Selections: The Great Philosophers

by Michael J. Inwood

Library of Liberal Arts title.

Genres: Philosophy

453 pages, Paperback

First published December 11, 1988

About the author

Michael Inwood is an emeritus fellow and tutor of philosophy at Trinity College, Oxford.

Reviews

[emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned a lot from this book. It is a decent intro to Hegel that makes you want to read the texts in full later. I always thought Hegel was unimpeachable, impossible to understand and not worth my time. But reading these selections has broken down that prejudice. I've already bought the intro to philosophy of history and the encylopedia logic, and plan to read both Philosophy of Right and Phenomenology of Spirit in full someday.

However, despite how good the 2 introductions are, I can't recommend this book too highly. The main issue is how it is formatted. The chapter titles seem to suggest you are getting full, unabridged selections from the text in question. But, as with the encylopedia logic, Inwood, for some reason, decided it would be a good idea to do a "greatest hits" of several of Hegel's texts. He does this and never informs the reader, meaning you may not even realise without -- as i did -- comparing them against the full books online.

Still, I'm glad I read this. 3*