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Kenny offers an illuminating account of the various schools of thought, from the Pre-Socratics to the Epicureans. Thus we do not simply get an overview of Aristotle, for example, but a penetrating and insightful critique of his thought. Instead of an uncritical, straightforward recitation of known facts—Plato and his cave of shadows, Aristotle's ethics, Augustine's City of God—we see the major philosophers through the eyes of a man who has spent a lifetime contemplating their work. The book's great virtue is that it is written by one of the world's leading authorities on the subject. This is the initial volume of a four-book set in which Kenny will unfold a magisterial new history of Western philosophy, the first major single-author history of philosophy to appear in decades.Īncient Philosophy spans over a thousand years and brings to life the great minds of the past, from Thales, Pythagoras, and Parmenides, to Socrates, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Augustine.

Sir Anthony Kenny here tells the fascinating story of the birth of philosophy and its remarkable flourishing in the ancient Mediterranean world.