Alain Renaut is a professor at the University of Paris-VI, in the chair of moral and political philosophy. The author of numerous works, a translator of Kant, he is a former member of the Higher Counsel on Education and of the committee that determines the official French school curriculum.

A complete introduction to the discovery and understanding of philosophy, in five concise, highly accessible volumes.

The series presents some of the greatest philosophers of all time from Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Kant and Hegel to such contemporary thinkers as Foucault, Rorty and Derrida. Each volume is made up of a series of lessons that can be read in any order, depending on the reader’s interests, needs and choices. Originally conceived for students in the final year of French secondary schools, the lessons, thematically organised in accordance with the curriculum, are the bases of all philosophical teaching in France.
Besides dealing with the history of philosophy, each book introduces the implications arising from some of the major issues of today, relating to biology, astronomy, ethics, anthropology and religion.


• Interweaving the history of ideas with contemporary intellectual questions, the author provides a panoramic view of the great philosophical issues, aimed at the curious general reader as well as the high-school or university student.