Western Philosophy: An Anthology provides the most comprehensive and authoritative survey of the Western philosophical tradition from ancient Greece to the leading philosophers of today. In 144 substantial and carefully chosen extracts, the volume covers all the main branches of philosophy - theory of knowledge and metaphysics, philosophy of mind, religion and science, moral philosophy (theoretical and applied), political theory and aesthetics. Chronologically and thematically arranged, the readings are introduced and linked together by a lucid philosophical commentary which guides the reader through the key arguments. For this new edition, all the existing sections have been updated with additional contemporary extracts, and two completely new sections on logic and language, and philosophy and the meaning of life have been included. This outstanding text will support a wide variety of introductory courses in philosophy, as well as providing more advanced students with an indispensable collection of classic source materials.

John Cottingham is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading. He is the author of many books including Rationalism (1984), Descartes (1986), The Rationalists (1988), Philosophy and the Good Life (1998), and On the Meaning of Life (2003), and is co-translator of The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. He was from 1991–5 Chairman of the British Society for the History of Philosophy, and is (since 1993) editor of Ratio, the international journal of analytic philosophy.