A SHORT INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
BY DARRELL P. ARNOLD, PH.D.
This is an online book in progress. The material here is planned for a paperback Short Introduction to the History of Philosophy. I have composed the texts over the past year as a supplement to my coursework at Miami Dade College. They cover the history of philosophy from the Axial Age through the Enlightenment. Over the next semester or two I will add further material.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
PART 1 — WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY?
Chapter 1 — What is Philosophy?
Section 1 — Philosophy: An Overview
PART 2 — ASIAN PHILOSOPHY
Chapter 2 Hindu and Buddhist Thought
Section 1 — An Introduction to Hindu and Buddhist Thought (1)
Section 2 — An Introduction to Hindu and Buddhist Thought (2)
Chapter 3 — Confucius and Confucianism
Chapter 4 — Laozi: An Overview
PART 3 — ANCIENT GREEK THOUGHT
Chapter 5 — Pre-Socratics
Section 1 — The Pre-Socratics: An Overview
Section 4 — Parmenides and the Eleatics
Section 5 — The One and the Many — From Thales to Democritus
Chapter 6 — The Sophists
Chapter 7 — Socrates
Section 1 — Socrates: An Overview
Section 2 — The Trial and Death of Socrates
Chapter 8 — Plato
Section 1 — Plato: An Overview
Section 2 — Plato’s Allegory of the Cave
Section 3 — Plato on Gyges’ Ring
Chapter 9 — Aristotle
Section 1 — Aristotle’s Background
Section 2 — Aristotle’s Teleological Perspective
Section 3 — Aristotle’s Ethics
Section 4 — Aristotle’s Aesthetics
PART 4 — PHILOSOPHY IN LATE ANTIQUITY
Chapter 10 — Philosophy in Hellenism and Early Rome
Chapter 11 — Stoicism
Chapter 12 — Epicureanism
PART 5 — WESTERN PHILOSOPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES
Chapter 13 — Augustine
Chapter 14 — Thomas Aquinas and Thomism
PART 6 — THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY
Chapter 15 — The Transition to the Modern World
Chapter 16 — The Enlightenment
Section 1 — Science and Knowledge
Section 2 — Political Philosophy
PART 7 — MODERN PHILOSOPHERS
Chapter 17 — Descartes
Section 1 — The Father of Modern Philosophy
Section 2 — Descartes’ Method of Systematic Doubt
Section 3 — Descartes’ Foundationalist Reconstruction
Section 4 — Criticisms of Descartes
Chapter 18 — Spinoza
Chapter 19 — An Overview of Rationalism
Chapter 20 — British Empiricism
Section 2 — John Locke’s Epistemology
Section 3 — David Hume
Chapter 21 — Immanuel Kant
Chapter 22 — Georg Fredrick Hegel
Chapter 23 — Karl Marx
Chapter 24 — Friedrich Nietzsche
Chapter 25 — Pragmatism
Section 1 — Charles Sanders Pierce
Section 2 — William James
Section 3 — John Dewey
Chapter 26 Contemporary French Philosophy
Chapter 27 Contemporary Germany Philosophy
Chapter 28 Contemporary Anglo-American Philosophy
Chapter 29 Contemporary Movements in Global Philosophy