Essentials of Philosophy: The Basic Concepts of the World's Greatest Thinkers

Description

If you've always wanted to learn about philosophy but were too intimidated to get past the first word ending in "ism," Essentials of Philosophy provides simple explanations guaranteed to make philosophic ideas and concepts easy to understand. This entertaining book offers a broad overview of many diverse schools of thought - from antiquity up through the present-day. In plain English, author James Mannion explains all of the great philosophies - and even provides contemporary examples to put them in perspective. Interspersed are fascinating sidebars that offer helpful hints toward understanding complex concepts and little-known facts about the lives of great philosophers. Essentials of Philosophy delves into the minds of such fascinating philosophers as: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle Augustine and Aquinas Spinoza and Descartes Voltaire and Rousseau Mill and Nietzsche Russell and Sartre Cover Back Cover Title Contents Introduction: What's It All About? 1. It's Greek to Me Presocratic Efforts Pluralists: All Kinds of Stuff Leucippus and Democritus: The Atomic Duo Spin City-States: The Sophists 2. The Three Sages: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle Socrates Plato Plato's Republic Aristotle 3. The Decline and Fall of the Hellenistic Period The End of Greek Prominence The Cynics Epicureanism: The Pleasure Principle Stoicism Skepticism: Perception Is Reality Cicero and the Eclectics Neoplatonism: End of an Epoch 4. The Medieval Mind The Christian Church and Philosophy Augustine of Hippo Anselm's Ontological Argument Thomas Aquinas John Duns Scotus Roger Bacon William of Ockham 5. The Renaissance Period Creativity Abounds Cosimo de Medici Nicholas of Cusa Bernardino Telesio Giordano Bruno Nicco1o Machiavelli 6. Humanism What's It All About? Francesco Petrarca Desiderius Erasmus Sir Thomas More 7. The Protestant Reformation The Fall of the Catholic Church Martin Luther John Calvin The Catholic Counter-Reformation 8. The Scientific Revolution The Heliocentric Theory The Return of Skepticism The Invention of the Printing Press 9. Approaching Modern Times Francis Bacon Rene Descartes Thomas Hobbes Baruch Spinoza Gottfried Leibniz 10. British Empiricism The Concept of Innateness John Locke George Berkeley David Hume 11. The French Enlightenment The Philosophes Montesquieu Voltaire Jean Jacques Rousseau 12. German Idealism Immanuel Kant Johann Gottlieb Fichte Friedrich Wilhelm Josef von Schelling George W. F. Hegel Arthur Schopenhauer Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche 13. Utilitarianism Jeremy Bentham John Stuart Mill The Feminist 14. The American Transcendentalists Transcendentalism Today Ralph Waldo Emerson Henry David Thoreau William Ellery Channing Amos Bronson Alcott 15. Phenomenology and Existentialism Edmund Husserl Soren Kierkegaard Martin Heidegger Albert Camus Jean-Paul Sartre 16. Modern and Postmodern Philosophers Bertrand Russell Ludwig Josef Johan Wittgenstein Michel Foucault Jacques Derrida 17. Sociology and Anthropology Sociology Karl Marx Max Weber Emile Durkheim Anthropology 18. Psychology The Roots of Psychology Sigmund Freud Carl Gustav Jung Behaviorism Humanistic Psychology And the Rest 19. Eastern Schools of Thought Hinduism Buddhism Taoism Confucianism Shinto Sufism 20. The Big Three Religions For Better and for Worse Judaism Christianity Islam Final Thought 21. Objectivism and the Right Livelihood Objectivism: Looking Out for No. 1 Right Livelihood: Doing the Right Thng 22. The Forgotten Philosophers "Primitive" Cultures African Philosophy Native American Philosophy Black Elk Speaks The Medicine Wheel 23. Twelve Steps to a Better Life Alcohol in Society The Effects of Alcohol The Path to Rehabilitation New Hope for the Alcoholic The Philosophy Behind AA The Twelve Steps AA and God Twelve Traditions Anonymity as a Philosophy Remaining Financially Independent Adaptat]on by Other Organizauons 24. Everything Old Is New Age Again So Just What Is New Age? It's Not New at All Reincarnation Soul Mates I Ching Astrology Numerology Mandala Drawing 25. Philosophy and the Couch Potato Philosophy Beyond the Classroom Star Trek The Prisoner The Fugitive Emma Peel: Feminist Icon Appendix A: Glossary of Philosophical Terms Appendix B: Who's Who in Philosophy Index