A History of Philosophy, Vol. 1: Greece and Rome From the Pre-Socratics to Plotinus
Conceived originally as a serious presentation of  the  development of philosophy for Catholic  seminary students, Frederick  Copleston's nine-volumeA History Of Philosophyhas  journeyed  far beyond the modest purpose of its author to  universal acclaim as  the best history of  philosophy in English.Copleston, an Oxford  Jesuit  of immense erudition who once tangled with A. J.  Ayer in a  fabled debate about the existence of God  and the possibility of  metaphysics, knew that  seminary students were fed a woefully  inadequate diet  of theses and proofs, and that their familiarity  with  most of history's great thinkers was reduced  to simplistic  caricatures. Copleston set out to  redress the wrong by writing a  complete history of  Western philosophy, one crackling with incident  and  intellectual excitement -- and one that gives full  place to each  thinker, presenting his thought in a  beautifully rounded manner and  showing his links  to those who went before and to those who came   after him.