Ten Great Works of Philosophy

by Various

Book Overview

In its vast scope, this book presents the continuum of Western philosophy. Ranging from ancient Greece to nineteenth-century America, it traces the history of our civilization through the seminal works of its most influential thinkers. Each philosopher in this volume made intellectual history; each created a revolution in ideas; each reaffirmed man's view of himself as a sentient being capable of creating order out of the baffling contradictions of...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0451528301
• ISBN13: 9780451528308
• Release Date: March 2002
• Publisher: Signet Book
• Length: 592 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 4.2" x 6.7"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

What cause might effect you reading this book?

This book gets 4 stars from me for several reasons. First, they have cut some of the stuff from Plato. Plato is the bedrock of Western philosophy, something that I feel secure in saying. Countless men have spent their entire life trying to find a suitable compliment to toss onto the bonfire of his posterity. There is Emerson, who said that 'Plato is philosophy and philosophy Plato'; there is Alfred North Whitehead who said, 'All the rest of the history of Western philosophy is a footnote to Plato'; there is...the list goes on and on. Point is, in including Phaedo, a beautiful dialogue that speaks of Socrates death, the editor opted to cut out a chunk of it, including merely a note that he had done so. This does not excuse it! If the editor had wanted to chop logic in this case, and to present Plato, he would have been better advised to leave the entire discussion in and cut the other works out. Perhaps even presenting only the first part of Book VII of 'The Republic' would have been nicer too. The same could be said of Aristotle's Poetics being in this book: there might have been a better selection made. This particular work needs guidance from another when being read and seems a bit out of place with some of the more metaphysical arguments that dominate the later portion of the book. Had a selection from the Nicomachean Ethics been made, it might have made for a better reading. Perhaps sections 1-10? Be warned: The key word in the two theology selections from St. Anselm and St. Thomas is 'from'. These selections are 1.5 pages and 8 pages long respectively from (again, keyword) their source documents. Then there is the rest of the book. Where the pattern in the first half was to cut and paste, the second half of the book the editor has suddenly decided to include complete works by other philosophers. These need discussing as a lump sum: The other words you may need to pay attention to in deciding whether or not to purchase this book would be found most readily in the fact that the word 'Great' is used in the title and not the word 'Basic'. These later works are the meat and potatoes of the field of philosophy, a subject that dabbles/contributes to many other areas, including mathematics and science. The men who wrote these works (from Descartes through Mill, at any rate) were trained to think in a technical fashion and to present to an audience who had somewhat of a similar background. They take no pains to stoop to the level of the masses in their arguments, instead laying out what they want to say, often in dry, jargon-filled language that can leave the reader feeling frustrated. This is no 'basic' work to help you to understand philosophy... ...but that is why I give it 4 stars. For all the complaining I've done so far, this book is still an achievement for those who want to read philosophy, even if they may need to chase someone down to explain some parts of it (Kant's Prolegomena is not to be taken lightly). It includes a scattering of

Philosophy Review

Philosophy in general is a necessary tool to understand life and the purpose of it. This book takes a collection of the works that most greatly aid in this purpose to form a concauction of ideas that allow for greater understanding of philosophers and how they can and will relate to every person's life. The preface by Wolff is excellent and allows readers with a less comprehensive understanding of philosophy to still recieve valuble information, or readers with a thorough understanding to see another interpretation of these amazing works of literature.