Customer Reviews (2)

Excellent Introduction to the History of Church Education
In my humble opinion, Gangel has written an excellent title on the history and philosophy of church history and how it has changed over the years.

Some of the topics include:

1.Greek Philosophy and Its Impact on Christian Thought.
2.Church Education in the Early Church.
3.Renaissance Man and Cultural Renewal.
4.Reformation Dawn and the Light of Christian Education.
5.Pietism and the Moravians.
6.New England and the Puritans.
7.Horace Busnell and the Sunday School Movement.
8.Psychologism and Evangelicalism.

Again, these are only a few of the topics.The book contains a total of 18 chapters, so there are other topics concerning Christian Education over years.

An excellent title for understanding the changing nature of Christian Education.Ready and enjoy.

Recommended!

The History and Philosophy of Christian Education
Excellent source of the history of education (since originally educationwas for the purpose of learning about God) from a Christian perspective. Well written and interesting to those who want to know about ChristianEducation.Well documented and good bibliography. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Wonderful as an introduction.
The text is a bit dated, I will be the first to admit, though so is the subject matter!However, the book is comprehensive and thorough, leaves out nothing of importance, and gives a good and balanced picture of not only the "what" but the "why" of medieval thinking. If you are an old pro at Aquinas et al, this is a good historical overview to what you already know, maybe in a more concise and intelligent format than you are used to seeing in books on medieval philosophy.If you are a student, and especially if you are not all that familiar with what is going on with medieval thinkers, I can hardly recommend this short history any more highly.

I have little to add to the three excellent recommendations I reproduce below:

"What is most striking about the entire book is its just perspective and its fine balance between scholarly prudence and philosoohical suggestiveness in the presentation of the ideas and problems distinctive of medieval philosophy. . . . As a sketch of medieval philosophy it qualifies as something of a classic."--Philosophical Review

"The author carefully traces the influence of Greek philosophy and of the three great reigious traditions . . . on the great medieval scholastics.Professor Weinberg's book is a real contribution toward a sympathetic grasp of a tradition which he tells us must be retained and reexamined incessantly if we are to learn form the past."--Review of Metaphysics

"The style is straightforward and clear; the content is judiciously selected; the interpretations are intelligent, impartial, scholarly."--Speculum ... Read more

Book Description
Jewish philosophy is often presented as an addendum to Jewish religion rather than as a rich and varied tradition in its own right, but the History of Jewish Philosophy explores the entire scope and variety of Jewish philosophy from philosophical interpretations of the Bible right up to contemporary Jewish feminist and postmodernist thought. The links between Jewish philosophy and its wider cultural context are stressed, building up a comprehensive and historically sensitive view of Jewish philosophy and its place in the development of philosophy as a whole. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Excellent scholarly history of Jewish Philosophy
To the outsider, Jewish philosophy, like the religion of Judaism itself, can seem somewhat mysterious.Yet in the 20th century, many of the greatest philosophers came from Jewish backgrounds, such as Edmund Husserl, Edith Stein, Walter Kaufmann, Hannah Arendt and many others.Philosophy has had an interesting if complicated relationship to the Jewish faith and way of life, yet Philosophy is strongly indebted to the meditations of people like Philo, Moses Maimonides, Spinoza and others when it comes to deep philosophical questions, especially relating to the Philosophy of Religion.

This volume contains a number of essays written by leading scholars on Jewish philosophy, and ranges from Jewish Philosophy in the time of Philo Judeaus to Jewish philosophy in the 20th century.Scholars and students in philosophy, theology, comparative religion or those who are interested in Judaism will have a rich addition to their knowledge of Jewish culture and Philosophy.

Takes a lot of knowledge for granted
This massive book, consisting of contributions from 35 scholars, is obviously a valuable and learned resource for anyone interested in Jewish philosophy, and it contains much illuminating material.However, that it is "accessible to general readers as well as to scholars", as one of the blurbs on the back cover of the book reads, is true of only a few of its 39 chapters.The bulk of the book is certainly not suitable for anyone who is not already familiar with philosophy in general, with technical philosophical vocabulary in particular, or has a good knowledge of Judaism.In no way is this book comparable in approach and style with books written for the general public, such as Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy (or, for that matter, my own Philosophy and Living).Indeed, the style of writing can sometimes only be described as constipated.

True, it is difficult (though not impossible) to write lucidly for the general public about medieval philosophy.The medieval chapters acount for some 400 of the 900-odd pages of the book;and very tedious they are, as philosophers debate over and over again such questions as whether the world was created ex nihilo or not, whether God has attributes or not (some thinkers considering attributes a derogation to God's unity), and how Free Will can be reconciled with God's foreknowledge.

The trouble lies in the relationship between Philosophy and Theology.Aquinas differentiated between, on the one hand, "Revealed Theology", which starts with Revelation about God as an indisputable given and as the basis of Faith from which Reason then makes certain deductions, and, on the other, "Natural Theology", which starts with the experience of nature or created things and uses Reason to argue from that experience - a process which, for Aquinas, aims at - and, rightly used, must lead to -an intellectual knowledge of God.Many medieval Islamic and Jewish philosophers took the same line.Philosophy and Theology will part company when philosophers not only do not accept (as most medieval philosophers did) that the knowledge of God is the aim of philosophy, but actually use Reason to challenge the truth of revealed knowledge, including in extreme cases, the truth of the existence of God.Until that happens, however, it is not always easy to tell whether a certain argument is theological or philosophical.

The book under review raises this difficulty on occasions, but is then prepared to discuss as philosophy some positions which, to me at least, cannot be called philosophical at all.The most outstanding of these is the mysticism of the Kabbalah, the subject of a particularly obscure chapter (chapter 19) in the book.It is a legitimate philosophical position to show that certain parts of the Torah lend themselves to metaphorical interpretation so that they can correspond with Reason;likewise there is a legitimate philosophical case to be made that we need to allow for mystical experiences which are not subject to Reason.But to go beyond that and to describe as philosophical an exegesis of Biblical texts which depends on numbers or on letters to which numerical values are given is, to say the least, a distortion of the rational procedures which philosophy requires.

And what does it mean to describe any philosophy as specifically Jewish?It is most obviously Jewish when it concerns itself with matters that are peculiar to Judaism, such as the nature of God's Covenant with Israel.It is less uniquely Jewish when it applies the same philosophical concepts to Jewish sources (the Jewish Bible, the Talmud etc.) as Islamic philosophers apply to the Koran, the hadiths and the sharia.And what if the author is known to have been a Jew, irrespective of any specifically Jewish content in his philosophy?What about Spinoza, excommunicated by the Jewish authorities, consequently (as the chapter on him shows) evincing bitterness and hostility to Judaism, and developing a philosophy which has nothing to do with Judaism?

Spinoza arguably draws less on the thinkers of other traditions than any of the other philosophers mentioned in the book.I would argue that he is one of the four Jewish-born thinkers whose originality has massively influenced European civilization.(The other three, Marx, Freud, and Einstein, are not included in this book, the first two presumably because they are not considered philosophers.)What the book brings out very strongly is how all the other major post-biblical Jewish thinkers were influenced by the non-Jewish environment in which they lived and so by the thought of non-Jewish philosophers.It traces the influence of Hellenism on such as Philo of Alexandria;of the Islamic Aristotelianism of Al-Farabi, Avicenna and Averroës on Maimonides and the Maimonideans;of the Enlightenment on Moses Mendelssohn;of Hegelianism on the Wissenschaft des Judentums;of Kant on Samuel Rafael Hirsch and Hermann Cohen;of Herder and nationalism on Zionism.Only Maimonides, though himself influenced by Arabic philosophy, in turn exercised an appreciable influence over Thomist Christianity;and Spinoza, as I have already said, was central in shaping the Radical Enlightenment.

Spinoza could do this because in Holland the Jews were emancipated.Likewise there was briefly some relaxation of persecution in Renaissance Italy, in which context the Jewish Kabbalah was taken up by Pico della Mirandola and led to the development of a Christian Cabbalah.But these were exception between the time of Maimonides and that of Mendelssohn.During that period hardly any intellectual interaction between Jews and non-Jews took place.It was during that period that the Jews in most European countries were ghettoized and to some extent also ghettoized themselves intellectually, in that the rabbis at the time welcomed and reinforced this isolation.Although the ghettoes still existed in the time of Mendelssohn, he was himself accepted by the philosophers of the German Enlightenment;and once the ghettoes were abolished by the French Revolution, the fruitful interplay between Jewish and non-Jewish thought could again resume.

tough call
It's a daunting task to survey the whole of Jewish philosophy--one could write just as large a volume (934pp) on the medieval period alone. Nevertheless this book is a great summary of and introduction to Jewish philosophy, with the drawback that it doesn't bring any original texts (the same editors composed a Reader for that purpose). While it could be larger (for instance, the Hist. of Islamic Philosophy, of the same series, is a two-volume work) and both the contemporary and ancient periods should be expanded, I recommend it for anyone interested inJewish philosophy in general. For a volume presenting the background to and contexts of Jewish philosophy (which could usefully be studied along with this one), see the Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy, by the same editors. ... Read more

Amazon.com
What does philosophy look like? Can you take a picture of it? The Oxford Illustrated History of Western Philosophy may not answer these questions, but it manages to ask them artfully with just a hint of schizophrenia. Sometimes it is a concise but substantive account of the history of Western philosophy; other times it is a coffee-table book that lends itself to casual thumbing-through. Pause long enough to wonder at Kant's silhouette, Jeremy Bentham's infamous Panopticon, a photo of Machiavelli's writing desk, or the Ephesian wall painting of Socrates. The volume lives up to its name: there are over two dozen full-color pictures--such as Paul Gauguin's arresting painting Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?--and myriad black-and-white illustrations of all varieties.

Editor Anthony Kenny parses his history into just six chunks of philosophy--ancient, medieval, three flavors of modern, and political--but amazingly the book does not seem to skimp on details. The reader will find everything from a treatise on Pseudo-Dionysius to an explanation of Kant's Paralogisms of Pure Reason to an analysis of Wittgenstein's private language argument. The six contributors to this book are philosophical heavyweights, and their accounts are inevitably colored by their respective likes and dislikes. But in sum The Oxford History of Western Philosophy is first-rate scholarship that succeeds where almost all academic histories fail: it's fun! --Eric de Place Book Description
This is a uniquely authoritative history of philosophy for the general reader. Written by a team of distinguished scholars, it tells the story of Western philosophy from its ancient beginnings to the present day, emphasizing the intellectual context of its development.Philosophy has played a central part in the history of Western civilization. This volume offers a detailed account of the lives and works of all the major thinkers through the ages, including Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Hegel, and recent figures such as Russell, Sartre, and Wittgenstein.Key concepts, doctrines, and schools of thought from both the Anglo-American and Continental traditions are explored in a distinctive and accessible way.Personalities and ideas are brought to life as the book captures the richness and vitality of philosophy across a wide range of cultures and times.The contributors are all experts in their fields and each makes a sharply individualistic contribution. They write with awareness of the latest scholarship and present their material in a lively and intelligible way. They bring to their chapters not only deep understanding, but also enthusiasm and zest for their subject. The book is illustrated with over 150 colour and black-and-white pictures, chosen to illuminate and complement the text. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A journy into the minds of the greatest philosophers!
A marvel of a book! This wonderful book gives a detailed chronological insight of all the famous and influential philosophers in six parts- Ancient Philosophy, Medivial Philosophy, Descartes to Kant, Continental Philosophy from Fichete to Sartre, Mill to Wittgenstein and Political Philosophy. The authors breifly discuss the main philosophical issues of each period and those that propounded them. Some beautiful plates illustrate and help set the mood of each section.The book is well designed, easy to read and provides a comprehensive history of philosophy. It is also a great book to introduce yourself to the different eras in philosophy and to aquaint yourself with the works of the different philosophers, that is if you are a new reader in philosophy. An extended bibliography (well arranged) provides further information to other texts in philosophy. I must say this book is worth every dollar! ... Read more

Book Description
Conceived originally as a serious presentation of  the development of philosophy for Catholic  seminary students, Frederick Copleston's nine-volume  A History Of Philosophy has  journeyed far beyond the modest purpose of its author to  universal acclaim as the best history of  philosophy in English.

Copleston, an Oxford Jesuit  of immense erudition who once tangled with A. J.  Ayer in a fabled debate about the existence of God  and the possibility of metaphysics, knew that  seminary students were fed a woefully inadequate diet  of theses and proofs, and that their familiarity  with most of history's great thinkers was reduced  to simplistic caricatures. Copleston set out to  redress the wrong by writing a complete history of  Western philosophy, one crackling with incident and  intellectual excitement -- and one that gives full  place to each thinker, presenting his thought in a  beautifully rounded manner and showing his links  to those who went before and to those who came  after him. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (22)

Quite simply, excellent.
This is quite simply the most informative, concise, and accurate review and history of philosophy I have ever read.After reading even just one volume of this series you will feel confident enough to hold a discussion with even a learned scholar on the topic you have just read, whether it is volume one, on Rome and Greece, or volume two on the medieval philosophy or even modern philosophy.Think no more, buy this series, in its entirety, you will not be sorry.

Wrestling with the Great Thinkers - Greece and Rome
This is the first volume in Frederick Copleston's classic nine volume A History of Philosophy. Like all the volumes in this series, it is an exhaustive study of the period covered and presents the development of the philosophical thought of the period as an interrelated whole where trends ebb and flow as ideas are introduced and synthesized within the systems of the great thinkers of the time.

All of this is done within a framework where Copleston, as a professor in a Catholic seminary, is mindful of pointing out the elements that would become adopted within the framework of Christian philosophy and theology. Even though Copleston has a seminary audience in mind, he does not attempt to "Christianize" those who were not Christian nor launch polemical attacks against those ideas at odds with the Christian faith. He presents the philosophical ideas thoroughly and fairly and gives both the supporting evidence cited by supporters and the critiques by opponents. Also pointed out in detail is how each philosopher's work influenced contemporaries and later thought with, of course, special consideration of the influence for good or bad on Christianity.

In this volume, the subject is the philosophy of Greece and Rome. Copleston divides the book into five parts covering pre-Socratic philosophy, the Socratic period, Plato, Aristotle, and post-Aristoelian philosophy. A strength of his treatment is that the figures of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle no longer seem isolated giants but are shown to arise from the action and reaction in a whole line of Greek thinkers of which they are the most illustrious examples. And though they are deservedly given the greatest emphaisis, the work of other Greek philosophers are also given extensive coverage that is rarely found elsewhere.

When dealing with the three giants, Copleston thoroughly covers how each in succession influeced the other and how each in turn fleshed out ideas in their teacher and took them in a direction that would not have found favor with their mentor. The development of Socrates' questioning to Plato's ethereal world of forms to Aristotle's reaction in a more observationally based direction demonstrates the volatile mix of ideas as various thinkers fleshed out their theories in an intellectually stimulating environment.

There are also fascinating items in the lesser known philosophers of the period. Since Socrates did not author any works himself, his philosophy has primarily been communicated to us by his student Plato. It is interesting to note other students of his also wrote of his philosophy and much of the details present a somewhat different figure from that given in the Platonic corpus. Also of interest is the work in the post-Aristotelian philosophy where a mix of Neo-Platonism, Aristotelianism, and the philosophy of Hellenized Jews formed a basis for the exposition of the Christian faith in the precise technical language that would come to be used in the Ecumenical Councils.

For a thorough investigation of the history of Western philosophical thought and a wrestling with the great thinkers of the Western philosophical tradition, there is no better choice that Copleston's A History of Philosophy. For the Christian, in particular, who wishes to understand the interaction of philsophy and Christian theology, this work is unparalleled.

Still the best
I origially purchased, and read much of Copleston's history, when I was an undergraduate.Nearly 30 years later I find myself going back constantly for reference purposes.His writing clear and his presentation is well organized.Yes I find I need to pull out a dictionary now and then, but I welcome this challenge.

And, to one reviewer's point that Copleston adds to many foreign terms.I agree that he should have included more definitions - but believe the words are essential. Anyone who has studied classical Greek knows the importance of a particular word - even though Greek words do not always have simple, precise definitions.

The Best Introduction to Philosophy Ever!
Copleston's series, "The History of Philosophy", is quite possibly the best introduction to the history of philosophical thought that has ever been published and certainly the best currently in print.

You will be hard pressed to find a better collection of solid philosophical surveys in one place.The beauty of the series is that Copleston has clearly done his research on each period and each thinker of Western philosophy.

I cannot recommend this series any more highly.It is a must-have collection for anyone who is a scholar (professional or casual) of philosophy, theology or any of the arts.

If this isn't on your bookshelf, it should be!

Mixes in non-english text without translation
The one thing that annoys me about this book is the use of non-english words and phrases, without translation for those of those of us less educated folk.I can not fathom why the author would choose to make his already hard to read text even more indecipherable.

And yet, I plan to read his entire series.:) ... Read more

Book Description
Conceived originally as a serious presentation of the development of philosophy for Catholic seminary students, Frederick Copleston's nine-volume A History Of Philosophy has journeyed far beyond the modest purpose of its author to universal acclaim as the best history of philosophy in English.



Copleston, an Oxford Jesuit of immense erudition who once tangled with A.J. Ayer in a fabled debate about the existence of God and the possibility of metaphysics, knew that seminary students were fed a woefully inadequate diet of theses and proofs, and that their familiarity with most of history's great thinkers was reduced to simplistic caricatures.  Copleston set out to redress the wrong by writing a complete history of Western Philosophy, one crackling with incident and intellectual excitement - and one that gives full place to each thinker, presenting his thought in a beautifully rounded manner and showing his links to those who went before and to those who came after him. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

Who ever said that Medieval philosophy was supposed to be exciting?
Other reviewers have complained about Copleston's style. They say that it's boring, dry or hard to read. This may be true to an extent, but consider the topic. It's Medieval Philosophy. I don't know who would ever be able to bring such a topic down to the level of most ADD Westerners today (including the previous reviewer who has a "bachelor's degree" in philosophy. [sarcasm] Thankfully he recommended a comic book introduction to philosophy in place of Copleston).

At any rate, I thoroughly enjoyed the volume. If you are attempting to get an introductory grasp on Western Philosophy, then the Medieval period cannot be skipped. If we do skip this time period by jumping from Neoplatonism to Francis Bacon and Modern philosophy, then we will not completely understand what it was that Renassance and Modern philosophy were reacting against. I must admit that Copleston's work is not exciting to read for it's own sake. But, for me any dullness was overshadowed by the importance and necessity of the topic. I am almost finished with the the author's third volume and I am very glad that I had read this second one first. I have always read scattered references to Duns Scotus' thinking and Albert the Great, etc., but now I feel much more confident in evaluating what happened in the middle ages. Furthermore, I just read Jaroslav Pelikan's volume on the development of Medieval Theology. It was an excellent complement to Copleston.

The work was originally written for seminary students. I am one and I certainly believe that prior exposure to many of the theological topics and questions helped me through the book. However, anyone with a general philosophical/theological framework and enough motivation and patience will be delightfully pleased by the end of the book (and remember if you see a term or topic that you are unfamiliar with, then just look it up on Wikipedia!).

The bottom line is, if you are both motivated and interested, then buy and read it (and read it slowly). The content and concepts presented are not what we normally think and talk about. It took me three times as long as it would normally take me to read a book of this length! It's a helpful and concise introduction to the topic. Unfortunately, if you are a casual reader, then you'll probably fall asleep like Mr. "bachelor's degree".

(By the way, the reviewer who says that Copleston imposes Kantian ideas on Aquinas' thought aparently skipped page 388. Here Copleston explicitly argues that such a Kantian analysis of Aquinas would be wrongheaded. He writes "Thomist principles cannot be developed in such a way as to afford answers to subjective idealism and Kantianism; but one should not be guilty of the anachronism of making the historic Thomas answer questions with which he was not actually faced." And I don't think that very many people are in a hurry to read Etienne Gilson's detailed treatments unless they are already beyond an introductory work such as Copleston.)

Wrestling with the Great Thinkers - St. Augustine to the Great Scholastics
This is the second volume in Frederick Copleston's classic nine volume A History of Philosophy. Like all the volumes in this series, it is an exhaustive study of the period covered and presents the development of the philosophical thought of the period as an interrelated whole where trends ebb and flow as ideas are introduced and synthesized within the systems of the great thinkers of the time.

All of this is done within a framework where Copleston, as a professor in a Catholic seminary, is mindful of pointing out the elements that would become adopted within the framework of Christian philosophy and theology. Even though Copleston has a seminary audience in mind, he does not attempt to "Christianize" those who were not Christian nor launch polemical attacks against those ideas at odds with the Christian faith. He presents the philosophical ideas thoroughly and fairly and gives both the supporting evidence cited by supporters and the critiques by opponents. Also pointed out in detail is how each philosopher's work influenced contemporaries and later thought with, of course, special consideration of the influence for good or bad on Christianity.

This volume covers the patristic period through to the golden age of medieval scholasticism. Many histories of philosophy ignore the importance of medieval thought and end up treating the birth of modern philosophy with Descartes as if it arose in an historical vacuum. Copleston skillfully brings to life this neglected period of philosophical activity and this serves to give greater understanding to the historical and intellectual context of later developments.

Those who dismiss all philosophy that serves to aid Christian theology are guilty of neglecting the theological underpinnings in much of classical Greek thought. Though Plato and Aristotle were certainly not deists in the Judeo-Christian sense, their concepts of the demiurge and the prime mover cetainly have implications of a decidedly theological nature. Many patistic writers began to defend the faith using this philosophical framework and demonstrated that which is true and good is no threat to Christianity and argued that philosophy in its most pure form leads has God as proper end.

Copleston divides this volume into five parts. The first begins with a discussion of some of the most philosophical of the earlier patristic writers before beginning a long discussion of the thought of St. Augustine of Hippo. St. Augustine would remain the dominant figure in the Western Church until the scholastic period and many reactions to scholasticism both in the Reformation and among Catholics would appeal to the great bishop of Hippo as their intellectual forebearer. Copleston gives an excellent and thorough exposition and sheds light on almost every aspect of his thinking. A shorter treatment of Western thinkers in the immediate post-Augustinian period closes this section.

The next few centuries were barren periods for learning in the West but the few lights that shown through are covered in the next two sections on the Carolingian Renaissance and the early scholastic period. John Scotus Eruigena and St. Anselm are the most notable figures, respectively, for these two periods and the development of thinking on universals that would become the focus of much debate in the coming centuries.

The focus is turned in the fourth section to the recovery of the Aristotelian corpus. The important commentators on Aristotle from Islamic and Jewish sources are covered as well as the beginning of the translation of Aristotle's works. The reaction - both supportive and not - of the Christian West to this "new" learning is explained.

The fifth and final section of the book is the longest and, for a Catholic philosopher like Copleston, the most important. Here is the truly "golden age" of scholasticism as a series of great thinkers would take the stage to use philosophy to aid the Catholic faith. The three great figures of this period - St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas Aquinas, and John Duns Scotus - are given extensive coverage. The interraction of these three contemporaries and their solutions to the complex questions of the day - particularly that of universals - is fully explained. Lesser figures are also covered including two (St. Albert the Great and Roger Bacon) whose work in a primitive form of what we would later call "science" was very far ahead of its time.

For those with an interest in the factors that would give rise to the development of modern Western thinking, this book is a godsend. Nowhere else is such complete coverage of Christian philosophy of the period available. The only thing one could hope for is if there had been a full treatment of the great thinkers of the Eastern Church such as the Cappadocians. However, given the unfamiliarity of the West with the Eastern tradition at the time this was written, it is an understandable though regrettable omission.

For a thorough investigation of the history of Western philosophical thought and a wrestling with the great thinkers of the Western philosophical tradition, there is no better choice than Copleston's A History of Philosophy. For the Christian, in particular, who wishes to understand the interaction of philsophy and Christian theology, this work is unparalleled.

The Best Introduction to Philosopher Ever Printed!
Copleston's series, "The History of Philosophy", is quite possibly the best introduction to the history of philosophical thought that has ever been published and certainly the best currently in print.

You will be hard pressed to find a better collection of solid philosophical surveys in one place.The beauty of the series is that Copleston has clearly done his research on each period and each thinker of Western philosophy.

I cannot recommend this series any more highly.It is a must-have collection for anyone who is a scholar (professional or casual) of philosophy, theology or any of the arts.

If this isn't on your bookshelf, it should be!

A Good Comprehensive History of Philosophy During a Thusand Years
Father Copleston, S.J. wrote a readable account of an important era in intellectual history.Father Copleston's book is well organized and well written.He is clear that the phrase Middle Ages is misguiding.The approximate era of A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY, VOLUME 2:MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY deals with approximately a thousand years (c.500 AD-1500 AD).This time frame can be divided by the Dark Ages, the Early Middle Ages or Frankish history, a Second Dark Ages, the High Middle Ages, etc.

Father Copleston begins his study with the Partistic Period (Ancient Western Civilization thinking) and the impact of St. Augustine (446-520) and his great book titled THE CITY OF GOD. Chapters one through ten give the reader a comprehensive examination of ideas and European thought at a time when learning could have very well disappeared in Western Europe.Father Copleston includes some of the important figures in the Patristic Era such as Isodore (570-636), Boethius (480-524)Cassoidorus (577-665), etc.

Father Copleston does a credible job in describing what is known as the Carolingian Renaissance.He mentions the valuable contributions of Alcuin (730-804) and Eriugena (815-877).The fact that Alcuin established a school at Aachen and developed bookhand as the format for handwritten books and study materials is invaluable in the teaching and learning for posterity.Eruigena was probably the first speculative philosopher in Western Europe since the disintegration of the Ancient Roman Empire.His work cannot be overestimated.

Father Copleston deals with the problems of "Universals" in the early Medieval schools.He also explains the debate between the Nominalists and the Realists.Father Copleston's examination of the Medieval curriculum is useful.Undergraduate students studied the Trivium (Grammar, Rhetoric, and Logic).Students were taught to read well, to think, to speak well, and the write well.Once these students mastered this curriculum, they could study the Quadrivium (Astronomy, Music, Arithmetic and Algerbra, and Plane Geometry).If these students pursued further studies, they could study Medicine, Canon Law, and Theology which was considered The Queen of the Sciences.

One should note that Medieval Catholic universities were centers of intellectual activity and spirited debate which has disappeared from the record.In other words, Father Copleston undermines that the Catholic Church authorities somehow undermined serious learning and thinking when in fact they encouraged it.

Father Copleston begins his treatment of Scholasticism with St. Anselm (1033-1109) whose PROLOGIAN was a serious study that at some point the Catholic Faith had to be reasonable to be accepted.This study began the fruitful development of Scholastic Philosophy.Mention should be made of Peter Abelard (1079-1142) whose SIC ET NON caused scandal until scholars realized that this was a "how to" book on solving complex philosophical and theological problems.One should know of Peter Lombard's (1100-160) FOUR BOOKS OF SENTENCES which became the standard text of Medieval theological studies.

Father Copleston does an outstanding job in presenting St. Albertus Magnus (1193-1280) and the Catholic Church's intellectual giant, St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) whose SUMMA THEOLOGICAL and SUMMA CONTRAL GENTILES set the standard for subsequent theological and philosophical studies.St. Thomas Aquinas development an Aristotlian reasoned approach to Catholicism.The importance of the Angelic Doctor (St. Thomas Aquinas) was and is crucial to Catholcism and Catholic universities.Subsequent studies in Medieval theological studies were either defenses of crituques of the Angelic Doctor's work whose thinking became part of the permanent philosophy.

Father Copleston gives credit to Islamic scholars such as Avacena(980-1037) and Averroes(1126-1198) whom St. Thomas Aquinas called The Commentator-The Commentator on Aristotle.Father Copleston also gives serious mention of Jewish scholars such as Maimonides (1135-1204) who is mentioned by, among others, St. Thomas Aquinas.

Father Copleston tackeled a difficult historical task, and his book is one of the best this reviewer has read on Medieval Philosophy and theology.The book is comprehensive as well as a good introduction the History of Medieval Philosophy.A good companion volume is Father Duffy's THE QUEEN OF SCIENCES.This reviewer strongly recommends Father Copleston's HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY, VOLUME 2.

The Bridge from Ancient to Modern Philosophy
I have now read the first two volumes of Copleston's History of Philosophy, and plan to read the remaining seven.Based on reviews and the monumental scope of the work itself, I had high expectations coming in, and I must say that the books have so far exceeded these expectations.My only prior experience with philosophy had been Bertrand Russell's history, which I thoroughly enjoyed, although in retrospect I gleaned more entertainment from it than any real knowledge of the history of philosophy.Copleston's work is much more academic and it does, to a degree, presuppose at least a cursory knowledge of the history of philosophy as well a foundation of philosophic terminology.However, if you are willing to put some work and thought into the books, especially at the outset, it is possible, I believe, to fully understand these volumes without a prior knowledge of the history of philosophy.For example, I've taken notes as I've read, and have found that many of the philosophical terms used, while not always defined explicitly, are used frequently enough that their meaning can be inferred satisfactorily.

I'll attempt to summarize what I took from this particular volume, that on Medieval philosophy:The philosophy of Aristotle represents a complete system and was the pinnacle of the ancient philosophies.However, his complete system was not known in the West until the twelfth century -only his logic and fragments of other parts was known before this and mostly indirectly.Philosophy in medieval Europe prior to this had been inextricably tied up with Christian theology -the Church fathers and medieval theologians had used what they knew of ancient philosophy to rationally support what they knew through revelation.Now confronted with Aristotle's complete system -a system derived without the aid of revelation -it was only a matter of time before thinkers began developing systems independently of Christian dogma.This began with St. Thomas Aquinas who attempted to reconcile Aristotle with Christian revelation.Despite the value of this -and Aquinas is still considered THE Catholic philosopher -Copleston argues that St. Thomas's system paved the way for future philosophers to develop philosophies independent of theology and even, in fact, to take the subject matter of theology as their own, for better or for worse.

One other comment I'd like to make:it is impossible to have a completely objective history of philosophy (or history of anything for that matter); the author picks and chooses what topics to include and emphasize, how to classify the topics, in what order, etc.Copleston was a Jesuit theologian and his expertise is medieval philosophy, especially Thomas Aquinas.Therefore, I fully expected a bias in this book towards that philosophy.This bias is present to a slight degree, as probably can't be helped; for example, Copleston will often show how a particular philosophic idea contrasts to the Scholastic philosophy.However, I can only recall one or two times where the author, in this or the previous volume, gives his own opinions as to the value of the philosophical ideas presented.Copleston simply states that this was the idea of this particular philosopher and leaves it at that.He will on occasion give his thoughts as to the importance or the future impact of an idea or philosopher, but that is the job of any good historian; he rarely assigns a value to a particular idea, and the few times he does, it is explicit that he is doing so. ... Read more

Book Description
Comprehensive and engaging, this work focuses on the convergence of history, philosophy and social science. Tackling a wide range of topics such as truth, objectivity, explanation, communication and narrative, gender, deconstruction, postmodernism, and more, the book affords readers a deeper and wider perspective of philosophical problems. ... Read more

Book Description

Published here for the first time in English, this highly important work by Henry Corbin, the Islamic scholar, philosopher, and historian of religion, is a definitive interpretation of traditional Islamic philosophy from the beginning to the present day. In this authoritative volume, Corbin makes clear the great themes of the doctrinal and mystical vision of Islamic philosophy through a wealth of comparative parallels and in relation to the most profound currents of Western philosophy. Corbin'sHistory of Islamic Philosophy is both an inspirational book and an essential work of reference, enabling readers to discover for themselves the richness of this body of thought.

Customer Reviews (5)

The Beauty of Islamic Metaphysical Realms.
_History of Islamic Philosophy_ by French esotericist and expert on Islamicism Henry Corbin is an account of some of the philosophical schools which have sprung up out of the traditions of the Arab peoples (composing one of the three principal Abrahamic faiths - that of Islam).The book is translated with help from the traditionalist Greek Orthodox Christian theologian Philip Sherrard, who himself was an early follower of Rene Guenon (a convert to Islam and founder of the Traditionalist School).The book is published by the Institute for Ismaeli Studies based in London, which attempts to examine the esoteric and gnostic tradition within the theological and religious heritage of Islam.The book is divided into two parts splitting up the tradition with the death of Averroes.The first section of the book is devoted to showing the uniqueness of the Quran as the primary study tool for Islamic philosophers.Indeed, interpretation of the Quran, and mystical interpretation of the hadith or tradition, plays an essential role in the understanding of Islamic mysticism.For Muslims, there is no Magisterium (teaching authority) as there is for Christians residing in the Church.Thus, interpretation of the Quran is subject to various rules and methods for doing so.The author next includes sections dealing with Shiism and the Prophetic Philosophy (which involves interpretation of the Twelver Imams, gnosis, and Ismaelism), Sunni philosophy, Philosophy and the Natural Sciences (including mention of alchemy, astrology, and hermeticism), Hellenizing philosophers (including Al-Farabi, Avicenna, and al-Ghazali - all of whom imported Plato and Aristotle to Islamic monotheism), the unique tradition of Sufism, a special section dealing with Al-Suhrawardi and the Philosophy of Light and his Illumination, and a section dealing with Andulasia ending with Averroes.Throughout this discussion of the various traditions within Islam we see the influence of gnosticism as well as of the other Abrahamic religions and "peoples of the Book" (Jews, Christians, and Muslims), and the influence of Zoroastrianism (with its dualistic worldview), as well as the influence of even Hinduism and Buddhism to a lesser extent.The book concludes with the modern period after the death of Averroes of Islamic philosophy including reference to Sunnis, Sufis, and Shiites.Indeed, for the author Shiism and Sufism seem to play an especial role in his understanding of the uniqueness of Islamic philosophy.In sum, this book offers a very good introduction to Islamic philosophy and its history from an esotericist's perspective.Metaphysics is too often cast aside in the West; however, by importing the rich metaphysical traditions from the East which often include original Greek elements, such as the Islamic tradition, a proper restoration of this ancient philosophical discipline can be attained.If you are interested in Islamic mysticism and metaphysics in particular you might want to also consult the works of Seyyed Hossein Nasr as well as anything issuing from the Traditionalist School (originally founded by such individuals as Rene Guenon and Frithjof Schuon).

Excellent...!
This is an excellent sourcebook for serious study of Islamic Philosophy.

biased
By reading this book one would think that most of the first class thinkers in Islamic world were either Iranian or Shia. I wonder if the author was paid by someone in that region to write this book.

Very Informative
A very informative and easy to read book. Author does a good job intoducing his readers to a wide range of thinkers in the Islamic world. Recommend it as a text book for serious students of religion andphilosophy.

I have read its translation from French to Farsi
I like to find its English Translation for my children. It makes the Shi'e and people of shi'e background proud of their heritage. I recomend to ad this book( when it is reprinted) in Iranian Internet sites and publications. ... Read more

Book Description
This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1901 edition by the Macmillan Company, New York. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Amazing! Well-structured and profound!
This history of philosophy is perhaps the best around, although published initially in 1893. It is written in a clear and well-structured way both concerning the historical and systematic aspects. It is written with a Neo-Kantian perspective, so there is reason to take causion about the (in my opinion) to positive and lenghty discussion on Aristotle and Kant, who definitely are his heroes, as opposed to Plato and Leibniz.There are some points Windelband has not grasped, like the crucial role of hypothesis in the great divide of philosophy between materialism and idealism. Nevertheless, I find the book a true must for any inquiring person ... Read more

Book Description
Continental philosophy is one of the twentieth century's most important and challenging philosophical movements. This major volume includes fourteen chapters on its major representatives and schools, including phenomenology, existentialism and postmodernism. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

A short but very enlightning history
For the people who want to understand chinese philosophy, it is a positively simple text that allows to pinpoint all the important issues about each person that mattered in History. I recomend it to every student, every person that wants to know about philosopy and even those who are determined to elaborate deeper studies, as a start on the matter.

The Classic Introduction
First published in 1948 Fung Yu-Lan's "Short History" is still the best intro to Chinese Philosophy. After reading it move on to his two volume magnum opus "A History of Chinese Philosophy" which has nothing "short" about it. The short history is an adaptation of the two volume work so if anything grabs your fancy in the smaller work you can look it up for elaboration in the two volume work. I should also point out that the book is very well written with an accessible style which makes what could have been very difficult to understand concepts readily understandable. This book will widen your worldview ( if your are not already familiar with Chinese thought) so you can look at reality from a greater perspective than just that of the English speaking West.

A real eye-opener
This book should put to rest, once and for all, the very idea that Chinese philosophy is a set of disconnected and rather charming aphorisms, primarily concerned with ethical matters and not ontology, and productive of quietism in politics.

In Western bookstores, Asian philosophy in general is filed separately, and often ranged alongside the Tarot, crystals and the New Age.

But as Professor Fung Yu-Lan makes clear, the concerns of Chinese philosopher were with truth.

It is true that there has been a tradition of edification in Chinese philosophy. However, this edification has been consistently treated as the end product of, and motivation for, the philosophical journey, and truth is assumed to be edification's necessary precondition.

Even the most "geometric" of Western philosophers in the modern era such as Spinoza recommended their philosophy for the global improvement and final edification of the mind, and, as Professor Fung Yu-Lan points out, Spinoza's final words in documents such as Of Human Freedom have an exaltation they share with "the Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao".

Had Professor Fung's book been written at a somewhat later date, it would also have mentioned the Tractatus of Wittgenstein, whose negative exaltation, in passages such as "Wie auch beim Todt" ("so too at death the world does not alter but comes to an end") have an "Oriental" edification that is based, in the "Oriental" precision and economy of what has gone before.

Post Edward Said, of course, "oriental" requires scare quotes. But a reading of Chinese and Islamic philosophy shows today how "Oriental" with scare quotes makes contemporary "analytic" Western philosophy, insofar as it is anti-edification not in Wittgenstein but in Ayer and in Quine, is the world-philosophical exception...whose deliberate cultivation of ugliness has a political explanation and is linked to the West's rage for an undeserved, and perhaps short-lived, hegemony.

We find in Professor Fung Yu Lan's book and original texts that far from universally recommending quietism and obedience in the political sphere, anti-Hobbes, Mencius felt that the sovereign was bound by the Tao.

Mencius talked back to great kings when they demanded information from which they could profit with in fact an analytic than anticipated Hobbes, and Spinoza, by thousands of years, for he showed the king how "profit" was a zero-sum game that (perhaps especially in agrarian societies, but not exclusively) would set the king against the knights or *shih* and the *shih* against the common people.

Mencius had only the inexhaustible Tao for the king. This had a practical result in that for thousands of years, ordinary slobs in China had on balance a squarer deal than the slaves and serfs of the West.

Indeed we find that Chinese political philosophy emphasized obedience dialectically for the surprising, even shocking, reason that two great dynasties were formed by peasant jacqueries as if Wat Tyler had overthrown Richard Plantagenet and as if, today, the Tyler menage were installed at Buckingham Palace amidst great pomp and state.

As if Spartacus had not in other words been crucified in vain.

Thus obedience becomes an active virtue rather than the nasty secret it is even today in the West, where a surface cultural rebelliousness is in fact used to enforce deep conformity as seen in Foucault.

At the heights, we see from this short book (which unfortunately only whets the appetite for the unabridged historyby this scholar, available at Symond's off the Salisbury Road in Hong Kong, but expensive as well as expansive) that Chinese first philosophy existed in the form of what can only be termed, an ontology in order to disambiguate it from either theology or metaphysics.

For at the beginning and unlike Heraclitus, Lao T'se separated li and yi, and "the Tao that can be expressed is not the eternal Tao" is not merely edifying.

Ontologically it is the same sort of analysis of concepts that is much more painfully expressed (thousands of years later) in the Kritik der Reinen Vernunft.

The insight is profound. For if ontology were crude theology or metaphysics and ultimately some shopkeepers inventory of the ultimate furnishings of the world, then those knick-knacks would themselves have a Tao or li, residing in Kantian form, which would not be expressed in the ontological assay, leading to infinite regress.

But as Professor Fung points out, in a way that also anticipates Adorno, this negative result is supreme wisdom. And as he correctly shows (but does not say out of courtesy, leaving the job to an insensitive clod like me), the sour, late-Wittgenstein gesture, of decrying philosophical talk as the buzzing of the fly in the fly-bottle, is also a mistake.

"The Tao that can be expressed is not the eternal Tao" is after all misused by New Age gnomes in corporations to silence dissent, and a populist, survey-course misunderstanding of Kant is that he denied the knowability of "truth": but clearly and as this book declares, "one must speak very much before one is silent".

Nothing further from a Western re-presentation of Oriental philosophy could be imagined, for in the Orientalist mis-re-presentation, the adept is forever the Parzival fool/seeker beaten into silence by the Zen master in a totalitarian caricature.

Western thought is wounded by a series of splits that emerge, perhaps, from Trinitarian doctrines and the fact that Western historical memory includes a time before writing in a way the Chinese does not. The result, for example, is the monstrous, if unremarked, fact that what Western people study in school is forgotten on spring break and seldom applied on the job.

The result is a Romanticism at the end of its tether which normalizes deviance, in which "edification" is a term without content.

Without forgetting its love affair with truth, Chinese philosophy is a healing return to the very idea that after great pain, a feeling for aphorisms comes...a clumsy paraphrase, perhaps, of Lady Dickinson, but, I think, apposite.

A Good Start
Professor Fung's book has been around for a long, long time, and countless Westerners have gotten their introduction to Chinese philosophy from it.

As such, it has provided a great service to both Westerners and Chinese in helping to have that gap bridged.Having said that, I am not at all sure whether it points the reader in the right direction.For one thing, it concentrates too much on Zhou Dynasty thought.While a concentration in this era is to be expected, just as a similar survey of Western philosophy would concentrate on the Greeks, I feel it was taken too far; there was a great deal more speculation in Chinese thought through the last two thousand years than even Chinese themselves seem to realize.

Another thing is that the book seems to me to pigeonhole Chinese philosophy too much, no doubt in order to make it understandable to Westerners, but after a while it's too much.In short, don't accept this book as the final word on the subject.

Excellent
This book is an excellent survey of Chinese philosophy.Extremely thought provoking and informative. ... Read more

Book Description

Pedagogical notes, including Introductions, Prologs, Philosophical Overviews, Philosophical Bridges, and Codas, provide the reader support in understanding the often complex and abstract concepts encountered in philosophy. Ancient Philosophy, Medieval Philosophy, Modern Philosophy, 19th Century and 20th Century Philosophy. History of Philosophy or Introduction to Philosophy with a historical organization.

Book Description
A HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY examines the nature of philosophical enterprise and philosophy's role in Western culture. Jones and Fogelin weave key passages from classic philosophy works into their comments and criticisms, giving A HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY the combined advantages of a source book and textbook. The text concentrates on major figures in each historical period, combining exposition with direct quotations from the philosophers themselves. The text places philosophers in appropriate cultural context and shows how their theories reflect the concerns of their times. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Excellent point to start off at
I have been reading philosophy for a long time now and occasionally, when I talk about it to my friends, I get asked where one can start when it comes to a massive subject like philosophy. Before this book, I would have a hard time pinpointing a good source for a newcomer because most books out there are either boring and dull college books or books that are way too complicated and wordy for anyone without a background to enjoy them.

This series turned out to be perfect for starting a journey in philosophy or brushing up on your ancient Greek philosophy - where it all started. It is a pity that it does not include some Eastern thought schools that are very important to explore but I suppose it had to limit itself on some scale. It is easy to comprehend, laid out rather nicely and often enough refers to former chapters so you don't lose the thread. Not only does it give paragraphs of good translations of the original texts from Plato and Aristotele etc, but it also enriches these thoughts with its own neat and current examples.

I highly recommend it. It was a very pleasant read.

Classical Mind
This item was in very good shape and came to me in no time. It was shipped the same day of the purchase and i got it 2 days later.

A History of Western Philosophy: The Classical Mind, Volume I
This book offers an excellent summery of the basic teachings, understandings, and doctrines from Thales of the pre-socratics to the late Classical period in Rome (Epicurus, Cicero, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, ect).The History of Western Philosphy Series is an excellent addition to the mind and bookshelf of all scholars who maintain interest in the evolution of the human mind.This specific book goes well hand in hand with F. M. Cornfield's "From Religion to Philosophy (A Study in the Origins of Western Speculation)."

In the beginning...
This book, 'The Classical Mind', is the first volume of a five-volume series on the history of Western Philosophy by W.T. Jones, professor of philosophy in California.This series is a very strong, thorough introduction to the course of Western Philosophy, beginning at the dawn of the philosophical enterprise with the pre-Socratics in ancient Greece to the modern thinkers such as Wittgenstein and Sartre.It has grown, over the three decades or so of its publication, from one to four then to five volumes.It has remained a popular text, and could serve as the basis of a one-year survey of philosophy for undergraduates or a one-semester survey for graduate students.Even advanced students in philosophy will find this valuable, all major topics and most minor topics in the course of philosophy are covered in these volumes.

Jones states that there are two possible ways for a writer to organise a history of philosophy -- either by addressing everyone who ever participated in philosophy (which could become rather cumbersome if one accepts the premise that anyone could be a philosopher), or to address the major topics and currents of thought, drawing in the key figures who address them, but leaving out the lesser thinkers for students to pursue on their own.Jones has chosen the latter tactic, making sure to provide bibliographic information for this task.

This volume, 'The Classical mind', starts and ends in ancient Greece.Plato and Aristotle are well featured, to be sure, but the pre-Socratics and the post-Aristotilean thinkers are also discussed in great detail.The first chapter deals with a number of thinkers whose names are well-known to those who study the history of science as well as to philosophers -- Thales, Anaximander, Pythagoras -- showing the interconnection of disciplines that recurs again and again throughout history, but never again so closely as in these opening days of Western thought.

Jones gives a general history lesson along with the history of the development of thought so that the reader will understand the social and historical context in which ideas developed.Plato and Aristotle both came out a context in which Greece was a fairly violent place much of the time, with warring factions and city-states variously dependent upon and warring against each other.

The discussion of Plato largely deals with his theories of knowledge and metaphysics, with an additional chapter on subsequent topics such as ethics, politics, religion and art.Similiarly, Aristotle is dealt with in two chapters, with the major topics of metaphysics, logic, ethics, politics, aesthetics, and other issues addressed.At the end of each of these sections, Jones gives a general critique of the philosopher's main ideas, and in the final chapter of the book, sets the stage for further developments, particularly in terms of the decline of the Golden Age in Greece.In some regards, all subsequent Western philosophy vacilates between Plato and Aristotle, so a thorough grounding is important.

Each volume ends with a glossary of terms, and a worthwhile index.The glossary warns against short, dictionary-style definitions and answers to broad terms and questions, and thus indicates the pages index-style to the discussion within the text for further context.The one wish I would have would be a comprehesive glossary and index that covers the several volumes; as it is, each volume has only its own referents.

This is minor criticism in a generally exceptional series.It is not easy text, but it is not needlessly difficult.The print size on the direct quotes, which are sometimes lengthy, can be a strain at times, but the reading is worthwhile.

An Excellent Textbook
W. T. Jones' first volume, The Classical Mind, is a fantastic introduction for studying ancient philosophy.His work is fairly clear and not very difficult in terms of being able to understand his explication of various philosophers and theories.That is, Jones does not write to other philosophers; he is writing to would-be philosophers or students.Jones considers important aspects such as the timing and events surrounding the philosophical theories in order to demonstrate that these ideas do not develop ex nihilo.They arise because of important questions or issues developed in the relevant cultures.

This work covers quite a few people.Of course, it is not exhaustive on every thinker; nor is such even possible since many of the writings of people like the pre-socratics do not exist beyond a few manuscripts.In any case, Jones starts with them (specificaly Homer and Hesiod), through Thales, to Plato, to Aristotle, and up to the skeptics (e.g., Carneades and Sextus).From time to time, Jones will comment upon some of the positive and negative (or implausible) aspects of each of the theories provided.Sometimes his objections are good; other times, they can be answered.For instance, Jones treats Plato's argument for the Forms as a transcendental argument and he applies Stephan Korner's uniquness argument against Plato (c.f. Korner, "The Impossibility of Transcendental Deductions").Jones doesn't refer to Korner, but it is the same point.I think Plato could *in principle* answer Jones.

There are a couple areas where I think that Jones has misinterpreted some of the early thinkers.For instance, Jones treats Aristotle as only holding to the intellectual virtues as being eudaimonia (for an alternative view, see Cooper, John M. "Reason and Human Good in Aristotle").Also, Jones gives a traditional analysis of Parmenides.Patricia Curd offers an alternative analysis in "The Legacy of Parmenides."Both of these thinkers challenge the traditional views that Jones sides with.In any case, that's a head's up for readers who have not done exhaustive reading on these philosophers; just something to keep in mind when reading Jones.

Finally, I think that Jones often uses far too long of quotes from other people.At one point, he quoted Plato for an entire three pages (8 size font!).Jones could have summarized the point and added a footnote. Nevertheless, this is a great textbook for studying ancient philosophy and it deserves five stars despite my harsh disapproval of some of his analyses and writing style :) ... Read more

Book Description
Islamic philosophy has often been treated as being largely of historical interest, belonging to the history of ideas rather than to philosophical study. This volume successfully overturns that view. Emphasizing the living nature and rich diversity of the subject, it examines the main thinkers and schools of thought, discusses the key concepts of Islamic philosophy and covers a vast geographical area. Now available in paperback, this indispensable reference tool includes a comprehensive bibliography and an extensive index. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Comprehensive overview of Islamic Philosophy
Unfortunately in the West, even with a lot of first-class scholarship now going on to recover the thought of various periods in the history of both Western and Eastern Philosophy, the course of Philosophy in the Muslim world is relatively unknown.This book, edited by Seyyed Hussein Nasr, gives an excellent and comprehensive history of Philosophy as it has meandered through 14 centuries of Islamic intellectual thought and religious belief.

Anyone who reads this book will quickly realise much of the garbage being said about Islam today as always being a deeply backward part of world civilisation whose essential basis is wars of conquest and terrorism is utter nonsense.Jihadi terrorism itself has its roots in the thoughts of the Egyptian radical thinker and writer Seyyd Qutb, who was disgusted at the excesses of 1950's America, and also to an extent also in the thought of Ayotallah Homeni, the Iranian philosopher and theologian who was deeply influenced by thinkers such as Ibn-Arabi.Yet while these thinkers are important, they only form a small part of the overall very rich tapestry of Islamic philosophical thought, which ranges from schools which followed Aristotle and Plato to mystical schools like those of Ibn-Arabi and Shawradi, and schools which closely examined what would now be called the philosophy of law and politics.Islamic thought also contains a rich tradition in the Philosophy of Religion, which asked questions about what Holy Scripture means and how it is to be interpreted, what can and cannot be said about God, how humans can know God, and so on.Also interesting are Islamic examinations of epistemology, science, and metaphysics, which often contains a range and depth of sophistication equalling that of that found in other world civilisations.

This book is worth reading by any serious student of Philosophy interested to see how humans in another mode of civilisation have attempted to answer the basic questions which seem to puzzle human beings anywhere in the world.

A Must Have For Any Mid East Student/Scholar/Researcher
After spending close to $80 on this book I had to see if it was truley worth it--and it was. The book's articles chronicle almost every major Islamic philosopher (from Sufis to Shi'ites to Sunnis) and their interpretations of Islamic philosophy. I was especially interested to see a large section on Jewish philosophy.

While this one may be incredibly dry for some, the facts, sources, and articles it contains are priceless if you need information on Islamic philosophy. ... Read more

Book Description
First published in 1946, History of Western Philosophy went on to become the best-selling philosophy book of the twentieth century. A dazzlingly ambitious project, it remains unchallenged to this day as the ultimate introduction to Western philosophy. Providing a sophisticated overview of the ideas that have perplexed people from time immemorial, Russell's History of Western Philosophy offered a cogent précis of its subject. Of course this cannot be the only reason it ended up the best selling philosophy book of the twentieth century. Russell's book was 'long on wit, intelligence and curmudgeonly scepticism', as the New York Times noted, and it is this, coupled with the sheer brilliance of its scholarship, that has made Russell's History of Western Philosophy one of the most important philosophical works of all time. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (80)

Absolutely Loved It
I've read A History of Western Philosophy more than a few times, and even gave it as a gift to a few friends. Russell has accomplished a lot with this, having created a page-turner that you just can't put down, while at the same time providing one of the most lucid histories of philosophy ever written. He also editorialized a good amount, commenting and interpreting the concepts of others in a honest manner.

Fives stars but it deserves ten.

A brief comment
I read this book almost 30 years ago as a young philosophy student, and found it one of the best intros to the subject that was available back then. The coverage of some topics is a little uneven (Russell was, after all, more a mathematical logician rather than a philosophical historian like Copleston), but overall, it's a readable, enjoyable, and even-handed introduction to the subject. I eventually went on to read graduate level works in the area (although I was by training mostly a biologist, but I felt it important to know some philosophy), and this was one of the books that was invaluable to my early education in the subject.

A classic and a delight to read
What Bertrand Russell brings to the history of western philosophy is a clear, readable style and a delightfully opinionated stance.Unlike some writers on western philosophy, Russell is quick to give his opinion on the rigor and the agreeability of not only the philosophies presented, but of the philosophers themselves.He speaks with authority of course since he is considered one of the great minds of the twentieth century.He reaches a wide readership because of his great celebrity, and he is accessible to that readership because of his elegant, straightforward, and concrete (especially for a philosopher!) style.I understand that Russell wrote one draft, edited it and that was it.This is in contrast to some other writers (James Thurber comes to mind) who wrote twenty drafts and still were not satisfied.

He had the gift of a great memory, combined with an ease of composition that allowed him to be a most prolific writer over a long lifetime that began in 1872 and ended almost a hundred years later in 1970.He has something of the English Don and the 19th century naturalist about him as well as the 20th century progressive.He was intensely engaged in various political projects throughout his long life, most notably as an anti-war and later as an anti-nuclear activist while writing academic philosophy and mathematics as well as many volumes directed toward the general public.He was infamous (in some circles) for his free-love advocacy and his public rejection of Christianity.He was thrown into prison for his pacifism during WWI.He won the Noble Prize for Literature (not peace) in 1950.

Here he takes delight in surveying the entire spectrum of western philosophy beginning with the pre-Socratics and ending with his own philosophy of logical analysis.Curiously (or not so curiously) he does not mention Wittgenstein.His critique of the Greeks, especially Plato, is most edifying and fun to read.He sees modern philosophy as reaching its zenith with David Hume's empiricism.He finds Nietzsche disagreeable and is dismissive of Kant.

I am reading this for the second time, having first read it as a young man.It delights me anew.As I read I am unsure as to whether I find his opinions so congenial because they are so similar to mine or because in fact I acquired many of my early opinions through reading Russell!He had quite an influence on several generations before I came of age, although perhaps he reached the epitome of his fame (at least) during the fifties before I presumed to read philosophy.

Anyone interested in philosophy of any kind, especially of course western philosophy, should read this book.It is one of those books that cannot be ignored.First published in 1945, it is still in print today and will be for many decades to come.I only regret that Russell did not take the time to study eastern philosophies as well and to include them in this volume.How interesting it would be to read Russell on say, Buddhism, Taoism and Vedanta.

The Hobo Philosopher
This is clearly one of the best concise overviews of the major philosophers and what they had to say. It is right next to Will Durant's "The Story of Philosophy" on my reference shelf. Russell is witty, rational and easy to read. He makes many difficult concepts simple. This book is clearly written for the general reader. If you want to get difficult he has other books for the more advanced. I'm not trying to learn everything about all the philosophers but rather a little about some of the more famous. This book is perfect and objective. I am aware of many of Russell's controversial personal opinions and none are detectable in this work as far as I can determine. This is about classical philosophers and their philosophies. The general reader can not miss with this purchase.