If you've always wanted to learn about philosophy but were too intimidated to get past the first word ending in "ism," Essentials of Philosophy provides simple explanations guaranteed to make philosophic ideas and concepts easy to understand. This entertaining book offers a broad overview of many diverse schools of thought from antiquity up through the present-day. In plain English, author James Mannion explains all of the great philosophies and even provides contemporary examples to put them in perspective. Interspersed are fascinating sidebars that offer helpful hints toward understanding complex concepts and little-known facts about the lives of great philosophers. Essentials of Philosophy delves into the minds of such fascinating philosophers as: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle Augustine and Aquinas Spinoza and Descartes Voltaire and Rousseau Mill and Nietzsche Russell and Sartre