From philosophy's founding fathers like Thales, Socrates or Plato to great minds of the post-modern era, including Satre, Ayer and Feyerabend this concise new guide presents 100 of the world's most influential thinkers. Arranged from the ancient world to the present day, each philosopher's key ideas, notable works and pronouncements are encapsulated in a series of succinct biographies, accompanied by illustrations, at-a-glance fact panels and thought-provoking quotations. Philosophy: A Beginner's Guide uncovers the fundamental concepts of this fascinating discipline, explaining the diverging schools of thought and revealing the universal aim of philosophy throughout the ages - to push the boundaries of human knowledge in order to understand the fundamental nature of human existence. The philosophers featured include Buddha, Confucius and Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham, Machiavelli, Hobbes and Descartes, Schopenhauer, Marx and Nietzsche, Sartre, Arendt and de Beauvoir and many more.
