What This Essay Aims at

Abstract

See More

This book showcases philosophy for people with little time. Therefore, it’s very short, like Thomas Nagel’s Very Short Introduction to Philosophy (1987). Nagel, though, presents only questions discussed at his time in philosophy seminars in the Western world. He doesn’t introduce to the philosophy that once was a historical factor, that was hated and died for, that split into schools of which the two most important ones are fighting still today, the party that claims to be true philosophy, led by Plato, and the party led by Protagoras, today known as ideology. Nagel doesn’t mention ideology, nor any philosopher’s name.

To focus on history in a short introduction risks bias. What do you pick out? I scan history by following two questions that are widely considered typically philosophical, metaphysical, and the ultimate questions: What does it all mean? and What is real rather than illusionary? The meaning question was used by Nagel as the first title of his Very Short Introduction; I’m not alone in judging this question basic for philosophy. The reality question is no less basic; it precedes the meaning question, historically and logically. Note that moral philosophy and aesthetics don’t seem to ask one of these questions; so, I’ll have to argue why they are philosophical, regardless.