I want to read a book introducing me to philosophy, can you recommend a good one?

[Scakat]

I want to tackle the great questions that humans inevitably ask. If you know of any great books, please let me know.

[feministwoman]

"From Socrates to Sartre"......google it

[Tim O]

what the bleep do we know, it's also a film, an easy way to get an over view of all the info, and see the realy amzing visuals, on wicky

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Bleep_Do_We_Know!%3F

one word of warning i dont sand by every thing that is said, good questions to ask, not allways the best answers, all the people they sight are experts, they are not all experts in what they are speaking of.

[ootmaheid]

If you are young I think one of the best books to read would be Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder and Paulette Moller. Introduces many of the great philosophers including Socrates, Descartes and Spinoza. A good book that most people who I have spoken to have enjoyed. Buy it for 1p second hand at Amazon.co.uk

[Sofia C]

I took an introductory course on philosophy last semester and we used this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Philosophical-Horizons-Introductory-Steven-Cahn/dp/0534518818

It has some good introductory readings by the major philosophers. If you find that one to be too challenging, you could try Philosophy For Dummies, which shouldn't be bad either.

[Old Guy]

Sparks Notes 101 philosophy notes

[Yaoi Shonen-ai]

Lot's of good suggestions here, but you said the magic word--"great."
The Syntopicon is volumes II and III of the Great Books of the Western World, and together those volumes are also called the Great Ideas of the Western World. It is only in the library.

The Syntopicon is the most respected of its kind. No editorial comments, short chapters 10 or so pages long, references to the rest of the books in the series, and organized by TOPIC.

Under each topic it briefly describes what each famous thinker had to say on the subject, and how they influenced each other. When you read any other book, including the great Will Durant, you must read his opinion.
TOPICS
Angel; Animal; Aristocracy; Art; Astronomy; Beauty; Being; Cause; Chance; Change; Citizen; Constitution; Courage; Custom and Convention; Definition; Democracy; Desire; Dialectic; Duty; Education; Element; Emotion; Eternity; Evolution; Experience; Family; Fate; Form; God; Good and Evil; Government; Habit; Happiness; History; Honor; Hypothesis; Idea; Immortality; Induction; Infinity; Judgment; Justice; Knowledge; Labor; Language; Law; Liberty; Life and Death; Logic; Love; Man; Mathematics; Matter; Mechanics; Medicine; Memory and Imagination; Metaphysics; Mind; Monarchy; Nature; Necessity and Contingency; Oligarchy; One and Many; Opinion; Opposition; Philosophy; Physics; Pleasure and Pain; Poetry; Principle; Progress; Prophecy; Prudence; Punishment; Quality; Quantity; Reasoning; Relation; Religion; Revolution; Rhetoric; Same and Other; Science; Sense; Sign and Symbol; Sin; Slavery; Soul; Space; State; Temperance; Theology; Time; Truth; Tyranny; Universal and Particular; Virtue and Vice; War and Peace; Wealth; Will; Wisdom; World