A A A A A i
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Introduction to the Chinese Editions of Great Ideas Penguin s Great Ideas series began publication in 2004. A somewhat smaller list is published in the USA and a related, even smaller series in Germany. The books have sold now well over two million copies and have popularized philosophy and politics for many people around the world particularly students. The launch of a Chinese Great Ideas series is an extremely exciting new development. The intention behind the series was to allow readers to be once long the editions of these books were created on the assumption that you were studying them in the classroom and that the student needed an introduction, extensive notes, a bibliography and so on. While this sort of edition is of course extremely useful, I thought it would be interesting to recreate a more intimate feeling to recreate the atmosphere in which, for example, Thomas Paine s Common Sense or John Ruskin s On Art and Life was first published where the reader has no other guide than the original author and his or her own common sense. This method has its severe disadvantages there will inevitably be statements made by each author which are either hard or impossible to understand, some important context might be missing. Henry Thoreau was writing his book and the reader cannot be aware iii
of the book s reception or influence. The advantages however are very clear most importantly the original intentions of the author become once more important. The sense of anger in Thomas Paine, of intellectual excitement in Charles Darwin, of resignation in Seneca few things can be more thrilling than to read writers who have had such immeasurable influence on so many lives, sometimes for centuries, in many different countries. Our world would not make sense without Adam Smith or Arthur Schopenhauer our politics, economics, intellectual lives, social planning, religious beliefs have all written down long ago. The Great Ideas series continues to change and evolve. In different parts of the world different writers would be included. In China or in the United States there are some writers who are liked much more than others. In the UK there are writers in the Great Ideas series who are ignored elsewhere. We have also been very careful to call the series Great Ideas these ideas are great because they have Good Ideas indeed some of the books would probably qualify as Bad Ideas. Many of the writers in the series have been massively so much to John Ruskin, Michel de Montaigne to Seneca. But others in the same series! But readers can decide the validity of these ideas for themselves. We very much hope that you enjoy these remarkable books. Simon Winder Publisher Great Ideas iv
The Symposium A A
!! Plato A Christopher Gill A Desmond Lee 3 8 http://www.commercialpress.com.hk 36 3 6 4 A 2017 7 1 1 2017 ISBN 978 962 07 5734 1 Printed in Hong Kong
A A A A A i
A A A A A A A ii
Introduction to the Chinese Editions of Great Ideas Penguin s Great Ideas series began publication in 2004. A somewhat smaller list is published in the USA and a related, even smaller series in Germany. The books have sold now well over two million copies and have popularized philosophy and politics for many people around the world particularly students. The launch of a Chinese Great Ideas series is an extremely exciting new development. The intention behind the series was to allow readers to be once long the editions of these books were created on the assumption that you were studying them in the classroom and that the student needed an introduction, extensive notes, a bibliography and so on. While this sort of edition is of course extremely useful, I thought it would be interesting to recreate a more intimate feeling to recreate the atmosphere in which, for example, Thomas Paine s Common Sense or John Ruskin s On Art and Life was first published where the reader has no other guide than the original author and his or her own common sense. This method has its severe disadvantages there will inevitably be statements made by each author which are either hard or impossible to understand, some important context might be missing. Henry Thoreau was writing his book and the reader cannot be aware iii
of the book s reception or influence. The advantages however are very clear most importantly the original intentions of the author become once more important. The sense of anger in Thomas Paine, of intellectual excitement in Charles Darwin, of resignation in Seneca few things can be more thrilling than to read writers who have had such immeasurable influence on so many lives, sometimes for centuries, in many different countries. Our world would not make sense without Adam Smith or Arthur Schopenhauer our politics, economics, intellectual lives, social planning, religious beliefs have all written down long ago. The Great Ideas series continues to change and evolve. In different parts of the world different writers would be included. In China or in the United States there are some writers who are liked much more than others. In the UK there are writers in the Great Ideas series who are ignored elsewhere. We have also been very careful to call the series Great Ideas these ideas are great because they have Good Ideas indeed some of the books would probably qualify as Bad Ideas. Many of the writers in the series have been massively so much to John Ruskin, Michel de Montaigne to Seneca. But others in the same series! But readers can decide the validity of these ideas for themselves. We very much hope that you enjoy these remarkable books. Simon Winder Publisher Great Ideas iv
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