Philosophy 1: A Guide through the Subject

by A.C. Grayling (Editor)

This is the best general book on philosophy for university not just an introduction, but a guide which will serve them throughout their studies. It is intended to orientate, assist, and stimulate the reader at every stage in the study of the subject. Eleven extended essays have been specially commissioned from leading philosophers; each surveys a major area of the subject and offers an accessible but sophisticated account of the main debates.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Textbooks

688 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Anthony Clifford "A. C." Grayling is a British philosopher. In 2011 he founded and became the first Master of New College of the Humanities, an independent undergraduate college in London. Until June 2011, he was Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London, where he taught from 1991. He is also a supernumerary fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford.

He is a director and contributor at Prospect Magazine, as well as a Vice President of the British Humanist Association. His main academic interests lie in epistemology, metaphysics and philosophical logic. He has described himself as "a man of the left" and is associated in Britain with the new atheism movement, and is sometimes described as the 'Fifth Horseman of New Atheism'. He appears in the British media discussing philosophy.

Reviews

[WarpDrive · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very nice scholarly University-level book about the foundational issues of philosophical thought, published by Oxford University Press.

All the topics discussed in this book are presented in a rigorous, but at the same time reasonably accessible way. It is accurate and detailed enough so to be philosophically meaningful, sharp and to the point, managing to pack lots of info and useful bibliographic references within the scope of a single book (not a negligible feat, considering the type of the subjects treated in this book).
It does not descend into overly technical details, but it does not try to oversimplify intrinsically complex subjects either. It is a perfect book if you wish to take more than a superficial look at this fascinating discipline, and you have already had some prior exposure to it.

Structurally, this book is a compendium of articles by different authors, but I must say that it manages to keep a reasonably uniform level of quality, style and unity.
And these articles are usually well written and balanced, presenting in a nuanced manner all the main different philosophical positions on the subjects being studied.

The only aspect to take into account is that this book is overall characterized by a strongly "Analytical", rather than "Continental" approach (which is honestly declared at the very beginning of the book), so if you are inclined more towards a Continental approach, you may not find this book ideally suited to your inclinations.

A bit of evaluation of the individual parts of the book:
- the first section, about epistemology, is really good.
- the same applies to the second part (logic)
- the following section is about philosophy of science: it is pretty nicely done, but in my opinion it is a bit too short and it lacks important contributions, such as Kuhn and Kant
- the next section is about metaphysics, and it contains some very interesting essays about causation, the philosophy of time, and the ever-recurring so called "problem of Universals". The last part of this section, though, is about the very tricky philosophical concept of "substance": in my opinion, it is a bit too technical, too focused on the Aristotelian hylomorphist proposal, and of limited interest to contemporary insights and discussions.
- there is then a section about philosophy of mind and consciousness, which is very good and informative.
- the book now focuses on history of philosophy. From page 340 to page 400, the book deals with pre-Socratic philosophy and with Plato. To be honest, I am less than enthusiastic about the insufficient (in my opinion) level of detail and scholarly depth with which Plato is discussed by the author. Real pity, as he his one of my favorite philosophers :("
- there is then a pretty good essay about Aristotle's philosophy. Given the depth and breadth of Aristotle's philosophy, it had to be necessarily very succinct and selective; however I think that it manages to do decent job in explaining the main features of this very important thinker.
- Pages 440 to 480 are dedicated to the rationalists and Kant. The related essays are pretty good, but not enough detail and weight has been given to Kant (especially considering the fundamental influence the Kantian approach has provided to all subsequent modern philosophical thought), while pages 480 to 550 are dedicated to the "Empiricists" (Locke, Berkeley, and Hume). Very good essays here. The author highlights the strengths and some major shortcomings of these philosophers (such as the tension between realism and empiricism: realism asserts the independence of objects from the experience of them, while empiricism asserts the fundamental dependence upon experience of anything we can say about them).
- the final two sections are about ethics (which is the section I enjoyed the least, being in my opinion too succinct and technical), and about aesthetics (which is very nice).

Overall, a very nice and informative read which I quite enjoyed.

[Richard Newton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent compendium of articles on various aspects of philosophy. For most philosophical topics on an undergraduate degree there is an introductory article. Most of the articles find that difficult balance of being philosophically useful and interesting, whilst being concise and approachable by anyone approaching a particular topic for the first time. It would be wrong to claim that all the chapters are equally good and there are one or two weaker sections, but overall this mostly maintains a high standard.

[Imlac · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent introductory essays by extremely distinguished philosophers in the fields of their contributions, e.g. Bernard Williams (Ethics), David Wiggins and Tim Crane (Metaphysics).

[Ted Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the description says. Not many are likely to read all the articles though some might. This is an outspend compilation of article and other tools for reading philosophy on a grand scale. The articles I understood were remarkably fine and helpful.

[Craig Bolton]

Philosophy 1: A Guide through the Subject (Vol 1) by A. C. Grayling (1999)