This revised and updated edition of a standard work provides a clear and authoritative survey of the Western tradition in metaphysics and epistemology from the Presocratics to the present day. Aimed at the beginning student, it presents the ideas of the major philosophers and their schools of thought in a readable and engaging way, highlighting the central points in each contributor's doctrines and offering a lucid discussion of the next-level details that both fills out the general themes and encourages the reader to pursue the arguments still further through a detailed guide to further reading. Whether John Shand is discussing the slow separation of philosophy and theology in Augustine, Aquinas and Ockham, the rise of rationalism, British empiricism, German idealism or the new approaches opened up by Russell, Sartre and Wittgenstein, he combines succinct but insightful exposition with crisp critical comment. This new edition will continue to provide students with a valuable work of initial reference.

"Shand writes with great clarity and simplicity, with sparing use of jargon. His methods will make it easy for beginners to identify from scratch a plausible outline of what is going on in a particular philosopher's arguments, so that they can go on to other books for more detail and for presentation of the problems with some usable idea of which way is up. A useful addition to the first-year reading list."

Source: Philosophical Quarterly