Amazon.com (ISBN 0802139175, Paperback)

Think of Zeno and the Tortoise as a toolbox for aspiring thinkers. Author Nicholas Fearn aims to leave readers with an array of handy instruments at their disposal, whether Ockham's razor, Hume's fork, or Nietzsche's hammer. "The object," he writes, "is to show not merely what the great philosophers thought, but to demonstrate how they thought." In addition to supplying readers with the building blocks of philosophical reasoning, Fearn offers a summary history of Western philosophy running from the pre-Socratics through medieval and modern philosophy and up to Derrida. Along the way students will encounter Zeno's reductio ad absurdum, the Socratic method, Cartesian demons, and a number of other elemental concepts drawn from the last 2,500 years of inquiry. The short chapters lack something in depth, but account for it with context and clarity aimed at the nonphilosopher. Zeno and the Tortoise is a sugarcoated introduction to the principal forms of philosophical reasoning that will be especially appreciated by newcomers to philosophy. --Eric de Place