The Philosophy Book (DK Big Ideas)

Although I can’t speak to the nature of the e-book on any device, The Philosophy Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained is a very entertaining introduction to various historically significant philosophical minds. It includes images as well as a light amount of biographical information which is important for gathering the context through which these people were developing their thoughts. The intention of the book is be an overview of an entire subject since its inception in ancient times, so personally I find it difficult to fault for being brief considering how much content it aims to tackle. The segregation of time from section to section is fine given, once again, what a large time-span the book seeks to cover. In addition, this book is tailored to be appealing to youths who probably aren’t yet enabled to take a formalized philosophy course so there’s little cause to make it hyper-informative of individuals or get into the weeds of specific time periods. It is not a history book after all. If someone wants to learn more about a specific philosopher’s ideas this book provides a litany of paths to go down and without a publishing like this, it’s hard to have a significant awareness of the breadth of what is out there. However, there are some things it seems like the book could benefit from. Dedicated passages describing concepts of empiricism and rationalism would be a big plus since a lot of philosophers consider themselves to be decidedly one or the other. Without defining these terms the book’s intended audience, being people who are potentially reading their first book about philosophy, might come to feel like they were in the dark if they learn these things later. As well as this a page or two dedicated to the various formations of logic-based arguments you can make would have been instructive since that is where most meaningful philosophical dialogue is derived from. One more thing that may have been worthwhile would be a page indicating the various ethical theories in brief definition and who was able to first formally publish works regarding them such as utilitarianism, feminism, Kantian ethics, etc. It also needs to detail that although science does explain many things about the universe it cannot begin to explain everything, such as life after death or the nature of “God”. This is especially relevant to any of the stoic philosophers since their conception of God was pantheistic and radically different to any sort of self-centered human looking creation that many people today are inclined to conceptualize it as. All things considered the book is highly informative and more than intriguing enough to get someone more interested in the original subject. It could use more expansive discussion of what many of the cornerstones of basic philosophy courses are. It also quite crudely brushes by conceptions of “God” and takes no time describing the basics of forming an argument. I still am giving it the highest rating just because the interest it generates overwhelms all other deficiencies in it, especially given most people don’t receive a philosophy class in high-school and in terms of daily life it’s definitely critical to be able to contemplate things on a deeper level.

This book is a great primer for anyone interested in delving into philosophy. I've read a fair amount of classic philosophical texts but realize it's often hard to understand the terminology or references that philosophers make. This book is great because it succinctly explains basic concepts of many thinkers and traditions and explains how they fit in the timeline of ideas, making things much more accessible. A friend told me he was interested in philosophy but didn't know where to start so I gave him this book. He got through it relatively quickly and said it greatly strengthened his base understanding of the philosophical tradition. It's really a great resource for getting an overview before diving into deeper concepts. I have more confidence now that someday I'll successfully tackle Hegel to impress a dinner party: the ultimate goal of philosophy.

Bought without nearly any photos to base this purchase on and I’m glad I did. Who should buy this? ✅ Students in seminary ✅ College Students Studying Liberal Arts ✅ High School English or Social Studies Teachers ✅ Anyone curious about worldviews, life philosophies, and adaptations of thinking My experience: Awesome book for my new Christian Apologetics courses. It would have also been a benefit for me while teaching 11th & 12th grade English for American and British history. It would have better helped me to frame the units around the framework or lens people saw through during specific eras.

This sweeping overview of philosophy walks us through history in chronological order, dedicating a couple pages to our most influential thinkers. It’s an ideal starting point for anyone interested in the topic. The lucid prose spares us from impenetrable academic jargon of the Stanford Encyclopedia; the illustrations and quotes add visual appeal to compensate for what might be considered dry topics; and each section contains a philosopher biography as well as historical context to help orient us to their work. The authors provide adequate synopsis to explain key principles—just enough to map the field and pique interest. This is Philosophy 101. It’s extremely clear and succinct, yet it still captures the essence of a host of meaningful ideas. After reading it, I had a pretty good idea where to focus my future dives into philosophy.

This book does an outstanding job of breaking down the history of philosophy into language that everyone can understand. Nothing could be more important than knowing how mankind has evolved through the ages, and the details of our thought process and ideology are clearly spelled out in this heavily illustrated text. 'The Philosophy Book' starts out with the very earliest of thinkers, and proceeds to cover the subject and its evolution to the present day. It not only explains the history of philosophy, but it delves deeply into the thought processes of the world's greatest thinkers, covering their viewpoints on subjects such as ethics, morality, scientific principles, religion, politics, etc. An understanding of philosophy and its principles is essential to mankinds existence. This masterpiece of a book takes a subject that can be very hard to understand, and breaks it down into bite sized pieces. The use of diagrams, timelines and comprehensive illustrations makes the subject matter much easier to comprehend. I only wish that a book such as this were available when I was in college. At the time, philosophy was a very difficult subject for me to understand. Had this book been in print, I not only would have had a clear understanding of the subject, but I would have enjoyed the learning process as well. Based on my experience with this exceptional volume, I'm eager to submerse myself in some of the other books in this series.

I give this book a five-star rating for being a great example of what it seeks to be - a simplified summary of a complex field of study. The main value of this book is that it summarizes the entire history of philosophy in easy-to-grasp terms, with pictures and quotes combined with a narration of historical periods. It leaves out some important things, but for the beginning explorer, it's a fine place to start. I would not, however, recommend that this book become one's "only" reference for a field of study that covers such a long time in history, and yet is constantly changing and evolving. It won't turn you into a college level professor of philosophy. Read it, or refer to it, as a kind of road map. Get some landmarks and travel information from it, identify some of the world-renowned leaders in philosophy, and then enter into a personal quest for more knowledge. Read some definitive books on one or more of the best names in philosophy, such as Socrates and Plato, Thomas Aquinas, Blaise Pascal, John Locke (how did he influence the development of modern democracy?), Immanuel Kant, all the way down to recent times, names such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger, to name a few. Explore some current era writers such as Peter Singer. Philosophy is far too important and diverse to be limited to one book, no matter how excellent. For this unique book, its best quality, simplification, is perhaps its main fault as well. So for that reason, start here, drive around the "turf" of this book, but don't park your vehicle there.

So far, there are 146 reviews with an average rating of 4.5 stars. That tells you that this is a quality book which appeals to a large audience. Count me as another person who likes the book. Though I've explored Western and non-Western philosophy for more than three decades - sometimes with a lot of intensity - I still find this book useful as a means to brush up on many things, and learn some new things as well. The format of the book is quite user-friendly, with write-ups which span 1 to 6 pages for each philosopher, and the writing is clear. Equally or more important, to the extent that I can judge, the key ideas of each philosopher are captured well in this book, though of course you can't expect too much depth at this level of brevity. The range of philosophers included is also quite broad, with pretty much all of the philosophers you've likely heard of, and probably many you haven't heard of also. And while Western philosophers are most prominent, there are plenty of Eastern and Arab philosophers as well. Reading the book from cover to cover, in sequence, would likely be mentally quite taxing for readers relatively new to considering philosophical questions, but that should be doable if readers pace themselves and allow plenty of time to get through the book - despite the friendly format, this isn't light reading! For readers like me who are already fairly familiar with this landscape, it's a good book to dip into randomly here and there, to remain exposed to viewpoints which serve as alternatives to the current conventional thinking of the masses.

The book is amazing as I expected. The speed of delivery is fine. The protection of the book is awful. I buy a new book! Maybe I cannot receive a perfect one, but this is unacceptable. The back of the book has a pretty big irretrievable fold in the upper left-hand corner.