The Great Conversation: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy

This book provides a highly readable and accessible introduction to some of the major participants and their important contributions to the historical and ongoing conversation that is philosophy. Philosophy, as it developed in the Western tradition, is not a set of doctrines or ideas; it is, rather, a kind of ongoing conversation that began with the ancient Greeks and continues into the present. It turns out there are certain basic questions, that keep coming up, but that always call for a reasoned response that is both attentive to the specific context in which they arise and aware of the ways in which the question has been addressed before, in other contexts. Contemporary discussions on philosophical topics cannot fully be understood in isolation from this "great conversation." Reading this would be a good way for the undergraduate philosophy student to "fill in the gaps" in their grasp of the context for the topics they are interested in; while it is no substitute for going through the primary texts, it does include several excerpts from primary texts and manages to represent the dominant concerns of most thinkers included in a way that is clear and accessible without oversimplification. The primary value of this text would be to provide an outline of the main thinkers and issues and methods, that would serve as a basis for more thorough exploration. The book does include helpful guidance for the reader who wants to explore a particular thinker or topic further. One might quibble about what is left out in this overview -- I wish there were a chapter on Rousseau, for example -- but what is astonishing is how much he manages to cover in a single volume. He covers nearly all of the major "canonical" movements and thinkers from the time of the ancient Greeks to contemporary analytic and continental philosophy. It is quite an accomplishment and a rewarding read. Highly recommended.

This textbook is comprehensive in covering a broad historical overview of philosophy from ancient Greece through modern 20th-21st century contemporary philosophers. Highly recommended for anyone who would like to know more of the history behind philosophy and how we have come to think and believe what we do.

A professor of mine in college assigned this book for a class, and it quickly became my favorite book of all time and remains so a decade later. I have what I would consider a sizable passion for philosophy, but I found taking a survey of the great philosophers rather difficult. Reading the primary, original texts are often opaque and dense at best (and there is no way one can read everything, even by a single philosopher), but many books that claim to be "introductions" to the greats are often very terse and rarely get too deep into the material. This book is just-right. It introduces you to the the major philosophers neither by overly simplifying them or batting you over the head with their details. Finally, as the title of the book suggests, Melchert wonderfully connects these philosophers together showing how they influenced each other and how different philosophers attempt to answer the same fundamental questions.