The Oxford Companion to Philosophy New Edition - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199264791 ISBN 13: 9780199264797

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2005

Synopsis

Offering clear and reliable guidance to the ideas of philosophers from antiquity to the present day and to the major philosophical systems around the globe, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy is the definitive philosophical reference work for readers at all levels. For ten years the original volume has served as a stimulating introduction for general readers and as an indispensable guide for students and scholars. A distinguished international assembly of 249 philosophers contributed almost 2,000 entries, and many of these have now been considerably revised and updated in this major new edition; to these are added over 300 brand-new pieces on a fascinating range of current topics such as animal consciousness, cloning, corporate responsibility, the family, globalization, terrorism .

Here is, indeed, a world of thought, with entries on idealism and empiricism, epicureanism and stoicism, passion and emotion, deism and pantheism. The contributors represent a veritable who's who of modern philosophy, including such eminent figures as Isaiah Berlin, Sissela Bok, Ronald Dworkin, John Searle, Michael Walzer, and W. V. Quine. We meet the great thinkers--from Aristotle and Plato, to Augustine and Aquinas, to Descartes and Kant, to Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, right up to contemporary thinkers such as Richard Rorty, Jacques Derrida, Luce Iragaray, and Noam Chomsky. There are short entries on key concepts such as personal identity and the mind-body problem, major doctrines from utilitarianism to Marxism, schools of thought such as the Heidelberg School or the Vienna Circle, and contentious public issues such as abortion, capital punishment, and welfare. In addition, the book offers short explanations of philosophical terms (qualia, supervenience, iff), puzzles (the Achilles paradox, the prisoner's dilemma), and curiosities (the philosopher's stone, slime). Almost every entry is accompanied by suggestions for further reading, and the book includes both a chronological chart of the history of philosophy and a gallery of portraits of eighty eminent philosophers.

An indispensable guide and a constant source of stimulation and enlightenment, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy will appeal to everyone interested in abstract thought, the eternal questions, and the foundations of human understanding.

About this title

About the Author:

Ted Honderich is Emeritus Grote Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic at University College London. His major work is A Theory of Determinism: The Mind, Neuroscience, and Life-Hopes and is also known for his writings on political philosophy and for the widely successful philosophy readers which he has edited.

From Booklist:

"The brave, large aim of this book," boasts editor Honderich, as he did of the 1995 first edition, "has been to bring philosophy together between two covers better than ever before." That is a lofty goal indeed, given such outstanding competition as The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (1999), Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy(2000), and The Shorter Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2005). The latter two are abridgements of the 10-volume Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1998). What all have in common are alphabetical arrangement, 2,000 or so articles of varying length by hundreds of experts, and an emphasis on the Western philosophical tradition beginning with the pre-Socratics and culminating in twentieth-century Anglo-American philosophy while still making room for the continental and non-Western philosophical traditions. All have considerable complementary differences in terms of authors and entries.

As with the first edition, Honderich has provided a reference work of both great value and pleasurable reading. He has allowed authors to show their idiosyncrasies, perhaps nowhere more so than in his own mind-twisting entry on Unlikely philosophical propositions. Some 300 new entries (including Animal consciousness, Cloning, and Corporate responsibility) have been added. Many others have been revised, lengthened, or updated. The distinguished list of contributors has increased from 249 to 291. Subjects range from paragraph-length entries on philosophers (some of whom are represented in the handful of illustrations) and concepts to entries of several thousand words on 20 or so giants of Western philosophy, aspects of the major branches of philosophy, and various national philosophies. There are entries for some 150 contemporary philosophers. Each entry is followed by a reference list. Adding value are appendixes of logical symbols, maps of philosophy showing hierarchical relationships, and a chronology of philosophy with contemporaneous figures and events in the facing column. The index is composed almost entirely of main-entry headings with lists of entries that are related.

This volume is highly recommended for academic, public, and high-school library reference collections and for philosophically curious browsers. For libraries looking for a work more uniformly accessible to the uninitiated, Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a better choice. Craig Bunch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0199264791
• ISBN 13: 9780199264797
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 1076
• Editor: Honderich Ted