Rating: 
Summary: Best book that I own!
Review: This book was my most quoted book that I used on my way to a BA in Philosophy. This book will give one a solid foundation in Philosophy in about four to five hours. This is an Analytical philosopher's view point though.The book goes through the history in a very concise, sometimes oversimplified method. It is a quick read. It also boils down ideas in an excellent manner most of the time. I have to suggest that one should read the original philosophical text or a good reader to go further in a subject area. This book is a great jumping off point though. Good luck and Thanks for your time.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining But Could Have Better Explanations
Review: This book would be better titled "The History of Philosohy for Beginners." The book tells what the philosophers thought but often did not explain what their thoughts meant. In addition, I think more explanations of the questions the philosophers are trying to answer would be more helpful. It seemed that this book highlighted the answers of the individual philosophers without really explaining the questions they were trying to answer. However, I found that some of the questions were revealed when the book had a comic strip describe how another philosopher answered the same question. I did enjoy reading this book though, and after reading this I feel that I have a much better grasp of philosophy. On a syntax note, the author of the book used UK english (e.g. labor is written labour), so I got thrown off a few times, thinking there was a typo.
Rating:
Summary: An entertaining, quick juant through Western Philosophy
Review: What a wonderful little book. Philosophy for Beginners covers the full sweep of Western philosophy, from the earliest Greek thinkers through Derrida, in just under 200 pages. Even better, most of the material is presented in a comic-book format. With this little book it is truly possible to review the progress (?) of Western philosophy in an evening's read. Obviously the challenge for Osborne is to present something meaningful and intelligible about various thinkers and schools of thought in such a brief survey. And he does so in a way that is both fair, based on my knowledge, and refreshingly humorous. Even as a "not quite" beginner I found this little book enlightening. There are a few caveats. First, this is very much a survey of Western philosophy, which is not immediately clear from the title. Little attention is paid to other philosophic traditions. Second, some of the discussion of current thinkers is difficult to follow. But it is my sense that this has more to do with the complexity of what those thinkers are attempting and our lack of distance from their thinking. No doubt in a hundred years we will be able to do a better job of presenting what seems today to be plethora of different thinkers and approaches. But there is no reason to wait when you can get started with this fun little book.
Rating: 
Summary: More comics than philosophy
Review: While the addition of comics is a nice touch in explaining such a thick topic like philosophy, it seems there is more comics than there is philosophical explanations. Osborne's discussion is more lucid in the beginning when he discusses Greek origins on to Descartes, but later, his explanations on more modern philosophers is blurry. Rereading doesn't help. Overall, "Philosophy for Beginners" is a good place for beginners but it could have been more complete.
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