Monroe C. Beardsley (1915–1985)

This serves as a helpful introduction to aesthetic concerns. This was one of the texts I read for college, and I still occasionally consult it. In this collection of essays, Beardsley is clear and informed.

Spinoza, Kant, Rousseau, and Nietzsche are represented by substantial, and judicious, abridgments of major works (the "Ethics", "Critique of Pure Reason", "Social Contract", and "Beyond Good and Evil" respectively), while Descartes' entire "Meditations", the famous "Discourse on Metaphysics" and "Monadology" of Leibnitz, and the Introduction to "The Philosophy of History" of Hegel (which essentially comprises a book unto itself) are complete. Schopenhauer's "The World as Will and Idea" is show more also given about eighty pages, and the seldom-seen Fichte leaves a powerful mark with the Third Part of the "Vocation of Man". Fleeting but powerful selections from Pascal provide the dissent from the Age of Reason. Comte and Mach are, at least by my prejudices, footnotes today (their offerings, particularly the latter's, remain mostly unthumbed), but appendices of brief selections from Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche offer further elucidations of some of their key concepts and arguments (this volume makes for a particularly good introduction to Descartes and Kant). show less

Terrific. Instead of purchasing the separate writings of each philosopher, here is combined the essential works of each.

I suppose it says enough to say that this was one of the texts I required when I taught philosophy.