false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174768889m/437669.jpg 437669 1 Perhaps you haven't the time for a cover-to-cover read of Plato's <I>Republic</I>, Pascal's <I>Pensées</I>, and Machiavelli's <I>The Prince</I>, let alone Aristotle's <I>Politics</I>, Kierkegaard's <I>Fear and Trembling</I>, and Maimondides' <I>Guide for the Perplexed</I>. You're familiar with the names Schiller, Kant, and Hobbes, but you haven't actually gotten around to reading their works. But that doesn't mean you wouldn't like to sample the writings of the sages, be conversant with their philosophical styles, and know what they have to say. Towards that end, Stanley Rosen has done a great service for the scholarly minded but time-challenged seekers of wisdom.<p> The Borden Parker Bowne Professor of Philosophy at Boston University, the Evan Pugh Professor Emeritus at Penn State University, and a past president of the Metaphysical Society of America, Rosen is eminently versed in all things philosophical, and as such he's already written 13 books, including <I>Hermeneutics as Politics</I>, <I>The Question of Being</I>, and <I>Plato's Symposium</I>. <I>The Examined Life</I>, however, is unusual in that it's geared towards the amateur scholar of philosophy. Rosen and a team of distinguished scholars selected 35 excerpts from 23 of the Western world's great philosophers, including Plato and Aristotle, Descartes and Rousseau, Hegel and Nietzsche, Kant and Wittgenstein. He then arranged the excerpts by discipline: "Social and Political Philosophy," "Philosophy of Religion," "Philosophy of Art and Culture," "Metaphysics," "Epistemology," and "Philosophy of Science." And for each section, an expert editor has written a provocative introduction offering insight and perspective into the philosophers' works. Rosen writes, "My intention has been to introduce the intelligent nonspecialist to the universality, but also to the urgency, of philosophy." If you seek such an introduction to Western philosophy, or a recap of what you learned years ago but have long since forgotten, Rosen's anthology is a thoughtful, readable, and well-organized place to start. <I>--Stephanie Gold</I> 426532 22 2 2000 The Examined Life: Readings from Western Philosophers from Plato to Kant total:3|4:2|3:1| 3 11 9 0 0 0 false false Sat Oct 03 16:00:21 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 03 16:00:33 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Thu Aug 20 14:45:52 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 20 14:45:52 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat Jul 25 11:33:35 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 25 11:33:35 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Mar 15 20:07:56 -0700 2009 Sun Mar 15 20:07:56 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Thu Dec 11 20:02:59 -0800 2008 Thu Dec 11 20:02:59 -0800 2008 4 0 false false Wed Nov 26 21:53:12 -0800 2008 Wed Nov 26 21:53:12 -0800 2008 0 0 false false Thu Oct 02 07:00:55 -0700 2008 Thu Oct 02 07:00:55 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Sat Nov 01 23:51:04 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 15 14:39:52 -0700 2008 Sat Nov 01 23:51:04 -0700 2008 4 0 false false Mon Jun 30 17:55:20 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 30 17:55:20 -0700 2008 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=437669