Title: Challenging but excellent introduction to ancient philosophy
Product review: Although written over 60 years ago, Copleston's masterly study remains perennially helpful, although it must be said it presupposes linguistic abilities or competencies in ancient languages that would be far less common today (a lot of untranslated Greek and Hebrew). There are no doubt simpler accounts around, but this repays careful reading and will take many students far beyond an elementary introduction. So far I've only covered the material on the pre-Socratics, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, but these really are the foundational thinkers for western philosophy. Copleston's own Thomist sympathies are clear but are not thrust upon the reader. Having these three volumes in one makes for a bulky book but the serious student of the hisotry of this discipline will readily see the advantages of tracing through the fundamental ideas of classical Greek philosophy in late antiquity and the Middle Ages (including the impact on Islamic thought).
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