[Eng] Brendan Wilson: “A Brief Introduction to Philosophy”

[English] Brendan Wilson: *A Brief Introduction to Philosophy*, translated by Weng Shaojun, Shanghai People’s Publishing House, June 2007, 26 yuan

Recently, a number of introductory books on philosophy and the history of philosophy have appeared on the market again. I have always been very interested in this kind of book. At the same time, perhaps I also hope to help later readers “verify” things a bit and improve my recommended reading list.

Up to now, the introductory philosophy books I still place first are the three published by Guangxi Normal University Press—*The Tree of Philosophy*, *Big Questions*, and *An Introduction to Philosophy*—and this book has not surpassed those three.

This book very clearly takes the route of Anglo-American analytic philosophy (whereas the previous three books, though also from the Anglophone world, are by no means so distinctive in style). As for the author’s grasp of philosophical themes, I am quite happy to endorse it—namely, the inquiry into “reasons.” Taking “reasons” as its main thread, the book in turn discusses issues in philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of language, and (analytic) philosophy of religion. As an introductory text to analytic philosophy, this book is not as concise and brisk as Thomas Nagel’s *Your First Book of Philosophy*, nor does its writing strike me as especially brilliant; but on the whole it is still a good introductory read. Different people have different preferences in philosophy, and perhaps some will like the style of this book even more.

July 28, 2007

Latest Comments

• mist

  2007-07-29 16:25:35 Anonymous 220.249.114.134 

  Thomas Nagel? There seems to be a book called *My First Book of Philosophy* that isn’t bad either
  ps. Next semester I’m planning to take ontology and Wittgenstein—interested?

• Gu Du

  2007-07-29 17:14:42

  It’s clearly *Your First Book of Philosophy*, not “my”~~~
  http://www.amazon.cn/detail/product.asp?prodid=zjbk215799&source=w-90003370
  Those two courses are both taught in English, right? I think I’d better just sit in, though come to think of it, I’m planning to sit in on way too many classes next semester already……

• mist

  2007-07-29 23:11:24 Anonymous 124.17.16.85

  He says “your,” so for the reader it becomes “my” then 🙂

Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.