An Illustrated Brief History of Western Philosophy

I had to order this for a class and I'm happy I did. It's an accessible text and fills in a lot of holes left by other books of its nature.

Kenny’s book is a concise chronological introduction to the great minds of philosophical thought through the ages. There were a few explanations of theories that were not particularly clear and could have been helped with illustrations or perhaps an alternative approach to explain it.

An excellent overview of Western philosophy that covers all the usual suspects and some not so usual. Although the introduction purports that this book is accessible for the philosophy newbie, it is not. It is more appropriate for someone who has already been immersed to some extent in the philosophical conversation. Many of the ideas expounded are difficult to follow, and passages must be read a good number of times. I found the ideas particularly challenging when the author covered formal logic. In any case, the book is very much worth exploring. Kenny explores many sides of each philosopher's thinking, often calling out the fundamental errors when they exist. Some of the philosophers who are usually not included in this kind of overview are Abelard, St. Bonaventure and Thomas Reid. Kenny's writing is sometimes challenging in itself, but for the most part is fairly accessible, even to the uninitiated But again, he takes on many of the challenging questions posed by philosophers, and delves into them at levels that are challenging themselves. In the end, however, one feels like one had a good intellectual workout.

I bought this as a gift for my 23 year old son. So far he loves it!!! He is not one to over rate things.