Year: 2002

Pages: 144

• Provides a broad overview of the field, and guides the reader through specific examples
• Teaches the reader how to read philosophy rather than just summarizing it
• Includes Eastern philosophy and thinkers from the Continental tradition as well as from Anglo-American philosophy
• Emphasizes the point of doing philosophy
• Discusses how philosophy has been used in the interests of particular groups, such as the priesthood, women, animals, and political activists

How ought we to live? What really exists? How do we know? This book introduces important themes in ethics, knowledge, and the self, via readings from Plato, Hume, Descartes, Hegel, Darwin, and Buddhist writers. It emphasizes throughout the point of doing philosophy, explains how different areas of philosophy are related, and explores the contexts in which philosophy was and is done.

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Readership: Students of philosophy, or those considering taking undergraduate philosophy courses. General readers interested in the history of philosophical thought, past and present.