The History of Western Philosophy

Rating:
Summary: A little short for the content
Review: Philosophy is a series of theories and intellectual structures that predated the development of the scientific method. In years gone by Philosophy was the queen of knowledge dominating universities. Now it occupies small faculties and has drifted of into obscurity.

The mass of theories developed by philosophy is enormous. Probably the best introduction is that by Frederick Copplestone which is a multi-volume series of thirteen books. Russell's book by comparison is about 800 pages. This means that Russell spends sixteen pages discussing Immanuel Kant whilst Copplestone devotes one of his volumes of 213 pages to it. To reduce a complex subject such as Kant's philosophy to such a small number of pages makes the exposition summarized in the extreme. Yet Kant's ideas are the basis of Philosophy continuing as a discipline after the development of Hume's theories.

Russell is a person who was foremost in developing ideas so that we can understand the scientific method. To some extent his life's work has been to dump idealist philosophy as it now continues on in academic institutions. From that point of view the theme running through his book is development of scientific ideas and the move to the modern age. With this in mind it can be understood why he devotes a limited amount of time discussing ideas which are complex in the extreme.

His advantage as an author is that he writes clearly and he is able to convey the essence of most of the people he writes about in a clear and understandable way. The book is however more a book for someone that is not interested in philosophy rather than for someone who is interested.

Rating:
Summary: Prepare for Enlightenment
Review: Russell helped found the field of Logic. But unlike some of his colleagues (eg. Wittgenstein), Russell writes with the kind of clarity and erudition that is the envy of almost any writer. This "History" is the best of its kind; he covers every major philosopher from the beginning in a way that no other thinker could. I refer to the book on a regular basis, and it never fails to clear away any clouds of misunderstanding that Philosophy can often create.

An invaluable work for anyone, even the professional.

Rating:
Summary: Great introductory read on western philosophy
Review: Russell in this work has solved a big problem for beginners in philosophy. He has gathered all the gems in one bucket and has given you the opportunity to see and select out of these. I have deep interests in philosophy and wanted a head start with western philosophy. Even though I read works by Plato prior to this, I still felt that I was missing the whole picture and a place to put Plato in that picture. I think I have now found the right door to the fascinating world of great western thinkers. I highly recommend the beginners to read this work. Even though at times you may feel that you are being dragged into unnecessary historical information, but you will realize that it does help you later on. Feel free to skip when you are bored, and get on to the philosophers that interest you.

I am giving these book 5 stars, because there is no other work that even comes close to the great effort by this great thinker.

Rating:
Summary: An entertaining and wholly partisan introduction
Review: Russell serves up a good read that will enable the intelligent layman to feel they know something about philosophy. His bias is obvious from the start and I imagine anyone who actually reads this book will be previously aware of it. The most refreshing debunking of Plato, Aristotle and other Greeks encourages the reader that philosophy is not the fossilised subject, unable to escape from the shadow of the ancients, that it once was.

Rating:
Summary: A classic, but flawed.
Review: Russell's "History of Western Philosophy" is not the best introduction to western philosophy that I have read. That place goes to Antony Flew's "Introduction to Western Philosophy." But for many readers, Russell's is still the better book. Flew's book is purely about philosophy. Russell, on the other hand, strives to place thought in its social context, and he is so successful that the book doubles as an outline history of the western world, and a very interesting one. Also, Russell's deep understanding of the relationship between philosophy and science adds interest. Finally, Russell's clear explanations of difficult concepts should make those concepts clear even to the novice or near-novice; Flew's book, although it assumes no knowledge of philosophy, is more technical, and so is not suitable for all novices.

Despite this book's well-deserved status as a classic work, it has some major flaws that a reader should keep in mind, all stemming from Russell's intolerance of viewpoints different from his own. Russell, like other logical positivists, saw no place for metaphysics in philosophy. In his "History of Western Philosophy," he makes no effort to curb that bias, resulting in what might be considered unfair treatments of all thinkers who did not stick purely to science. Also, Russell has no tolerance for systems of thought that do not conform to his preferences for democracy, atheism, pacifism, and social liberalism. So Plato is described as just another proponent of totalitarianism, Rousseau is portrayed as a crackpot and Nietzsche is depicted as a warmonger, but the much less significant thinkers John Dewey and William James get personal kudos for being nice progressive guys full of human kindness. Russell's book is a great place to start, but to get a fair treatment of thinkers such as Rousseau and Nietzsche, it should be supplemented with material such as the chapters on those thinkers in Strauss and Cropsey's "History of Political Philosophy." And, of course, read Copleston's "History of Philosophy" if you have time.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent history that is beautifully written to boot.
Review: Russell's history of philosophy is without a doubt the best single-volume history of philsophy available.

Rating:
Summary: A demonstration of arrogance
Review: Russell's History of Western Philosophy should really be titled "A staunch positivist's take on the history of philosophy." Russell's bias against any form of metaphysics is so great that he essentially dismisses any attempt to establish metaphysical principles as foolishness. This is not a book to read if one wants to get a serious appreciation for the greeks, the medieval philosophers, or the modern European philosophers in the continental tradition. If one wants a demonstration of arrogance, this is the book for you. My recommendation would be Copleston's 9 volume "History of Philosophy." It is far more thorough and attempts to treat all philosophers and schools of philosophy seriously. With a greater amount of humility, Copleston honestly admits that he is writing as a Thomist and a Catholic philospher. Nevertheless, he presents the positions of others fairly and comprehensively. Fortunately for us all, few people take Bertrand Russell's opinions seriously and positivism is dead as a viable school of philosophy.

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Summary: Philosophy as a means to try to understand God
Review: Sir Bertrand Russell is one of the most important philosophers and mathematicians of the 20th century and in this book, targeted to the lay person, he endeavours to explain what is behind the rationale of each and every important Western philosopher since Greek Antiquity and what was his contribution to modern Western thinking.
His own philosophical ideas are portrayed in the end of the book by means of him showing what was right and wrong in his opinio in the most modern theories which he helped to develop in paralell to Whitehead, Wittgestein , Moore and others.
The book begins with a very detailed description of the philosophical background in ancient Greece (circa 700 BC), portraying the thinking of Thales, Plato, Aristotle and all Greek philosophers important at the time and later, explaining the pros and cons of the philosophy each one embraced, giving a lot of pertinent and useful historical information on the historical background of each period. He does also adequate coverage of the oral tradition of the Iliad and Odissey, the foundations of Western literature.
From Ancient Greece, to whom it devotes the greatest part of the book covering the ideas of Plato, Socrates and Aristotles, he goes to the heiday of the Roman Empire and the first steps of Christian Philosophy, to the period of the Arab conquest, Religious thought at the Middle Ages, the Scholastics thinkers, the rise of the Scientific thought in the 18th century, until the year where the book was written (1945). The at the time raging World War II gives special scope to Bertrand Russel, a notorious/contradictory pacifist, to show some philosophical schools as a spring board to Soviet totalitarianism and others to Nazism. It is interesting to note that, as happened also with other subjects in which Russell deep dived, socialisma and communism were of such issues where he many times changed his mind in the course of his long and fruitful life.

This book (836 pages)is a serious effort to portray the best minds of Western civilization in a very clear and precise light, trademarks of Lord Bertrand Russel. There you will know that Nietszche, besides praising as semi-gods persons like Napoleon, Frederic II and Julio Cesar, great men who deserved to use all the means available in order to perpetrate their indidual ends, ended his shrot life mentally insane. Also, some very negative facts of the life of the great French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau are there, like, for instance, the lightness with which Rousseau had himself disentangled from robbery accusations by fingerpointing a woman servant he knew was not guilty. Sure, despite being a very devastating malefic influence to everybody around him, Lord Bertrand Russel had a high opinion of himself, never seeming to undertand that evil doing was a two-way road, that is, that he did evil to others as they did him.
In my opinion, this is a very good reading for anyone interested in Philosophy, rational thinking, theories of origins of God, theories of the State, etc..Strange as it seems, not only one woman appears as a great thinker, one thing it would not be the same if the book was written today, where the general masculine bias would be pretty much diminished. Regarding Russell, he manifestly had a clear disdain for every thought emanated from women, something Mr.Ray Monk says was determined by the fact that Lord Russel lost his mother very early in his childhood.

Rating:
Summary: A Classic
Review: Some readers of this book rightly complain that Russell has little or nothing to say about their favorite philosophers. I notice that Edmund Burke, the father of modern political conservatism, gets exactly one sentence. But, I think those who avoid reading this book are missing a rare treat: an interesting and informative history of a subject that many other authors have managed to make quite boring.

NOTE: I bought a copy with the title "The History of Western Philosophy" on the cover. I wonder: why the definite article? The real title of the book is, of course, "A History of Western Philosophy."

Rating:
Summary: Overall, a most challenging book. Personal and readable.
Review: The book presents short summaries of the major philosophers, some of whom are not available through today's overly modern curriculum. Russell never panders. The book shows what was required for us to learn to think.