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Distilled from Donald Palmer's more than thirty years of experience, Looking at Philosophy exemplifies his very successful approach to teaching the introductory course. The text is the story of the discovery and development of philosophy in the Western world, from its beginnings in ancient Greece to our own time. The author has not tried to exhaust all the known information but rather has presented the key ideas in ways that make them understandable and interesting to learners today. Through the use of humor and nearly 400 drawings, charts, and diagrams, serious philosophical topics come alive for the reader without compromising the importance of the subject matter. In the author's words, "This book takes philosophy seriously, but not gravely." Looking at Philosophy also can be customized (as a print or ebook) to include selections from Discourses, McGraw Hill's collection of more than 450 classical and contemporary philosophy readings.
About the author
Donald Palmer received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of California Berkeley and his Doctorate of Philosophy and Letters at the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain. He has published a number of philosophy books, including Looking at Philosophy, Does the Center Hold?, Why It’s Hard to Be Good, and, more popularly, Kierkegaard for Beginners, Sartre for Beginners, and Structuralism and Post-Structuralism for Beginners. He has recently completed a manuscript on Don Quixote titled Philosophy and Madness in La Mancha. He taught for many years at the College of Marin in California and finished his teaching career at North Carolina State University. He and his wife divide their time among North Carolina, the San Francisco Bay Area, and the Lot Valley in Southwestern France.
