Ten Great Works of Philosophy

Book excerpt: In its vast scope, this book presents the continuum of Western philosophy. Ranging from ancient Greece to nineteenth-century America, it traces the history of our civilization through the seminal works of its most influential thinkers. Each philosopher in this volume made intellectual history; each created a revolution in ideas; each reaffirmed man’s view of himself as a sentient being capable of creating order out of the baffling contradictions of existence. And the most powerful reflections and speculations of each are represented here. Plato: Apology, Crito and the Death of Socrates, from Phado Aristotle: Poetics St. Ansem: The ontological Proof of St. Ansem, from Proslogium St. Thomas Aquinas: St. Thomas’ Proofs of God’s Existence, from the SummaTheologica René Descartes: Meditations on the First Philosophy David Hume: An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding Immanuel Kant: Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics John Stuart Mill: Utilitarianism William James: The Will to Believe