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Rating: 
Summary: Excellent introduction
Review: As a newbie to philosphy, this book serves as a great introduction. Not too many jargons, easy read.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent introduction
Review: As a newbie to philosphy, this book serves as a great introduction. Not too many jargons, easy read.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Short Introduction to the Way Philosophers Think
Review: I discovered this book as a high school student with some interest in philosophy, and I'm glad that I did. Warburton's book is essentially a textbook on philosophy for the absolute beginner, and it's a very good one. Indeed, I can't think of any introductory philosophy book I've read that provides one with a better example of what the study of philosophy is like. Other introductions to philosophy are usually of two sorts. One provides you with a fairly superficial account of the main ideas of the most famous philosophers, and the other consists of a philosopher presenting his or her own views in such a way that they're accessible to those without prior knowledge of philosophy. Books of both these sorts have value to those coming to philosophy for the first time, but neither gives an accurate picture of what it's like to study philosophy. Those of the first sort suggest that the study of philosophy is part of the study of the history of ideas, and this isn't the case. Philosophers are concerned with the work of great historical figures in their field. But they're concerned with this work as a repository of ideas and insights that are worthy of being defended today, and not only as evidence of historical trends in the study of their subject. And books of the second sort often fail to provide one with a sense of the range of arguments and positions available on any philosophical topic. The writers of these books are usually more interested in introducing the reader to their own views than in introducing the reader to philosophical thinking, and they're knowledgeable enough to know where the weaknesses in their views are and how to hide them (or at least avoid topics that are likely to bring these weaknesses to the reader's attention). Moreover, works of this sort tend to suggest that philosophy is a body of widely accepted views about certain subjects, and that is very misleading. Basically, the study of philosophy is the study of arguments, and this is a book about the sorts of arguments philosophers study. But what sorts of arguments are philosophers interested in? For the most part, they're interested in arguments people have given on topics where it's not clear we have the ability to settle disputes by scientific means. That is, philosophy tries to help us understand the world just by thinking about it. Or, at least, philosophy asks and responds to questions that are so general and abstract that it's not clear we can discover answers to them by going out into the world and observing something or conducting an experiment. (For better of worse, questions about what, exactly, philosophers study and what methods they should employ are questions that it seems only philosophy itself is suited to answer. And while philosophers tend to agree about which questions they should be thinking about, they disagree about just why those are the right questions and how one can go about answering them (if they think there are such answers).) What sorts of questions are these? Warburton focuses on the following: Does God exist? What is the nature of right and wrong? Can we know anything about the world outside our minds? How is the mind related to the body? What reasons, if any, do we have for thinking that science provides us with a true account of the physical world? Warburton's book discusses some of the most important and influential arguments philosophers have developed on these subjects along with the most important and influential objections to those arguments. The book's structure is actually rather simple: Warburton introduces a topic; he presents an argument for some important view on that topic; he then presents some objections to that argument; this is followed by the introduction of a new view that develops in response to those objections; he then presents arguments for this second views; then objections to this second view; and so on. What is especially exciting about this book is that everything extraneous is removed from its presentation of the ideas under consideration. It's one hundred and fifty pages of really interesting ideas (and other really interesting ideas formed in response to those ideas) presented as clearly and succinctly as possible, and it's extensive enough in its coverage to give you some sense of the range of possible that are available to people thinking about these questions. In less than an hour with this book, you can get an introduction to the most significant arguments philosophers have developed concerning, say, the existence of God. The book gives you just enough information to whet your appetite for more and to prepare you for study of these issues in more detail. Furthermore, and importantly, the book aims to introduce the reader to many of the major areas of philosophy, including including metaphysics, epistemology (the theory of knowledge), ethics, and political philosophy. I'd recommend this book to anyone looking for an introduction to philosophy.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Short Introduction to the Way Philosophers Think
Review: I discovered this book as a high school student with some interest in philosophy, and I'm glad that I did. Warburton's book is essentially a textbook on philosophy for the absolute beginner, and it's a very good one. Indeed, I can't think of any introductory philosophy book I've read that provides one with a better example of what the study of philosophy is like. Other introductions to philosophy are usually of two sorts. One provides you with a fairly superficial account of the main ideas of the most famous philosophers, and the other consists of a philosopher presenting his or her own views in such a way that they're accessible to those without prior knowledge of philosophy. Books of both these sorts have value to those coming to philosophy for the first time, but neither gives an accurate picture of what it's like to study philosophy. Those of the first sort suggest that the study of philosophy is part of the study of the history of ideas, and this isn't the case. Philosophers are concerned with the work of great historical figures in their field. But they're concerned with this work as a repository of ideas and insights that are worthy of being defended today, and not only as evidence of historical trends in the study of their subject. And books of the second sort often fail to provide one with a sense of the range of arguments and positions available on any philosophical topic. The writers of these books are usually more interested in introducing the reader to their own views than in introducing the reader to philosophical thinking, and they're knowledgeable enough to know where the weaknesses in their views are and how to hide them (or at least avoid topics that are likely to bring these weaknesses to the reader's attention). Moreover, works of this sort tend to suggest that philosophy is a body of widely accepted views about certain subjects, and that is very misleading. Basically, the study of philosophy is the study of arguments, and this is a book about the sorts of arguments philosophers study. But what sorts of arguments are philosophers interested in? For the most part, they're interested in arguments people have given on topics where it's not clear we have the ability to settle disputes by scientific means. That is, philosophy tries to help us understand the world just by thinking about it. Or, at least, philosophy asks and responds to questions that are so general and abstract that it's not clear we can discover answers to them by going out into the world and observing something or conducting an experiment. (For better of worse, questions about what, exactly, philosophers study and what methods they should employ are questions that it seems only philosophy itself is suited to answer. And while philosophers tend to agree about which questions they should be thinking about, they disagree about just why those are the right questions and how one can go about answering them (if they think there are such answers).) What sorts of questions are these? Warburton focuses on the following: Does God exist? What is the nature of right and wrong? Can we know anything about the world outside our minds? How is the mind related to the body? What reasons, if any, do we have for thinking that science provides us with a true account of the physical world? Warburton's book discusses some of the most important and influential arguments philosophers have developed on these subjects along with the most important and influential objections to those arguments. The book's structure is actually rather simple: Warburton introduces a topic; he presents an argument for some important view on that topic; he then presents some objections to that argument; this is followed by the introduction of a new view that develops in response to those objections; he then presents arguments for this second views; then objections to this second view; and so on. What is especially exciting about this book is that everything extraneous is removed from its presentation of the ideas under consideration. It's one hundred and fifty pages of really interesting ideas (and other really interesting ideas formed in response to those ideas) presented as clearly and succinctly as possible, and it's extensive enough in its coverage to give you some sense of the range of possible that are available to people thinking about these questions. In less than an hour with this book, you can get an introduction to the most significant arguments philosophers have developed concerning, say, the existence of God. The book gives you just enough information to whet your appetite for more and to prepare you for study of these issues in more detail. Furthermore, and importantly, the book aims to introduce the reader to many of the major areas of philosophy, including including metaphysics, epistemology (the theory of knowledge), ethics, and political philosophy. I'd recommend this book to anyone looking for an introduction to philosophy.
Rating: 
Summary: Very brief, very clear, very broad in scope
Review: Many philosophy introductions/surveys concentrate on what may be thought of as the purer philosophies of how we know things (epistemology), the nature of the external world and maybe a little bit of ethics (this is in my very limited experience), but Warburton chooses not to do this. In this incredibly short book (it may be 170 pages but there is not much on each of them) he surveys the philosophy of Art, Morals, Science, God, Politics, the mind, and the external world. He explains very briefly, but wonderfully clearly, the main ideas that have been raised in the past and in most cases, equally briefly but clearly, points out their weakness. All this is done while avoiding too many technical words, or historical figures, and with remarkable fairness to the different systems. Only in a few cases do you feel like he's tried to fit too much into too little a book. For this reason I give this book 4 instead of 5 stars, although ideally it would get 4.5. To conclude if you want a brief introduction to all the main branches of philosophy, this is the book for you, and if you are like me it will encourage you to read more. Your next step should be, in my humble opinion, a history such as Magee's `Great Philosophers' or Scruton's `Short History of Modern Philosophy'.
Rating: 
Summary: Hume-worship?
Review: Useful for a quick introduction to various topics, but the author obviously has a bone to pick with theism. Whereas most surveys begin with theories of knowledge or truth, Warburton starts with the topic of God - and presents a hopelessly biased, poorly-informed argument against God's existence. This is inexcusable, considering the wealth of debate freely available today on this topic. Can he really never have heard of William Lane Craig, J.P. Moreland, etc.? This shortcoming taints the rest of the book, but has the advantage of making you question his every assertion and argument, thus sharpening your thinking. But another annoyance - Hume gets a free pass! Hume is the last word on skepticism. Hume is unquestioned. Every other view is critiqued except Hume's. It's nauseating. Is this the state of academia today?
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