieval covers the works of philosophers from Thales to William of Ockham. Ideal for courses in ancient or ancient and medieval philosophy, it includes twenty-nine works--seven of them complete--by thirteen philosophers as well as fragments from the Pre-Socratics. A lucid introduction, including a brief biographical sketch, accompanies each of the featured philosophers.
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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195116453
• ISBN13: 9780195116458
• Release Date: October 1997
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 478 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 7.6" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Great

This is a massive and invaluable book for the student of philosophy. It has over twenty complete works of classical philosophy. Including many of the great works by Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kierkegaard, Hume, Mill and many, many more. And it also includes fragments from the presocratics and careful abridgments of over forty more works from a full spectrum of philosophers, ancient to modern. All of this comes in one large yet manageable volume. So it is ideal for a student or someone who wants a single volume philosophy reference. I highly recommend it.

A Good Text for An Introductory Course in Philosophy

I use this work as the sole text for my Survey of Philosophy course. Both the breadth and depth of the readings are impressive, and the book lends itself to any number of combinations of readings, which makes this work uniquely versatile in my experience as a philosophy professor.I also believe that the earlier reviewer was overly harsh in his disparagement of the introductions and summaries to each philosopher's work. While some of the introductions and summaries are indeed rather weak (although even these are generally adequate), others are quite good, and it is in any case the part of the instructor to guide students through these works. A novice instructor with insufficient background in the history of philosophy would indeed find this text difficult to use. The text is poorly edited in parts, with any number of rather glaring errors in spelling, punctuation, and grammar, but these are minor when compared to the overall usefulness and versatility of this text.