The History of Philosophy

A cerebrally enjoyable survey, written with great clarity and touches of wit … The non-western section throws up some fascinating revelations * Sunday Times *Grayling has written a masterful and often entertaining chronicle of the epic intellectual journey we humans have taken, in different periods, countries and cultures, to understand ourselves, our world, and how we ought to live. An extraordinary accomplishment that transcends the usual bounds of academic specialization – Peter Singer, Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics, Princeton UniversityAccurately offers itself as a successor to [Bertrand] Russell’s classic survey … No other popular survey possesses this range … The History of Philosophy isn’t just worth buying; it’s worth scribbling in and dog-earing. For a work of scholarship, there can be no higher praise. – Michael Dirda * Washington Post *He’s more historically-minded than Russell, less dogmatic than Dawkins and less in thrall to the charms of his own fluency than Hitchens – Prospect on The Challenge of ThingsUndeniably thought-provokingGrayling is particularly good at illuminating the knottiness of moral discourseLucid, informative and admirably accessibleGrayling writes with clarity, elegance and the occasional aphoristic twistFive minutes with any passage will have you contemplating all dayI find the clarity of his thinking so refreshing

Professor A. C. Grayling is Principal of the New College of the Humanities at Northeastern University, London, and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford. He has written and edited over thirty books on philosophy, history, science and current affairs. For several years he wrote columns for the Guardian newspaper and The Times and was the chairman of the 2014 Man Booker Prize.