A Short Treatise On Great Virtues

Description

Much of the history of philosophy is the history of ethics. From Plato to Sartre, the great philosophers have returned to the central ethical question of how, particularly if we are not religious, we are to live good lives; how is it appropriate and virtuous for us to behave, both to ourselves and others? How are we to act when loyalty demands of us one response, honesty another? A phenomenal bestseller in France and now translated into twenty-four languages, A Short Treatise on the Great Virtues addresses these questions and is at once a return to the mainstream of much of the Western philosophical tradition and an utterly original exploration of the timeless human virtues.

In a country that reveres philosophers, Comte-Sponville is latest in a line of French star philosophers that runs from Sartre, through Derrida, Finkielkraut and Bernard-Henri Levy. Unlike the last three, his accessibility and refusal to fly in the face of common sense has made him famous across Europe.

Scandalously original; this book is a quest for wisdom -- Tzetan Todorov The great strength of this book is that it removes philosophy from abstract theorizing and deposits it where it belongs: in our daily lives and the world around us * Mail on Sunday * Clearly and often beautifully written... Comte-Sponville cleaves to the aim set out in his subtitle, which is to suggest that philosophy may aid us in the conduct of everyday affairs -- John Banville * Irish Times * That rare thing: a work of philosophy that is both readable and good... Its popularity is easy to understand... Precise, scholastic even, yet also passionate * New Statesman * A superior book for the layman... If only all Comte-Sponville's countrymen wrote as lucidly as he... A wonderful book that neatly turns the moral maze into a system of converging corridors * Spectator *