The great conversation

What Hacker News says

1. diego_moitaDec 2020
   For introductions on broad subjects I always go to textbooks, the kind used in Universities in introductory courses.

   On philosophy a good one used in many universities is "The Great Conversation" by Normam Melchert.

   Bonus tip: try to find it used online. It will be a lot cheaper.

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2. barry-cotterOct 2016
   From the author's Best Textbooks On Every Subject

   Subject: History of Western Philosophy

   Recommendation: The Great Conversation, 6th edition, by Norman Melchert

   Reason: The most popular history of western philosophy is Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy, which is exciting but also polemical and inaccurate. More accurate but dry and dull is Frederick Copelston's 11-volume A History of Philosophy. Anthony Kenny's recent 4-volume history, collected into one book as A New History of Western Philosophy, is both exciting and accurate, but perhaps too long (1000 pages) and technical for a first read on the history of philosophy. Melchert's textbook, The Great Conversation, is accurate but also the easiest to read, and has the clearest explanations of the important positions and debates, though of course it has its weaknesses (it spends too many pages on ancient Greek mythology but barely mentions Gottlob Frege, the father of analytic philosophy and of the philosophy of language). Melchert's history is also the only one to seriously cover the dominant mode of Anglophone philosophy done today: naturalism (what Melchert calls "physical realism"). Be sure to get the 6th edition, which has major improvements over the 5th edition.

   http://lesswrong.com/lw/3gu/the_best_textbooks_on_every_subj...

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3. guidoismJan 2026
   Nice! I've been using Claude Code and ChatGPT for something similar. My inspiration is Adler's concept of The Great Conversation and Adler's Propædia. I've been able to jump between books to read about the same concept from different author's perspectives.
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