The Routledge History of Philosophy, which is now nearing completion, is a ten-volume work whose aim is to portray the development of philosophy, from its beginnings up to the present. It does not offer a mere catalogue of ideas; rather, its aim is to show how philosophy is a developing process of argument, whose present is rooted in its past. As Western philosophy may be said to have begun with the Greeks, the first two volumes of the series are devoted to ancient Greek philosophy. The first, published in 1997 and edited by C.C. W. Taylor, covers Greek philosophy from its origins up to Plato; the second, which is to be published in 1999 and is edited by David Furley, concerns Greek philosophy from Aristotle to Augustine, whose philosophy depends heavily on Plato.

A historian of philosophy has to balance two tasks. The first may be called purely historical, in that it places a philosopher within the context of his times. This context is both social and intellectual, and so the first two volumes discuss such issues as the culture of the Greek polis, within which Greek philosophy arose and in which its two greatest exponents, Plato and Aristotle, worked. They discuss, too, the mathematics and the natural science of the Greek world, from their beginnings in the 6th century B. C. up to the Hellenistic epoch. The second task may be called critical; here, the main emphasis is on the arguments of the Greek philosophers. Plato and Aristotle each receive several chapters; there are also chapters on the pre-Socratic philosophers and on Socrates himself, the Sophists, the Epicureans and Stoics, the ancient Sceptics ( in whose philosophy there has recently been a revival of interest ) and the neo-Platonists; the second volume ends as Christian philosophy makes its beginnings with St. Augustine.