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Catalogue no: NA334412D
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Review from The Guardian

If, like learning Italian or playing the piano, philosophy is something you’ve been meaning to study for years but never got round to, this has to be the way to start. Be warned. As simply as Craig writes, getting to grips with the five aggregates of Buddhism or the Socratic interpretation of ethical consequentialism is not easy. ‘Never think that you have got a philosopher sorted out just because you can say what -ism he represents,’ Craig advises. Where this often baffling but agreeably challenging introduction succeeds is in encouraging you to find out more about Plato, Descartes, Hume, Nietzsche et al for yourself. Touching briefly, for instance, on the Hegelian phenomenon, he tells us that it inspired two significant opposition movements – existentialism, spearheaded by Kierkegaard in Denmark, and in Britain the analytical school of Moore, Russell and Wittgenstein. ‘It took heavyweights with an alternative on offer to take people’s minds off Hegel, and even then the effect was only partial, local and temporary,’ he writes almost in passing, before launching into heavy-duty Hegelian metaphysics. It left me itching to know exactly what Kierkegaard, Russell and Wittgenstein had against the poor fellow and why people’s minds had to be taken off him.

Review from AudioFile Magazine

Professor Craig, who teaches philosophy at Cambridge, gives the listener a lively and personal introduction to philosophy. Using an informal style, the author presents philosophy as a means of understanding ourselves, our world and how it works, and how we should interact with it. Using examples from numerous philosophers and other intellectuals, he shows us how each of them addresses these concerns in different ways. Maurice West does well in performing this work. He has a somewhat staccato delivery that is quite lively for such an academic subject. He reads as one who enjoys the discussion and the discovery of the concepts presented.

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