About Philosophy with CD-ROM

by Robert Paul Wolff, R. Eugene Bales

For undergraduate Introduction to Philosophy courses. The most widely-adopted introduction to philosophy text for more than two decades, this classic text introduces the major fields, problems, theories, and personalities of philosophy through the biographies and writing of leading thinkers.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Reference, Textbooks

496 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Robert Paul Wolff was an American political philosopher and professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Wolff has written widely on topics in political philosophy, including Marxism, tolerance (against liberalism and in favor of anarchism), political justification, and democracy.

Reviews

[Dory · Rating 3 out of 5]

IM DONE! Did a lil happy dance upon being freed of these chains. I suppose reading a philosophy textbook for fun isn’t indeed fun. Book wise it was a solid introduction and the author did throw in a little flair to make it a tad more colorful but still, after about halfway I was begging for the finish line. The adrenaline of being an intellectual only pumps for so long. Would I recommend? Probably not, while it is a good into to philosophy I’m sure you could fine a better, more up to date one. However, if you find it on your dads bookshelf and see some of his annotations in it then yes, read it because it makes you feel like you are your dad back when he was a young boy with a hungry mind.

[Abby · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid intro to Philosophy. It introduced me to all of the basic subfields and their major contributors. One thing I was increasingly frustrated by was that (though not directly a fault of the author) all of the “worthwhile” philosophical thinking has been done by OLD WHITE MEN. I’m kind of tired of that. They definitely do have profound ideas about all sorts of everything—social justice, ethics, epistemology, art, being. But aren’t we limiting our horizon by only reading the thoughts of those who have been in power? That in mind, this book was liberal for its time. I think it was written in like the 70s. I read it, in spite of its antiquity, because it was my dads intro philosophy textbook. If we hope to understand our society and its problems today, it might help to know a bit about the societies and their problems then, for what is today but a subsequent iteration of yesterdays?