Was Socrates really the saintly figure he became for later philosophy? Why is it doubtful that Descartes ever really uttered, 'I think, therefore I am'? And what did Sartre ever have against waiters, anyway? This title examines the biographical details of history's greatest philosophers and highlights their contributions to the field.

By examining the seeming trivialities of philosophers' lives - and skewering a few cherished myths along the way - "Philosophical Tales" provides us with illuminating insights that will encourage a more active, critical way of thinking. Blaise Pascal may have put it best when he said, 'To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher'.

Forward!.How to Use this Book.Philosophical Illustrations.The Tales.I The Ancients.1 Socrates the Sorcerer (469-399 bce).2 The Different Forms of Plato (ca. 427-347 bce).3 Aristotle the Aristocrat (384-ca. 322 bce).II More Ancients.4 Lao Tzu Changes into Nothing (6th-5th c. bce).5 Pythagoras Counts Up to Ten (ca. 570-495 bce).6 Heraclitus Chooses the Dark Side of the River (ca. 5th c. bce).7 Hypatia Holds Up Half of the Sky (ca. 370-415 ce).III Medieval Philosophy.8 Augustine the Hippocrite (354-430 ce).9 St. Thomas Aquinas Disputes the Existence of God (1225-1274).IV Modern Philosophy.10 Descartes the Dilettante (1596-1650).11 Hobbes Squares the Circle (1588-1679).12 Spinoza Grinds Himself Away... (1632-1677).V Enlightened Philosophy.13 John Locke Invents the Slave Trade (1632-1704).14 The Many Faces of David Hume (1711-1776).15 Rousseau the Rogue (1712-1778).16 Immanuel Kant, the Chinaman of Konigsburg (1724-1804).VI The Idealists.17 Gottfried Leibniz, the Thinking Machine (1646-1716).18 Bishop Berkeley's Bermuda College (1685-1753).19 Headmaster Hegel's Dangerous History Lesson (1770-1831).20 Arthur Schopenhauer and the Little Old Lady (1788-1860).VII The Romantics.21 The Seduction of Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855).22 Mill's Poetical Turn (1806-1873).23 Henry Thoreau and Life in the Shed (1817-1862).24 Marx's Revolutionary Materialism (1818-1883).VIII Recent Philosophy.25 Russell Denotes Something (1872-1970).26 The Ripping Yarn of Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951).27 Heidegger's Tale (and the Nazis) (1889-1976).28 Benjamin Lee Whorf and the Color Pinker (ca. 1900-1950).29 Being Sartre and Not Definitely Not Being Beauvoir (1905-1980 and not 1908-1986).30 Deconstructing Derrida (1930-2004).Scholarly Appendix: Women in Philosophy, and Why There Aren't Many.Key Sources and Further Reading.Acknowledgments.Index