Philosophy: 100 Essential Thinkers

The Ideas That Have Shaped Our World

By: Philip Stokes

Narrated by: Steven Crossley

Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's Summary

Who am I? What is justice? What does it mean to live a good life? Many of the fundamental questions of philosophy are questions that we begin to ask ourselves as young adults when we look at the world around us, at ourselves, and try to make sense of things.

This engaging and accessible book invites the listener to explore the questions and arguments of philosophy through the work of 100 of the greatest thinkers within the Western intellectual tradition - covering philosophical, scientific, political, and religious thought over a period of 2500 years.

Philosophy will serve as an excellent guide for those interested in knowing about individual thinkers - such as Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, and Nietzsche, to name just a few - and the questions and observations that inspired them to write. By presenting individual thinkers, details of their lives, and the concerns and circumstances that motivated them, this audiobook makes philosophy come to life as a relevant and meaningful approach to thinking about the contemporary world.

A lucid and engaging book full of thought-provoking quotations, as well as clear explanations and definitions, Philosophy is sure to encourage students and laymen alike to investigate further.

©2012 Arcturus Publishing Limited (P)2015 Arcturus Digital Limited

Unpretentious, honest, with a big picture

I love seeing how philosophy is proved by her deeds. That's what this book does in a substantially condensed format. It's like an index of ideas, told with many character sketches, in layman's terms, for the average reader. The chronology of philosophy is interesting by its own right, but the author does a great job of relating philosopher's ideas with other philosophic development. No perceived bias in this overview of philosophy.

It has given me ideas to chase after and learn!

I have the book of this audiobook. I've had it for a while, and have only read it piecemeal. However -- I love this audiobook! It has totally made the "book" more interesting to me -- thanks to the reading of Steven Crossley. I also love the phrase "Thought begets Thought" -- and that is exactly what this book does. It contains a concise discussion of each of the "philosophers" and their ideas; and the reactions to these ideas; and the philosophers who followed, and their ideas and reactions -- often in reference to the prior ideas, ad infinitum. It has also given me ideas to chase after and learn about, etc. A wonderful book! Very interesting! AND I love to listen Steven Crossley. I love his voice, and the way he "expresses" each book that he reads. He has given this book LIFE for me. Try it! You will really like! You won't want to the reading to stop.

Bueller?

I love history, and that being said, I feel that in this instance, the reader would do better to have a hard copy versus an audio edition of this title. It reads like a laundry list of facts and is as dry as Ferris Bueller's teacher. I felt transported to my hard wooden desk at school on exam day. UGH!

Comprehensible and reasonably thorough.

Overall, this was quite a good audiobook. It had an expensive review of Western philosophy. I feel that it perhaps was less thorough in regards to modern philosophy of mind.

No reaserch

He didn't do any honest research. I read this kind of predjuce in encyipedia and school history book.

Biased to the point of annoyance.

Awfully biased, especially against the Church, without providing adequate basis in the Galileo case and many others.

An Excellent Overview

For some reason Audible only has a single star for each of the three categories. For this book I would have given it 4 stars for Overall, 4 stars for Performance, and 4 stars for story. I enjoyed this book very much. It maintained a good level of interest from me from beginning to end. I feel it has done an excellent job of touching on so many philosophical views in a single volume.

Pure Quality

Superb. Remarkable but responsibly concise original effort - Designed to enable non metaphysic students understand the origins and connections of Western Philosophy

good overview

some thought provoking insights. a little uneven in its dealings with some of the 100, but this is enevitable given the task of provide a brief but insightful look at such a wide range of philosophers. definitely sparked an interest i. finding out more about some of these intriguing figures

Missing some people

I think the book is missing some people like Montesquieu and Bourdieu. However it gives a good perspective of western philosophy

An enjoyable snapshot of philosophical ideas

Philosophy is tough to follow unless you're really focused on it, harder still in audio format. This audiobook tries hard to distill the key thinkers and their ideas throughout the ages into easy to absorb snapshots. Some content is harder to follow than others, but I think that's due to the nature of the content itself. Overalll, this is a good listen and recommended.

Could have been a little more in depth

I quite enjoyed this book, some of the coverage could have been a bit longer.