Arts & Humanities, Philosophy
A History of Western Philosophy in 100 Pages
Description
About the Author
Table of Contents
In just 100 pages, Charles William Johns weaves the history of philosophy into a novel yet natural whole — one that refuses the rigid categories of past narratives. Rather than dividing thinkers into pre-established schools, this book reveals the deeper unity of philosophical inquiry, showing how philosophy has always been a process of self-correction. From the ancients to the cutting edge of contemporary metaphysics, it uncovers connections that would have been impossible to see even a decade ago. Accessible and profound, this short volume delivers a mind-shifting perspective on philosophy’s past, present and future.
Charlie Johns is a British philosopher, author, and musician based in Lincoln, UK. He is affiliated with Goldsmiths, University of London, where his work explores the intersection of German Idealism, speculative realism, and contemporary science.
His publications comprise After Speculative Realism (Bloomsbury, 2025), Hegel and Speculative Realism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), Object-Oriented Dialectics (Mimesis Press, 2022), and The Irreducible Reality of the Object (Springer, 2020), among others. In fiction, Malchus (2017), Outlook (2019), and The Nettleham Gentlemen’s Club (Wipf & Stock, 2021)—works noted by authors Julian Barnes and D.M. Thomas for their intelligence and originality.
Johns has interviewed public intellectuals including Noam Chomsky, Slavoj Žižek, Graham Harman, and Maurizio Ferraris. His writing spans both philosophical inquiry and narrative imagination, with a distinctive voice grounded in conceptual clarity and a fascination with the limits of thought.
A History of Western Philosophy in 100 Pages is his eighth book and the first to offer a concise yet integrative account of the philosophical tradition from antiquity to the present.
FOREWORD: PHILOSOPHY FOR EVERYBODY
PART ONE
FIRST METAPHYSICS:
ONTOLOGY, EPISTEMOLOGY & THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL METHOD
Detour One: The Problem of Appearance
Detour Two: Time
Back to Our Narrative of the History of Western Philosophy
Conclusion
PART TWO
ANTI-METAPHYSICS:
VITALISM, STRUCTURALISM & COGNITION
Vitalism
Structuralism
Cognition
The Problem of Emergence/Emergentism
Conclusion
PART THREE
THE NEW METAPHYSICS:
POST-STRUCTURALISM & SPECULATIVE REALISM
Against Universal Knowledge
Against Reason
Against Universal Truth (Perspectivism)
Post-Structuralism
Difference, Pre-Individual Singularities and Multiplicity
The Age of Difference
Hegelian Infinity
Hegelian Actuality
Speculative Realism and the Return of Kantian Noumena
Arche-Fossil
Radical Contingency
Meillassoux’s Realism
The Antecedence Principle
Cosmological Extinction & Absolute Nothingness
Withdrawal & Vicarious Causation
Undermining, Overmining & Individuation
Living Amongst Objects
Conclusion: Speculative Realism and Contemporary Science
Conclusion: Residual Realism
POST-SCRIPT:
TELLURIAN PHILOSOPHY
INDEX
Hardcover: 100 pages
Size: 15.24 x 22.86 cm
(6 x 9 in)
Published: September 2025
ISBN: 978-1-9996138-7-7
