What Makes a Philosopher Great? Thirteen Arguments for Twelve Philosophers

This book is inspired by a single powerful question. What is it to be great as a philosopher? No single grand answer is presumed to be possible; instead, rewardingly close studies of philosophical greatness are developed. This is a scholarly yet accessible volume, blending metaphilosophy with the long history of philosophy and traversing centuries and continents. The result is a series of case studies by accomplished scholars, each chapter trying to understand and convey a particular philosopher?s greatness:

Lloyd P. Gerson on Plato

Karyn Lai on Zhuangzi

David Bronstein on Aristotle

Jonardon Ganeri on Buddhaghosa

Jeffrey Hause on Aquinas

Gary Hatfield on Descartes

Karen Detlefsen on du Châtelet

Don Garrett on Hume

Allen Wood on Kant (as a moral philosopher)

Nicholas F. Stang on Kant (as a metaphysician)

Ken Gemes on Nietzsche

Cheryl Misak on Peirce

David Macarthur on Wittgenstein

This also serves a larger philosophical purpose. Might we gain increased clarity about what philosophy is in the first place? After all, in practice we individuate philosophy partly through its greatest practitioners? greatest contributions.

The book does not discuss every philosopher who has been regarded as great. The point is not to offer a definitive list of The Great Philosophers, but, rather, to learn something about what great philosophy is and might be, from illuminated examples of past greatness.

CONTENTS

Preface and acknowledgements

List of contributors

1. Philosophical greatness: Introducing the very idea

Stephen Hetherington

2. Plato, Platonism, and the history of philosophy

Lloyd P. Gerson

3. Zhuangzi’s suggestiveness: Sceptical questions

Karyn Lai

4. Aristotle as systematic philosopher: Essence, necessity, and explanation in theory and practice

David Bronstein

5. Attention to greatness: Buddhaghosa

Jonardon Ganeri

6. Aquinas’s complex web

Jeffrey Hause

7. Descartes as a great philosopher: Comprehensive physics, mechanistic embodiment, and methodological systematicity

Gary Hatfield

8. Émilie du Châtelet on women’s minds and education

Karen Detlefsen

9. What’s so great about Hume?

Don Garrett

10. Is Kant a great moral philosopher?

Allen Wood

11. ‘How is metaphysics possible?’ Kant’s great question and his great answer

Nicholas F. Stang

12. Nietzsche: This time it’s personal

Ken Gemes

13. What makes Peirce a great philosopher?

Cheryl Misak

14. Wittgenstein’s un-ruley solution to the problem of philosophy

David Macarthur

Stephen Hetherington is Professor of Philosophy at the University of New South Wales. His publications include Epistemology’s Paradox (1992), Good Knowledge, Bad Knowledge (2001), How to Know (2011), and Knowledge and the Gettier Problem (2016).