As everyone is urgently posting their Christmas presents in the hope they arrive in time may I suggest for those in need of inspiration a book by my friend Madsen Pirie? It is entitled 101 Great Philosophers and is only just over 200 pages so can be read in a day. Afterwards youneed have no fear of finding yourself embarrassed at intellectual dinner parties. No longer need you worry if instructed to pick up Oliver Letwin from the station to attend your constituency annual dinner as to what to discuss on the car journey to the hotel.
Do any living philosophers feature? Only one: Noam Chomsky, the US left-wing writer and linguistic philosopher. There was speculation during the book's preparation that by the time it emerged, even he might have "joined the great majority." "But he's still alive," Pirie points out, with perhaps just a tinge of regret in his voice. The first to be included is Thales who lived from 624-527 BC. There is a bit of a gap between Saint Augustine of Hippo (AD354-430) and St Anselm (1033-1109). Did half a millennium really pass without anyone having any interesting ideas?
Pirie is President of the Adam Smith Institute so we know which team he is on. Naturally his team get plenty of entries (Robert Nozick, Friedrich Hayek, John Stuart Mill, Frederic Bastiat, Thomas Jefferson, Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, David Hume.) But the bad guys are there too - Karl Marx for instance. Pirie manages to provide a remarkably lucid and concise explanation of all their big ideas. he also includes anecdotes about them.
Are there any politicians in the list? Only one: the Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius (played by Richard Harris in the movie, Gladiator). He wrote very elegant philosophy, but passed the empire to his corrupt and dissolute son Commodus (played by Joachim Phoenix), under whom the empire collapsed into ruin.
It's very much a book for the modern age, when people want concentrated accurate information they can absorb quickly. For those without the patience to plough through endless tomes we can be grateful that Pirie has done it for us.