What Makes a Philosopher Great?

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).

• CONTENTSPreface and acknowledgementsList of contributors Philosophical greatness: Introducing the very idea Stephen Hetherington Plato, Platonism, and the history of philosophyLloyd P. Gerson Zhuangzi’s suggestiveness: Sceptical questionsKaryn Lai Aristotle as systematic philosopher: Essence, necessity, and explanation in theory and practiceDavid Bronstein Attention to greatness: BuddhaghosaJonardon Ganeri Aquinas’s complex webJeffrey Hause Descartes as a great philosopher: Comprehensive physics, mechanistic embodiment, and methodological systematicityGary Hatfield Émilie du Châtelet on women’s minds and educationKaren 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 answerNicholas F. Stang Nietzsche: This time it’s personalKen Gemes What makes Peirce a great philosopher?Cheryl Misak Wittgenstein’s un-ruley solution to the problem of philosophyDavid Macarthur

"What is the difference between a merely good philosopher and a great one? Lists of the great (and usually dead) philosophers presuppose an answer to this question but it's far from obvious what the answer is. The distinguished contributors to this terrific volume advance our understanding of what great philosophy is and explain the greatness of some of the greatest philosophers."--Quassim Cassam, University of Warwick