History of Philosophy

Research in the History of Philosophy

• A Short History of Nearly Everything by: Bill Bryson
  

• The 48 Laws of Power by: Robert Greene
  

• Mind: A Brief Introduction (Fundamentals of Philosophy) by: John R. Searle
  

• The Ancestor's Tale : A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution by: Richard Dawkins
  

• Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity by: Nancy R. Pearcey, Phillip E. Johnson
  

• Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy by: Jostein Gaarder
  

• The Tao of Pooh by: Benjamin Hoff
  

• Freethinkers : A History of American Secularism by: Susan Jacoby
  

• The Communist Manifesto by: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels
  

• The Golden Ratio : The Story of PHI, the World's Most Astonishing Number by: MARIO LIVIO
  

The Beginnings of Philosophy

Western Traditions

For Western Philosophy, many historians flag the beginning of the timeline at around 585 B.C.E. with Thales, the Greek philosopher who is said to have believed that "All is Water..."  Thales is considered to be one of the "Presocratic" philosophers, whose writings come down to us in mere fragments.  Thus to say that Thales, for example, believed that "All is Water," is perhaps a terrible oversimplification due to the fact that we have very little of his writings to go on.  Nevertheless, the fragments of the Presocratics are extremely thought provoking texts that play with the mind in ways that often lead to great interpretive writing.

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• Presocratic Philosophy

Eastern Traditions

In the Jainist tradition, Parshva, a Jainist teacher, is said to have lived between 1000 and 600 B.C.E. And, for Buddhism, the Buddha is thought to have lived somewhere between  563 and 483 B.C.E.  In China, Confucius is thought to have lived from 551 B.C.E. to 479 B.C.E., and for Taoism, Lao Zi (also spelled Lao Tzu) is thought to have lived sometime during the 4th Century B.C.E.

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• History of Jainism
• History of Indian Philosophy
• History of Buddhism
• History of Taoism