History of Western Philosophy

Front Cover
Simon and Schuster, Jun 30, 2008 - Philosophy - 928 pages
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.

From inside the book

Contents

The PreSocratics
3
Socrates Plato and Aristotle
82
Plato
149
Astronomy
208
Ancient Philosophy after Aristotle
218
Plotinus
284
Introduction
301
The Fathers
308
Descartes
557
Spinoza
569
Leibniz
581
Philosophical Liberalism
596
Lockes Theory of Knowledge
604
Lockes Political Philosophy
617
Lockes Influence
641
Berkeley
647

Christianity During the First Four
324
Theology
352
Great
375
The Schoolmen
388
The Twelfth Century
428
The Thirteenth Century
441
Saint Thomas Aquinas
452
Franciscan Schoolmen
463
The Eclipse of the Papacy
476
BOOK THREE MODERN PHILOSOPHY
489
From the Renaissance to Hume
491
The Italian Renaissance
495
Machiavelli
504
Erasmus and More
512
The Reformation and Counter Reformation
522
The Rise of Science
525
Francis Bacon
541
Hobbess Leviathan
546
Hume
659
From Rousseau to the Present Day
675
Rousseau
684
Kant
701
Currents of Thought in the Nine teenth Century
719
Hegel
730
Byron
746
Schopenhauer
753
Nietzsche
760
The Utilitarians
773
Karl Marx
782
Bergson
791
William James
811
John Dewey
819
The Philosophy of Logical Analysis
828
Index
837
Copyright

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Page 46 - gainst his glory fight, And Time that gave doth now his gift confound. Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth And delves the parallels in beauty's brow, Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth, And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow; And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand, Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.
Page 89 - I and my sons will have received justice at your hands. The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways — I to die, and you to live. Which is better, God only knows.
Page 72 - Worlds on worlds are rolling ever From creation to decay, Like the bubbles on a river Sparkling, bursting, borne away. But they are still immortal Who, through birth's orient portal And death's dark chasm hurrying to and fro, Clothe their unceasing flight In the brief dust and light Gathered around their chariots as they go...
Page 44 - God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, surfeit and hunger; but he takes various shapes, just as fire, when it is mingled with spices, is named according to the savour of each.
Page 87 - God orders me to fulfil the philosopher's mission of searching into myself and other men, I were to desert my post through fear of death, or any other fear...
Page 46 - I SAW Eternity the other night, Like a great ring of pure and endless light, ^ All calm, as it was bright ; And round Beneath it, Time in hours, days, years, Driv'n by the spheres Like a vast shadow mov'd ; in which the world And all her train were hurl'd.
Page 20 - Oh, feet of a fawn to the greenwood fled, Alone in the grass and the loveliness; Leap of the hunted, no more in dread, Beyond the snares and the deadly press: Yet a voice still in the distance sounds, A voice and a fear and a haste of hounds; O wildly labouring, fiercely fleet, Onward yet by river and glen . . . Is it joy or terror, ye storm-swift feet? . . . To the dear lone lands untroubled of men, Where no voice sounds, and amid the shadowy green The little things of the woodland live unseen.
Page 88 - And now, Athenians, I am not going to argue for my own sake, as you may think, but for yours, that you may not sin against the God by condemning me, who am his gift to you.
Page 90 - One morning he was thinking about something which he could not resolve; he would not give it up, but continued thinking from early dawn until noon — there he stood fixed in thought; and at noon attention was drawn to him, and the rumor ran through the wondering crowd that Socrates had been standing and thinking about something ever since the break of day.
Page 85 - ... telling of one Socrates, a wise man, who speculated about the heaven above, and searched into the earth beneath, and made the worse appear the better cause.

About the author (2008)

Bertrand Arthur William Russell was a philosopher, logician, essayist and social critic best known for his work in mathematical logic and analytic philosophy. His most influential contributions include his championing of logicism.

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