This book is no less than a guide to the whole of Western philosophy-the ideas that have undergirded our civilization for two-&-a-half thousand years Anthony Kenny tells the story of philosophy from ancient Greece through the Middle Ages & the Enlightenment into the modern world He introduces us to the great thinkers & their ideas starting with Plato Aristotle & the other founders of Western thought In the second part of the book he takes us through a thousand years of medieval philosophy & shows us the rich intellectual legacy of Christian thinkers like Augustine Aquinas & Ockham Moving into the early modern period we explore the great works of Descartes Hobbes Locke Leibniz Spinoza Hume & Kant which remain essential reading today In the nineteenth & twentieth centuries Hegel Mill Nietzsche Freud & Wittgenstein again transformed the way we see the world Running though the book are certain themes which have been constant concerns of philosophy since its early beginnings the fundamental questions of what exists & how we can know about it; the nature of humanity the mind truth & meaning; the place of God in the universe; how we should live & how society should be ordered Anthony Kenny traces the development of these themes through the centuries we see how the questions asked & answers offered by the great philosophers of the past remain vividly alive today Anyone interested in ideas & their history will find this a fascinating & stimulating read