Philosophy and Philosophers is an important introduction to Western philosophy aimed at those who are unfamiliar with the nature of philosophy and its history. It is organized around the main schools of philosophical thought and ranges from ancient Greece, through the explosion of ideas in the seventeenth century, to the Enlightenment and the challenge of twentieth-century philosophy. In each chapter John Shand assesses the contribution of a single philosopher, paying particular attention to the key areas of the theory of knowledge, the nature of reality, and the nature of philosophy itself. An extensive annotated bibliography serves as a helpful guide to works by and about the philosophers discussed. Accessible and clearly written, this survey of the ideas of the major thinkers of the western world will be invaluable as a reference source.
| Preface | ||
| Introduction | ||
| Chronology of philosophers | ||
| 1 | Presocratic Greek philosophy | 1 |
| Pre-Parmenidean philosophers | 6 | |
| Parmenidean philosophers | 10 | |
| Post-Parmenidean philosophers | 15 | |
| 2 | Greek philosophy | 21 |
| Plato | 23 | |
| Aristotle | 35 | |
| 3 | Medieval philosophy | 52 |
| Augustine | 55 | |
| Aquinas | 59 | |
| Ockham | 65 | |
| 4 | Rationalism | 74 |
| Descartes | 75 | |
| Spinoza | 87 | |
| Leibniz | 100 | |
| 5 | Empiricism | 114 |
| Locke | 116 | |
| Berkeley | 129 | |
| Hume | 141 | |
| 6 | Transcendental idealism | 157 |
| Kant | 160 | |
| 7 | Later German philosophy | 176 |
| Hegel | 179 | |
| Nietzsche | 190 | |
| 8 | Analytical philosophy | 203 |
| Russell | 207 | |
| Wittgenstein | 219 | |
| 9 | Phenomenology and existentialism | 232 |
| Husserl | 232 | |
| Sartre | 245 | |
| 10 | Logical positivism and falsificationism | 259 |
| Ayer | 260 | |
| Popper | 271 | |
| 11 | Linguistic philosophy | 284 |
| Wittgenstein | 284 | |
| 12 | Recent philosophy | 305 |
| Gilbert Ryle | 305 | |
| Nelson Goodman | 306 | |
| W. V. O. Quine | 306 | |
| J. L. Austin | 307 | |
| Stuart Hampshire | 307 | |
| Donald Davidson | 307 | |
| P. F. Strawson | 307 | |
| Thomas S. Kuhn | 308 | |
| Paul Feyerabend | 309 | |
| Michael Dummett | 309 | |
| Richard Rorty | 309 | |
| John R. Searle | 310 | |
| Saul Kripke | 310 | |
| Bibliography | 313 | |
| Index | 333 |
Overview
Philosophy and Philosophers is an important introduction to Western philosophy aimed at those who are unfamiliar with the nature of philosophy and its history. It is organized around the main schools of philosophical thought and ranges from ancient Greece, through the explosion of ideas in the seventeenth century, to the Enlightenment and the challenge of twentieth-century philosophy. In each chapter John Shand assesses the contribution of a single philosopher, paying particular attention to the key areas of the ...