Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    A Brief History of Thought: A Philosophical Guide to Living
    Unavailable
    A Brief History of Thought: A Philosophical Guide to Living
    Unavailable
    A Brief History of Thought: A Philosophical Guide to Living
    Ebook348 pages7 hours

    A Brief History of Thought: A Philosophical Guide to Living

    By Luc Ferry

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    Listen to the audiobook instead

    About this ebook

    NATIONAL BESTSELLER

    "Ferry's openness, energy, and charm as a teacher burst through on every page." —Wall Street Journal

    From the timeless wisdom of the ancient Greeks to Christianity, the Enlightenment, existentialism, and postmodernism, Luc Ferry’s instant classic brilliantly and accessibly explains the enduring teachings of philosophy—including its profound relevance to modern daily life and its essential role in achieving happiness and living a meaningful life. This lively journey through the great thinkers will enlighten every reader, young and old.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateDec 27, 2011
    ISBN9780062074256
    Author

    Luc Ferry

    Luc Ferry is a philosopher and the author of the national bestseller A Brief History of Thought. From 2002 to 2004 he served as France's minister of national education. He has been awarded the Prix Médicis, Prix Jean-Jacques-Rousseau, and Prix Aujourd'hui, in addition to being an officer of the French Legion of Honor and a knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. He lives in Paris.

    Read more from Luc Ferry

    Related to A Brief History of Thought

    Related ebooks

    Philosophy For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Why Science Should Stay Clear of Metaphysics: Meet the philosopher who revived anti-realism.

      Sep 8, 2016

      Philosophers of science are not known for agreeing with each other—contrariness is part of the job description. But for thousands of years, from Aristotle to Thomas Kuhn, those who study what science is have roughly categorized themselves into two ba

      11 min read

    • Article

      Ethical Dilemma

      Jul 29, 2019

      Ethical Dilemma
      2 min read

    • Article

      Deepfakes

      Sep 6, 2021

      Deepfakes
      1 min read

    • Article

      To Be Is To Be Perceived

      Nov 7, 2020

      To Be Is To Be Perceived
      1 min read

    • Article

      Yes, Determinists, There Is Free Will

      May 16, 2019

      It’s not just in politics where otherwise smart people consistently talk past one another. People debating whether humans have free will also have this tendency. Neuroscientist and free-will skeptic Sam Harris has dueled philosopher and free-will def

      10 min read

    • Article

      Identity

      Sep 6, 2021

      Two millennia ago, Greek philosopher and historian Plutarch wrote about a thought experiment on identity, The Ship of Theseus, in which every plank of wood on a ship is replaced over time. Philosophers were divided: some claimed that the ship “remain

      1 min read

    • Article

      This Essentially Meaningless Conflict

      Sep 22, 2017

      MARILYNNE ROBINSON’S accomplishments are impressive by any standard: she has won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and the National Humanities Medal, among other honors. But perhaps a better measure o

      8 min read

    • Article

      What’s Philosophy For?

      Aug 10, 2020

      What’s Philosophy For?
      4 min read

    • Article

      Scientists Have No Defense Against Awe

      Jun 12, 2016

      Eileen Pollack, author of The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys’ Club, hinted at the complexity of the relationship between science and the soul in a recent essay: “We need scientists who recognize the reality of this illusion we st

      5 min read

    • Article

      Think Yourself Better: 10 Rules Of Philosophy To Live By

      Feb 4, 2023

      The thing that separates human beings from other animals is our extraordinary capacity for complex, abstract thought. This is what has given rise to our diverse cultures, our scientific achievements, our ability to envisage the future and, hopefully,

      9 min read

    • Article

      Is Knowledge Power?

      Jul 30, 2018

      Is Knowledge Power?
      4 min read

    • Article

      Uncertainty

      Jun 6, 2022

      Until philosophers are Kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to

      2 min read

    • Article

      Change

      Oct 28, 2019

      Why should a change of paradigm be called a revolution? In the face of the vast and essential differences between political and scientific development, what parallelism can justify the metaphor that finds revolutions in both? One aspect of the parall

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Perception Of Something

      Nov 7, 2020

      A Perception Of Something
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Wisdom Of The Old Traditions

      Jun 24, 2021

      THE MODERN WORLD IS ON autopilot. We busy ourselves with frivolous entertainment — chain-dating included — and the fanatical pursuit of material gain. We slog away, neglecting family and friends, and burn ourselves out young. Rarely, if ever, do we s

      4 min read

    • Article

      Herbert Spencer’s Principle of Equal Freedom: Is It Well Grounded?

      Sep 1, 2020

      During the mid-to late nineteenth century, Herbert Spencer was the most widely read philosopher in the world. A large part of his appeal was owing to his ambition of providing a complete and comprehensive account of human reality based on scientific

      38 min read

    • Article

      From BR Ambedkar’s preface to The Untouchables: Who Were They and Why They Became Untouchables?

      Nov 9, 2019

      … what annoys one is the intolerance of the Brahmin scholar towards any attempt to expose the Brahmanic literature. He himself would not play the part of an iconoclast even where it is necessary. And he would not allow such non-Brahmins as have the c

      4 min read

    • Article

      How ISIS Broke My Questionnaire

      Mar 29, 2018

      I walk into Starbucks in Achrafieh, Beirut and feel all eyes on me. I tug at my top self-consciously, probably making things worse, and wonder a) do I look like an easy Westerner; b) do I look like a ragamuffin (in comparison to the groomed Lebanese)

      13 min read

    Reviews for A Brief History of Thought

    4/5

    128 ratings10 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      I liked the book and learned quite a bit about philosophy. It was good to better understand the great thinkers of the past and present. I never saw philosophy as way to seek for salvation.
    • 5/5
      It's great. I like it
    • 5/5
      good
    • 4/5
      *it is great
    • 5/5
      Illuminating on the ancient (and Biblical) connection of humanity with cosmos, and the modern disconnection. I've never seen the issue so clearly put before. Hannah Arendt may also deal with the alienation so humans are cosmic orphans disconnected.
    • 5/5
      An excellent telling of a classic story. 10 stars if I could.
    • 5/5
      Great overview of the giants of philosophy in a succinct fashion including many excerpts. Author could have been a little less liberal in his use of dependent clauses (it was hard to highlight a thought in under three lines). Despite the long sentences, it made for an enlightening read.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      cndbdffdbdbdbbfbfb
    • 4/5
      Clearly written and translated broad entry into the world of Western philosophy. Not really all history. The last 10% or so is the author's thoughts of what happens next. Nevertheless, excellent for a beginner to get a feeling for the major epochs of thought from Ancient Greece to Christianity to humanism to deconstruction. If you have already read original texts in these areas (Plato, Kant, Nietzsche), then you probably don't need this.
    • 4/5
      The book I read was entitled A Brief History of Thought by Luc Ferry. This book goes through the history of deep thinking from Socrates and Plato to much earlier writers of philosophy such as Nietzsche, the book explains how religion affected philosophy and philosophies finer points. The cover has a book on it that looks older and says a philosophical guide to living, but the cover doesn’t have much appeal. I would suggest anyone that is interested in philosophy to read this book because it explains philosophy from its beginning through the changes made to it in history, and is a perfect book for any beginners in this field.