501 Things YOU Should Have Learned About Philosophy

by Alison Rattle, Alex Woolf

Socrates - Aristotle - Stoicism - Nihilism - Plato's Republic - The Rights of Man - The Turing Test - Idealism - Laplace's Demon - Galileo's Trial - Baconian Method - Epicurus's Riddle - John Dewey - Realism - The Enlightenment - Newcomb's Paradox - Kant - Leibniz - Nietzsche - Syllogisms . . .

If you're honest, how much do you really know about any of this stuff? The older we get the less we seem to know and the less time we have to bone up on the essentials. One day, you tell yourself, you'll get round to finding out. Well that day has arrived, so welcome to your intensive vacation primer!

Forget boring lectures and dusty professors, this book presents history's greatest philosophers and their big ideas in fascinating, easy-to-understand and manageable chunks. You'll learn how philosophical ideas have shaped the world around us, from our politics and religion to our language and ethics, and be challenged by some of the puzzles and paradoxes that have had philosophers thinking for centuries. By the end of this book, you'll know your Descartes from your Dewey, Hobbes from Hegel and so much more. This really is everything you should have learned about philosophy.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, History, Reference

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Alison Rattle grew up in Liverpool, and now lives in a medieval house in Somerset with her three teenage children, her partner - a carpenter - an extremely naughty Jack Russell and a ghost cat. She has co-authored a number of non-fiction titles on subjects as diverse as growing old, mad monarchs, how to boil a flamingo, the history of America and the biography of a nineteenth-century baby killer. She has worked as a fashion designer, a production controller, a painter and decorator, a barmaid, and now owns and runs a vintage tea room.

Reviews

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

In my continued effort to learn philosophy, I picked this book up at Powell's. I enjoyed it immensely.

There are two ways to approach this book. One, read it from cover to cover. Two, use it as a resource when confronted with a philosophical question. I picked number one as I continue to be confused about the various schools of philosophy. Now I refer to it periodically.

If you are new to philosophy this book would be a good place to start.

[Laila · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book ; it gives you bullet points of what you need to know in Philosophy .However , this book CANNOT be read once because there's a lot of information. In short , it's not the type of book that you read in a relaxing state; it needs to be studied and reread several times.i Loved it :D!yet im sure i dont remember much ahahah

[Q. · Rating 4 out of 5]

As some reviewers have pointed out on this website, there is some important content missing from this book mostly from Middle Eastern Philosophers/Works & Asian Philosophers/Works both of which are only touched on in the book. That being said this is a fantastic jumping off point for anyone wanting to learn about philosophy.

[djt · Rating 3 out of 5]

So...a book of short clips of facts on several aspects of philosophy, and something I picked up for information to help me narrow down the philosophers/area of philosophy/philosophical era I want to focus on for future study/reading. It was definitely helpful in that respect, so glad I've read the book. It also has some really interesting and entertaining facts, so it was enjoyable reading as well. What I found interesting, however,is there were many of these studies and theories that were so ridiculous. Not the author's fault, just a fact of philosophical thought. The idea of pondering upon, and writing and publishing papers on many questions that were so clearly time-wasting endeavors. They served no purpose, gave no definitive answers, and still can't believe that so much perceived intelligence was sidelined to crash into a wall of absurdity. Oh well. Guess that's why I needed to read something that would give me information sufficient to narrow my path for future reading in this area. This book did provide that information and I would definitely recommend it to others, since, again, I found it to be an entertaining read.

[Dave Martin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have a few main problems with the book.
1. Many of the facts are just recycled from earlier passages.
2. It feels rather unbalanced in focus
3. I think it misses a lot of core philosophical discussions like Camus's Sysiphus
The illustrations were good and much of the information was good for how superficial it had to be. It was just unfortunate the content choices were so poor. I don't believe Alison even addressed continental vs analytical philosophy as concepts. And when she did address concepts, she often broke them up so it counted as a section.

[Ryan Patrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am glad that I didn't choose to study Philosophy in college.

[Irma-The Book&Coffee Addict · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the graphics they were very entertaining and educational in the supplementation of the summaries on the various philosophical ideas, their philosophers, and its brief historical recount.

[Derek Neveu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not comprehensive by any means, but an excellent starter kit if you are interested in some historical names, movements, and moments in the world of Philosophy.

[Katie Stack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of fun little facts!
You cannot read and absorb it all in one sitting!

[Shane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed 501 Things You Should Really Have Learned About History more but this book was still pretty good. It covers a lot of topics and each of them in less than a page. This makes it great for a bathroom book or for someone that only ever gets a few minutes at a time to read.

[Alexis Mcmillen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Take it for what it is ... A hysterical twist on the things we never really needed to know but may have made us think ...

[Maisey Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book made me want to read other books it mentioned but otherwise I found it pretty much useless.