When you teach philosophy you are, like many fields, effectively teaching the history of philosophy. If you want to condense 2000+ years of history down to som

When you teach philosophy you are, like many fields, effectively teaching the history of philosophy. If you want to condense 2000+ years of history down to something that fits in an education, you're going to have to cut almost everything. What people generally do is cover people or events that had great influence on what came after. You're not getting "greatest", "best", or even "most correct"; You're getting people who stood out as having influence.