A Concise History of Western Philosophy: From Platonism to Nihilism

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Telling the compelling story of western philosophy from Plato to Nietzsche, Mark Anderson presents a series of through-provoking interpretations of its major figures.

Anderson traces western thought through the conflict between the order of Being and the change of Becoming. Identifying Plato as the premiere philosopher of Being and Nietzsche as the peerless advocate of Becoming, the book tracks the transition from a realist worldview to the world of skepticism, relativism and nihilism we inhabit today.

Traveling from the ancient Greeks to modern nihilists, Anderson explores the thought of Parmenides and Heraclitus; Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus; Augustine, Aquinas, and Ockham; Descartes, Hume, and Kant. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in Platonism, its place in the history of western metaphysics, and its power to help us understand the ethical crisis of our postmodern world.

Author Bio

Mark Anderson is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Director of Classics at Belmont University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. He is the author of Pure: Modernity, Philosophy, and the One (2009) and translator of selections from Platos myths in Gods, Heroes, and Monsters: A Sourcebook of Greek, Roman, and Near Eastern Myths in Translation, edited by Carolina Lpez-Ruiz (2013).