Great Philosophers

Philosophy has been underway for more than 2,000 years. The Great Philosophers traces the biggest and most influential thoughts in philosophy’s long stride through history, beginning with the ancient Greeks and early Romans, the first philosophical thinkers in the West, to whom much is owed. How their concerns became the concerns of those who followed is clearly laid out, as is the way their answers shaped what we now recognize as philosophy.

If you've ever pondered your existence over your morning coffee or considered the nature of crime and punishment, you're an amateur philosopher. In Philosophy For Dummies, Dr. Tom Morris delivers a refreshing and engaging exploration of the fundamentals of philosophy and shows you that philosophy can be fascinating and fun at the same time. You'll be introduced to topics like the meaning of life, religious belief, and ways to live in the most satisfying ways. You'll also learn about the insights of some of history's greatest philosophers.

Many of us tend to live as though Jesus represents the "spiritual part" of our lives. We don't clearly see how he relates to the rest of our experiences, desires, and habits. How can Jesus, the Bible, and Christianity become more than a compartmentalized part of our lives? Highly regarded New Testament scholar and popular teacher Jonathan Pennington argues that we need to recover the lost biblical image of Jesus as the one true philosopher who teaches us how to experience the fullness of our humanity in the kingdom of God.

You have probably heard about Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. When it comes to ancient minds who created foundations in philosophy, science, and math, these three names would automatically come up. But what exactly did they do to warrant immense respect and admiration? Well, your fifth grader will soon find out from this biography book.

The Age of Genius explores the eventful intertwining of outward event and inner intellectual life to tell, in all its richness and depth, the story of the 17th century in Europe. It was a time of creativity unparalleled in history before or since, from science to the arts, from philosophy to politics. Acclaimed philosopher and historian A. C. Grayling points to three primary factors that led to the rise of vernacular (popular) languages in philosophy, theology, science, and literature.

Humanly Possible is a wide-ranging, personal, thought-provoking and entertaining journey through the battle of ideas over some 700 years of history—mostly, but not exclusively, in Europe. Through a mixture of biography and philosophy, Bakewell seeks to understand what humanism is, why it has continued to flourish despite opposition from fanatics, mystics, tyrants and cultural pessimists of all kinds, and exactly why we should value and defend it in the 21st century.

Marcus Aurelius was a Roman Emperor, the last of the Five Good Emperors, and one of the most important Stoic philosophers, along with the slave Epictetus. Marcus Aurelius wrote the Meditations while in a military campaign; it was a series of notes written for no one but himself in his quest for self-improvement. Stoicism is the attitude allowing one to free oneself from the unnecessary suffering that arises from anxiety about events that are beyond our control; therefore, it can be of tremendous importance in one's life.

Henry David Thoreau is a beloved American author, poet and philosopher. He was a lifelong abolitionist, advocate of civil disobedience againts unjust or corrupted goverments, and he defended the idea of abandoning illusory matters in favor of simple living, in order to discover life's authentic essential needs. He is best known for "Walden, or Life in the woods", the book he wrote during his two-year experiment in minimalist living: having built himself a cabin in the woods, he stayed there to study, write, and enjoy his newfound communion with nature. His political works and theory of civil disobedience have influenced the thoughts and actions of many prominent figures, such as Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

From Descartes' famous line "I think, therefore I am" to Kant's fascinating discussions of morality, the thinkers of the Enlightenment have helped to shape the modern world. Ranging across Enlightenment thinking from Berkeley to Rousseau, Enlightenment Philosophy in a Nutshell explains important ideas such as Locke's ideas of primary and secondary qualities, Kant's moral rationalism, and Hume's inductive reasoning.

While we tend to think of the great thinkers as hailing from Ancient Greece, the 20th century has had more than its fair share of sharp minds. "500 Quotations from the Great Philosophers of the 20th Century" is a collection of reflections, insights, and observations from some of the best brains of that era. A superb book for dipping in and out of, this makes a great gift for anyone with an interest in history or philosophy.

Nietzsche is a major figure in Western philosophy. His work is radical, sometimes violent, often ironic; it fascinates anyone bold enough to delve into it, exerted a profound influence on modern intellectual history, and covers a wide range of subjects. Nietzsche's writings border on the poetic; his aphorisms are particularly well-known for conveying all the radicality of his thinking in a intense but light, sometimes amusing manner.

Socrates is an enigmatic figure, known chiefly through the accounts of others like Plato and Aristophanes. He was one of the most brilliant intellects ever, and devised what would later be called the Socratic method, which is a way of leading one's interlocutor to see his errors and contradictions through clever questioning before leading him to the truth. In ancient Athens, Socrates was widely known as a "gadfly", that is, an annoying insect buzzing at people's ears, because he kept questioning prejudices and contradictions; he was eventually tried and executed for "corrupting the minds of the youth".

In The Philosophy Cure: Lessons on Living from the Great Philosophers, scholar and expert on Cartesian philosophy, Laurence Devillairs has stripped away the convoluted language, translating the core ideas and wisdom of some of the most prominent philosophers into simple concepts for modern listeners. She skillfully reveals that far from being impractical or distantly academic, philosophy is, at its heart, a deeply useful discipline ultimately concerned with what it means to live a good and fulfilling life.

Baruch Spinoza was one of the most important and controversial thinkers of the 17th century. He rejected both the mind-body dualism of Descartes and traditional religious views, which got him violently attacked for atheism while he was actually seeking to redefine God as the whole of the laws of Nature. His metaphysics are a brilliant attempt to reconcile human freedom with a belief in scientific explanation, and his Theological-Political Treatise, the first argument for democracy by a major philosopher, contributed as much as the Declaration of Independence or Thomas Paine's Common Sense to modern liberal, secular, and democratic thinking.

In The Lives of Michel Foucault, David Macey quotes the iconic French philosopher as speaking “nostalgically...of 'an unforgettable evening on LSD, in carefully prepared doses, in the desert night, with delicious music, [and] nice people'". This came to pass in 1975, when Foucault spent Memorial Day weekend in Southern California at the invitation of Simeon Wade - ostensibly to guest-lecture at the Claremont Graduate School where Wade was an assistant professor, but in truth to explore what he called the Valley of Death.

Sun Tzu was a revered Chinese general, strategist, and philosopher. He is credited with one of the most influent military treatises ever written, the "Art of War". Countless leaders have drawn inspiration from this work, from Mao Zedong to General Douglas MacArthur. It is so powerful and straightforward that it is still influencing many domains other than military thinking, like business tactics, legal strategy, entrepreneurship, and beyond.

Pupil of the great Plato, teacher of Alexander the Great, Aristotle is a massively influential figure in Western philosophy. Cicero described his literary style as "a river of gold". Modern ethics are based on his ideas about virtue; his writings literally encompassed all the scientific knowledge of the time and beyond, so much that many of his findings were still considered cutting-edge many century afterwards. Aristotle also shaped modern logic, and put his mark on all subsequent philosophy and theology. We have selected for you 100 of his most profound and influent quotes, so that you can see for yourself how modern these fundamental ideas still are. Nourish your daily life with Aristotle's Ethics, strengthen your thoughts with his Logic, and adopt his scientific ways for a clearer life.

Denis Diderot is often associated with the decades-long battle to bring the world's first comprehensive Encyclopedie into existence. But his most daring writing took place in the shadows. Thrown into prison for his atheism in 1749, Diderot decided to reserve his best books for posterity - for us, in fact. In the astonishing cache of unpublished writings left behind after his death, Diderot challenged virtually all of his century's accepted truths, from the sanctity of monarchy, to the racial justification of the slave trade, to the norms of human sexuality.

Carl Jung was the founder of analytical psychology who revolutionized the way we approached the human psyche. Drawing on Eastern mysticism, mythology and dream analysis to develop his theories, Jung proposed many ideas which are still influential today, including introversion, extroversion and the collective unconscious.

David Hume (1711-1776) is perhaps best known for his ideas about cause and effect and his criticisms of religion, but he is rarely thought of as a philosopher with practical wisdom to offer. Yet Hume's philosophy is grounded in an honest assessment of nature - human nature in particular. The Great Guide is an engaging and eye-opening account of how Hume's thought should serve as the basis for a complete approach to life. Julian Baggini masterfully interweaves biography with intellectual history and philosophy to give us a complete vision of Hume's guide to life.