A History of Western Philosophy
Hailed as "lucid and magisterial" by The Observer, this book is universally acclaimed as the outstanding one-volume work on the subject of Western philosophy. Considered to be one of the most important philosophical works of all time, the History of Western Philosophy is a dazzlingly unique exploration of the ideologies of significant philosophers throughout the ages--from Plato and Aristotle through to Spinoza, Kant and the twentieth century. Written by a man who changed the history of philosophy himself, this is an account that has never been rivaled since its first publication over sixty years ago. Since its first publication in 1945, Lord Russell's A History of Western Philosophy is still unparalleled in its comprehensiveness, its clarity, its erudition, its grace, and its wit. In seventy-six chapters he traces philosophy from the rise of Greek civilization to the emergence of logical analysis in the twentieth century. Among the philosophers considered are: Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, the Atomists, Protagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Cynics, the Sceptics, the Epicureans, the Stoics, Plotinus, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Benedict, Gregory the Great, John the Scot, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, William of Occam, Machiavelli, Erasmus, More, Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, the Utilitarians, Marx, Bergson, James, Dewey, and lastly the philosophers with whom Lord Russell himself is most closely associated--Cantor, Frege, and Whitehead, coauthor with Russell of the monumental Principia Mathematica.
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Community Reviews
This felt like a fairly comprehensive account of the development of philosophy in the west, but it's hard to know how much I was able to absorb.
The book is written in a way that I felt was very scattered. Some sections have an incredible amount of seemingly unrelated detail, such as the relationships between each Pope and their contemporary kings/emperors throughout the period characterized by the power of the Catholic Church.
Each philosopher ends up being described in relation to the ideas before and after their work. I felt that this confuses the timeline and adds a lot of speculation about how the older philosopher may have responded to newer ideas.
The last section feels dated at times with references to current events, but the majority of the book addresses ideas old enough not to have this feeling.
As far as content is concerned, I found the book spent a lot of time on metaphysical theories, most of which seemed to have limited justification. Of course thats probably more of a commentary on the philosophers than the author.
In general, a more focused version of this book probably would have been closer to what I had personally hoped for. Spending more time was on fewer philosophers would have helped keep them all clear in my head and fully understand the ideas.
The book is written in a way that I felt was very scattered. Some sections have an incredible amount of seemingly unrelated detail, such as the relationships between each Pope and their contemporary kings/emperors throughout the period characterized by the power of the Catholic Church.
Each philosopher ends up being described in relation to the ideas before and after their work. I felt that this confuses the timeline and adds a lot of speculation about how the older philosopher may have responded to newer ideas.
The last section feels dated at times with references to current events, but the majority of the book addresses ideas old enough not to have this feeling.
As far as content is concerned, I found the book spent a lot of time on metaphysical theories, most of which seemed to have limited justification. Of course thats probably more of a commentary on the philosophers than the author.
In general, a more focused version of this book probably would have been closer to what I had personally hoped for. Spending more time was on fewer philosophers would have helped keep them all clear in my head and fully understand the ideas.
I thought I would feel smarter than I do when I finished this book. Nonetheless an interesting review of the classical philosophers. I don't think it would have killed him to throw in at least one woman, at a minimum with reference to western feminist philosophy, especially considering he included some not terribly deep political philosophers (who weren't necessarily concerned with consciousness or the cosmos but only political realities). I know this suggestion makes me sound like a millennial, but I assure you I'm not.
Bertrand correctly predicted that science would take over a lot of the inquiries on reality- as it has in consciousness and the cosmos, though he wasn't correct that, as in theoretical physics, it would never be based in thought experiments. I wish someone wrote a summary of philosophers and their central ideas picking up where Russell left off.
Bertrand correctly predicted that science would take over a lot of the inquiries on reality- as it has in consciousness and the cosmos, though he wasn't correct that, as in theoretical physics, it would never be based in thought experiments. I wish someone wrote a summary of philosophers and their central ideas picking up where Russell left off.
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