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The article already mentions it but I highly recommend "The History of Western Philosophy" by Bertrand Russell, if you are interested in any type of philosophy

• barry-cotter 10y ago
  From the author's Best Textbooks On Every Subject Subject: History of Western Philosophy Recommendation: The Great Conversation, 6th edition, by Norman Melchert Reason: The most popular history of western philosophy is Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy, which is exciting but also polemical and inaccurate. More accurate but dry and dull is Frederick Copelston's 11-volume A History of Philosophy. Anthony Kenny's recent 4-volume history, collected into one book as A New History of Western Philosophy, is both exciting and accurate, but perhaps too long (1000 pages) and technical for a first read on the history of philosophy. Melchert's textbook, The Great Conversation, is accurate but also the easiest to read, and has the clearest explanations of the important positions and debates, though of course it has its weaknesses (it spends too many pages on ancient Greek mythology but barely mentions Gottlob Frege, the father of analytic philosophy and of the philosophy of language). Melchert's history is also the only one to seriously cover the dominant mode of Anglophone philosophy done today: naturalism (what Melchert calls "physical realism"). Be sure to get the 6th edition, which has major improvements over the 5th edition. http://lesswrong.com/lw/3gu/the_best_textbooks_on_every_subject/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/3gu/the_best_textbooks_on_every_subj...