A Passion for Wisdom

Readers eager to acquire a basic familiarity with the history of philosophy but intimidated by the task will find inA Passion for Wisdom a lively accessible and highly enjoyable tour of the world''s great ideas. Here Robert Solomon and Kathleen Higgins tell the story of philosophy''s development with great clarity and refreshing wit.The authors begin with the most ancient religious beliefs of the east and west and bring us right up to the feminist and multicultural philosophies of the present. Along the way they highlight major philosophers from Plato and the Buddha to William James and Simone de Beauvoir and explore major categories from metaphysics and ethics to politics and logic. The book is enlivened as well by telling anecdotes and sparkling quotations. Among many memorable observations we''re treated to Thomas Hobbes'' assessment that life is nasty brutish and short and Hegel''s description of Napoleon as world history on horseback. Engaging comprehensive and delightfully writtenA Passion for Wisdom is a splendid introduction to an intellectual tradition that reaches back over three thousand years.