This revised and updated edition of a standard work provides a clear and authoritative survey of the Western tradition in metaphysics and epistemology from the Presocratics to the present day. Aimed at the beginning student, it presents the ideas of the major philosophers and their schools of thought in a readable and engaging way, highlighting the central points in each contributor's doctrines and offering a lucid discussion of the next-level details that both fills out the general themes and encourages the reader to pursue the arguments still further through a detailed guide to further reading. Whether John Shand is discussing the slow separation of philosophy and theology in Augustine, Aquinas and Ockham, the rise of rationalism, British empiricism, German idealism or the new approaches opened up by Russell, Sartre and Wittgenstein, he combines succinct but insightful exposition with crisp critical comment. This new edition will continue to provide students with a valuable work of initial reference.

"Philosophers suffer from a peculiar occupational hazard; people are always coming up and asking them just what it is that they do and how they do it. This is not the sort of question that biologists or economists or musicians get asked; people know, pretty well, what they do, and they may or may not be interested in the details. But a philosopher is different - it is very hard to imagine just what he does with his time"--

"Following the helpful visual format of the popilar Zondervan Charts series, Chars of Philosophy and Philosophers provides an in-depth survey of philosophy--its ideas, movements, history, and thinkers." -- Back Cover

This highly readable volume offers a broad introduction to modern philosophy and philosophers. Scharfstein contends that personal experience, especially that of childhood, affects philosophers' sense of reality and hence the content of their philosophies. Basing his argument on biographical studies of twenty great philosophers, from Descartes to Sartre, he provides the beginnings of a psychological history of philosophy.

Based on a highly successful BBC television series, this book presents fifteen dialogues between author and broadcaster Bryan Magee and some of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century. Isaiah Berlin considers the fundamental question, "What is philosophy?," A. J. Ayer reviews logical positivism, and Iris Murdoch talks about the relation between philosophy and literature. Moral philosophy, political philosophy, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of science are all treated in depth by the thinkers who have shaped these fields--including Noam Chomsky, W. V. O. Quine, and Herbert Marcuse. Written in an informal, conversational style, even the most difficult philosophical ideas are made accessible to the general reader.

This volume brings together 13 interviews with some of the brightest names in contemporary philosophy, including W.V.O. Quine, Richard Rorty, Stanley Cavell, Hilary Putnam, as well as John Rawls. Covering a wide range of topics from the philosophy of law and logic to metaphysics to literature, the interviews in this text provide an introduction to some of the most influential thinkers of the day.

'In this witty and entertaining excursion through previously unchartered areas of the world of Pooh, John Tyerman Williams sets out to prove beyond a doubt that the whole of Western philosophy - from the cosmologists of ancient Greece to existentialism in this century - may be found in Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner. This book confirms what many have long suspected: that Pooh is a Bear of Enormous Brain