This book is largely about other books. Its list will include works by, among others, Plato, Rousseau, Nietzsche, and Augustine. One of its purposes is to help you, the reader, learn a bit about what is usually called “the history of philosophy.” This phrase, however, is potenially misleading, for it suggests that Plato and company are now in the dustbin and that their books should be studied only because once they were influential. On this view, you should read them in order to become a well educated person who understands something about how the present emerged from the past. Of course, this is true. It is impossible to understand Western culture without having some background in the history of philosophy. But education in this sense is not the primary objective of this book. Instead, my task is convince you that these thinkers are as alive today as they were back then. For even in the age of the super-smartphone they have something to say. Their works articulate philosophical worldviews, rigorously connected trains of thought, that forge answers to the same questions that press us hard today. Even in the twenty-first century, a time convinced of its unique achievement, it is possible to recognize in a Rousseau or Augustine a kindred spirit.

This book has not been written for scholars. My assumption is that when you get to Chapter 1 you may well be picking up Plato’s The Apology of Socrates for the first time. But pick it up and read it thoroughly you should, at least if you wish to participate fully in the project on which we will soon embark. If you don’t, then you won’t be able to judge whether what I’m saying holds water or not.

My chapters will discuss short selections from several great works of philosophy. The authors we will read, however, have each produced a vast corpus, and so the picture I present of them will be severely truncated. Chapter 2, for example, will discuss only a few passages from Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. But he also wrote the Social Contract. At first blush, these two books seem to express very different views. It is the task of the Rousseau scholar to explain how they fit together, but not mine. Instead, I will concentrate only on a small chunk of the Discourse and extract from it Rousseau’s remarkable analysis of what it means to be a social being. The result will surely be an oversimplification (albeit, I hope, a responsible one). You are, of course, encouraged to read more of his work, and of the other philosophers we will study, and thereby fill out the picture on your own.

The chapters to follow will not be arranged chronologically. Instead, they will be organized around a series of questions that have generated intense debate over the centuries. Chapter 2, for example, will feature Rousseau going head to head against Aristotle, even though they lived two thousand years apart. I have two reasons for structuring the book in this manner. First, to show that the ideas it will put into play are not specific to the particular moment of history in which they were written. Instead, they are basic intellectual options and thus are living possibilities even today. To emphasize this, I will consistently use the present tense when speaking about writers who lived long ago. Second, my goal is to generate philosophical competition between divergent views. I will explain why, and what this means, in Chapter 1. Suffice it to say here that the purpose of this book is to invite readers to enter the fray. As the etymology of “competition” suggests, I hope that “together” (com) we will “seek” (petere) answers to questions that have inspired thinkers of the past and continue to inspire today.

With the exception of the first, each chapter in this book will pit two thinkers who disagree on a specific topic against one another. The first section of these chapters will state what the question at issue is, and suggest why it matters. The next two sections will each concentrate on a single book written by one of the two philosophers being discussed. The fourth and final section will offer some recommendations on how you might begin the process of resolving the dispute. It will sketch the kinds of conceptual steps that need to be taken in order to think through the issue in a serious way. It will present positive and negative aspects of both views in the hope that this will help you determine, even if just provisionally, where you might stand in the debate. This is important. You have a stake in the outcome of these debates, and only by realizing this, only by having some skin in the game, will you go full steam ahead in philosophical pursuit.

A final few words on mechanics. This book will contain a great deal of quoted material. Some of it will be dense and difficult. In order to assist you in identifying key ideas, I will highlight words, phrases, and sentences that are both clear and reflective of the author’s intentions. Think of my quotations as pre-underlined texts.

All the books we will read were written by men. When I discuss them I will typically use the male pronoun or the word “man.” I will do this only in order to reflect the authors’ sensibility, for they themselves largely conceived of their enterprise in masculine terms. By contrast, when I am speaking in my own voice – in particular, when I’m giving examples (and there will be many) – I will do what comes most naturally to me: use male and female pronouns. In thinking about philosophy, and imagining concrete cases and scenarios to illustrate the abstract ideas I struggle to explain, it never occurs to me that I am speaking exclusively about or to men.

All quotations will be followed (in parentheses) by the page numbers of the works I have cited. The relevant bibliographic information on them is contained in the “Works Cited” section found at the end of the book. It will also refer you to alternative translations, including ones available online. Some brief notes are included, the main purpose of which is to provide suggestions for further reading, as well as some ancillary comments that might be helpful in grappling with the material. This book is an introduction – better yet, it is an invitation – and the notes are meant to provide a resource for your future studies.

Good luck.