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 Philosophical greatness: Introducing the very idea Stephen Hetherington Plato, Platonism, and the history of philosophy Lloyd P. Gerson Zhuangzi’s suggestiveness: Sceptical questions Karyn Lai Aristotle as systematic philosopher: Essence, necessity, and explanation in theory and practice David Bronstein Attention to greatness: Buddhaghosa Jonardon Ganeri Aquinas’s complex web Jeffrey Hause Descartes as a great philosopher: Comprehensive physics, mechanistic embodiment, and methodological systematicity Gary Hatfield Émilie du Châtelet on women’s minds and education Karen Detlefsen What’s so great about Hume? Don Garrett Is Kant a great moral philosopher? Allen Wood ‘How is metaphysics possible?’ Kant’s great question and his great answer Nicholas F. Stang Nietzsche: This time it’s personal Ken Gemes What makes Peirce a great philosopher? Cheryl Misak 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).