Ideas of the Great Philosophers

by William S. Sahakian

Book Overview

If you never understood why Plato's philosophy of Ideal Forms is called Realism, Ideas of the Great Philosophers makes ideal reading. This compact book provides a veritable brief history of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1566192714
• ISBN13: 9781566192712
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Length: 181 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Excellent book.

Intelligence is not limited to an era. Ideas are not always original or modern. Concepts on human behavior and predicted actions are as ancient as thinking itself. This books reminds us of how constant and universal humanity really is. An excellent book that should be in everyone's library with easy access for daily reading.

Excellent brief into

Along with Hector Hawton's Philosophy for Pleasure, this is the best brief into to philosophy that I've ever seen. At less than 200 pages, it's really a little gem of a primer. Be aware that you need to read more than this book, but for getting your feet wet, it's fine. The author is an excellent writer and covers the various ideas succinctly and clearly, without getting too technical. One problem with philosophy, is at least to us scientists types, is that the level of technical difficulty in professional level philosophy doesn't seem to correlate very well with any actual "reality" or actual results. In other words, it sounds great, but it seems to tell us very little about the world of reality in contrast, to say, the sciences that developed from 19th century natural philosophy. So it's useful to get a basic background before taking on the more voluminous texts. By the way, Sahakian was a very widely learned scholar who also wrote a great book on psychology, which was his Learning Theory book. It was better than any book that I read on the subject by a psychologist writer, and I used it to study for the advanced GRE in psychology. Last time I heard, Sahakian was at Syracuse University, and I hope he's still alive and well. He was a great scholar and writer who could present difficult subjects clearly, concisely, and enjoyably. I owe him a great debt for much of my early education in subjects I might have otherwise avoided because the writer couldn't present the subject as interestingly as Sahakian could.

An excellent way to begin

I found this book on my dining room table one morning, my older brother having brought it home to read. And like any eighteen-year old teenager, I was contemplating the mysteries of life, and after picking up this book and reading it, I was sent on a quest for knowledge that has lasted almost three decades. The book is short, cost $1.75 at the time I read it, is a mere 181 pages, but its contents serve to introduce the reader to the contemplations of many of the major philosophers throughout the ages. All of the ideas in the book have found their way into the 21st century, as it is the nature of ideas to have a long decay time. In Part One on epistemology, the authors acknowledge that an exploration of the entire scope of epistemology and logic would require many volumes and a lifetime of study. However, they bring the reader through a summary of the main problems, touching on how to distinguish truth from error, how to analyze the fallacies of reasoning, and the nature and attainability of truth itself. These considerations are not vacuous, for they are all immediately practical, and, most importantly, they are deeply embedded in the still elusive goal of bringing about the rise of intelligent machines. Part Two contemplates the "good life": the philosophical construction of ethical theories of correct conduct. The mere fact that humans can choose freely different courses of action is proof of the need and truth of ethics. The finding of the correct one though cannot be done without careful consideration. The authors give the reader many approaches taken throughout the history of philosophy. These approaches have been institutionalized and codified, but ethical philosophy has not exhausted itself. One can indeed look forward to the new ethical ideas that will arise in the 21st century, driven by the advances in genetic engineering and machine intelligence. The philosopher Plato stated that "man is a political animal" and he attempted to construct a theory of the "ideal state" or "utopia". Part Three discusses his contributions, and those of many other philsophers. There are many conceptions of utopias, and each has its own merits as well as difficulties. The authors do a fine job of summarizing the ones that have had the most impact. The ideas of political philosophy that the authors summarize in the book have had the luxury maybe of being synchronized with the science of the time. It could be said with confidence that political philosophy will continue to depend on what comes out of the scientific and technological marketplace. Political philosophy however will be taking even more bows to the dizzying rate of technological advance in this century. It is ideas and their practical expression that drive governments, not the other way around. Life in the 21st century is complicated by the presence of religion, not so much from a philosophical viewpoint, but from a political one. Part Four of the book overviews the philosophy of religion from the

It's the greatest!!

I read this book for a research paper, and it totally broadend my view on life. It made me realize things I have never thought of before and that life has a deeper meaning than we all realize. I think people of a more mature age should read this book and actually try to comprehend it, because in the long-run it will be worth it, but it is a bit difficult to understand. It is actually quite entertaining. Ironically, it helped me get through some difficult times and I leave you with this...Obstacles in life should be embraced for they are desirable spiritual exercises. Take it easy.