Product Description

Over 50 extended entries on the key areas of philosophy and the great philosophers 80 black and white portraits Almost 2,000 entries by 249 distinguished contributors 'The brave, large aim of this book,' writes Ted Honderich, 'is to bring philosophy together between two covers better than ever before. That is not a job for one man or one woman, or a few, or a team, although it is tried often enough. So 249 of us have joined forces.' The distinguished international assembly of philosophers who contribute to The Oxford Companion to Philosophy have succeeded in creating the most authoritative and engaging philosophical reference work in English. It gives clear and reliable guidance to all areas of philosophy and to the ideas of all notable philosophers from antiquity to the present day. The scope of the volume is not limited to English-language philosophy: it surveys the foremost philosophy from all parts of the world. The book's 2,000 alphabetically arranged entries, which cover everything from animal souls, arthritis in the thigh, and brain in a vat to Zoroastrianism and vague objects, are not only instructive but also entertaining: they combine learning, lucidity, elegance, and wit. There are more than fifty extended entries of 3,000 words on the main areas of philosophy and the great philosophers. These include: Alasdair MacIntyre on histories of moral philosophy Paul Feyerabend on the history of the philosophy of science Jaegwon Kim on problems of the philosophy of mind Ernest Sosa on problems of metaphysics Geoffrey Warnock on Berkeley Peter Singer on Hegel Anthony Kenny on Frege Anthony Quinton on philosophy itself The many fascinating shorter entries deal with...key concepts - personal identity, time, dualism doctrines - utilitarianism, holism, stoicism problems - the mind-body problem, the meaning of life schools of thought - Marxist philosophy, the Vienna Circle Practical issues - abortion, vegetarianism Individual thinkers past -Pythagoras, Confucius, Galileo, Goethe, Burke, Santayana, de Beauvoir, Radhakrishnan, Popper Individual thinkers present - over 150 contemporary figures, such as Davidson, Derrida, and Berlin are profiled. There are eighty black-and-white portraits of philosophers from the Greeks onwards, including some contemporaries. Interspersed throughout are short explanations of particular philosophical terms (qualia, supervenience, iff), puzzles (the Achilles paradox, the prisoner's dilemma), and curiosities (the philosopher's stone, slime). Each entry is accompanied by suggestions for further reading. A chronological chart of the history of philosophy is located at the end of the book, together with fifteen diagrams showing the structure of philosophy and the relations between its subjects and doctrines. This book will be an indispensable guide and a constant source of stimulation and enlightenment for anyone interested in abstract thought, the eternal questions, and the foundations of human understanding.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #164925 in Books
• Published on: 1995-09-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 1040 pages

Review
"A first-rate book that belongs in every philosophy collection."--Library Journal

Review
Magisterial and unrivalled... the new edition remains the definitive reference guide to the world of philosophy. (Library Journal )

A reference work of both great value and pleasurable reading. (Booklist )

Philosophy students in search of a crisp (or comparatively crisp) summary are certainly spoilt for choice. Lively. (Nicholas Bagnall, Sunday Times )

that rarest of things: a philosophical work that is genuinely entertaining ... by far the best - and best value - philosophical reference book on the market.' (Observer )

Nicholas Bagnall, Sunday Times
"Philosophy students in search of a crisp (or comparatively crisp) summary are certainly spoilt for choice. Lively."

Customer Reviews

Articulate and deeply informative
I am studying philosophy at University and cannot recommend this book more highly. It is an extraordinarily erudite and lucid exploration of ideas. One of the great successes of the book I believe is that it provides first a brief historic overview and outline of the intellectual contribution of the thinker/or school of thought and then discusses some of the more detailed ideas in relative depth and relates and compares them to both contemporary opinions and more recent developments in analytic philosophy (at least this is what happens in the more extensive entries). Therefore it is equally useful as both a quick reference guide and as a tool for finding out about more specific and detailed dare I say technical components of ideas. One of the great highpoints of the book is the treatment of the philosophy of science; the topic is very clearly explained without the excessive and misleading jargon that dominantes so many books that attempt to explore this subject. Oxford University have, however, thankfully not just restricted themselves to Plato, Kant, Russel and Wittgenstein... they also have covered a huge selection of thinkers from almost every conceivable culture. A number of extracts are dedicated to the exploration of even obscure African and Asian thinkers. I was recently delighted to find that the 19th century philosopher and poet Solovyov is included, having encountered one of his poems by chance I was pleasantly surprised that my faithful Oxford companion could provide a point of reference yet again! At the back of the edition there is also a series of maps of philosophy that explore how different facets of the subject inter-relate to one another. These maps are very useful for people new to the subject. I would recommend this over the Cambridge Dictionnary to philosophy which I also own, although find much less extensive and informative. In conclusion: A great buy!

An indispensible refence aid to Philosophy!
I am a second year university student studying Philosophy and after an exhaustive search for an extended general reference aid to the subject, I believe that the Oxford Companion to Philoshophy is head and shoulders above similar texts on the market (e.g. Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philoshophy). It is not only informative, but in an easy to understand and accessable format, which lends itself equally well to the beginner as to the more advanced philosophy student. In my opinion this constitutes an indispensible reference to anyone interested in the subject of philosophy.

A good resource for both layperson & academic
Speaking as a layperson I found this book gave an extremely wide coverage of recent, & past, philosophy. The varied entries are easy enough for an intelligent layperson to understand, yet they had the depth that would be useful for undergrad philosophy students.

As well as covering the greats, and different branches of philosophy, there was good coverage of contemporary philosophers - something lacking other encyclopaedias/Dictionaries. Also, an eye-opener, was the coverage of some [possibly] curious problems [e.g. death] which, again, are not found in many other works of reference.

In contrast to another recent popular tome [the Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy] this book is definitely NOT dry and boring. This is important, as it combats the image of the philosopher as a dull academic with nothing of interest to say about life.