Conceived originally as a serious presentatin of thedevelopment of philosophy for Catholic seminary students, FrederickCopleston's nine-volume A History Of Philosophy has journeyedfar beyond the modest purpose of its author to universal acclaim asthe best history of philosophy in English. Copleston, an Oxford Jesuit of immense erudition who once tangledwith A.J. Ayer in a fabled debate about the existence of God andthe possibility of metaphysics, knew that seminary students werefed a woefully inadequate diet of theses and proofs, and that theirfamiliarity with most of history's great thinkers was reducedto simplistic caricatures. Copleston set out to redress thewrong by writing a complete history of Western Philosophy, onecrackling with incident an intellectual excitement - and one thatgives full place to each thinker, presenting his thought in abeautifully rounded manner and showing his links to those who wentbefore and to those who came after him.
