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Philosophy: The World's Greatest Thinkers
This book brings together the world's greatest philosophers in one comprehensive and easy to use volume. Designed to be dipped into again and again, this book will please people with both a casual and more serious interest in philosophy.
- GenresPhilosophy
256 pages, Paperback
First published August 31, 2011
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August 7, 2021
So, you probably shouldn't read this book how I did: straight through in two days. Unbeknownst to me, this is an A-Z of philosophy’s greatest thinkers. I had envisaged something a little bit more thematic than an encyclopaedia of philosophers. But my list of ‘books to be read’ demanded its next scalp (bibliographic translation: dust jacket) so this was duly read.
And a surprisingly decent read Philip Stokes’ phone book of thinkers was. Over 250 pages the book covers 100 philosophers, each being given 2-3 pages of text and pictures, with a ‘best of’ break-out box at the side describing their greatest hits.
The 2-3 pages rule was broken for a grand total of 3 philosophers: not, as you may imagine, for titans like Immanuel Kant, Plato or John Locke. No, the three philosophers in the pantheon of erudite men (and two women: Simone de Beauvoir and Mary Wollstonecraft) who are deemed worth of more pages than Aristotle: Michel de Montaigne, John Rawls and Peter Singer. Two are too modern to be considered sages in the top drawer yet; and one is a brilliant essayist but seldom considered in the pantheon of philosophy’s greats.
Oh, and there is one more thing to complain about structure wise: where is Nietzsche? How on Earth can a philosophy book containing the fairly obscure Mortiz Schlick or Rudolf Carnap (yes, I apparently hate the Vienna Circle), or the philosophy adjacent like Ernst Mach, fail to have one of the most influential (anti-)philosophers of all time?
But I digress. Aside from a few issues such as these, the book does a surprisingly good job at condensing a panoply of thinker’s thinking into a miniscule space. Martin Heidegger, for instance, is well tackled. The notoriously challenging German’s ideas are distilled into a few fairly intelligible paragraphs.
What I particularly like, aside from the clear exposition, is the fact that the author then criticises Heidegger. Indeed, throughout the book, issues with particular ideas are pointed out. Often when reading commentaries on philosophy you can’t help but feel that you don’t understand the great Hegel or Kant because you are just not smart enough. This book will give you a little bit of confidence that perhaps what the philosopher said doesn’t quite make sense. The value, as Stokes makes clear, is in the kernels of good ideas these works contain.
Perhaps the book’s greatest strength is its modernness. Firstly, it actually includes philosophers who are not dead (or at least were not dead when the book was written). Peter Singer (and his undue four pages) is just one of many recent thinkers. Secondly, the book makes clear what old philosophers have contributed to current ideas. Sure, the philosophy of a Berkeley or a Leibniz is a bit strange and is rightly challenged by the author. But, at least in this book’s telling, these philosophers have still brought something to the table. They have all pushed forward the work on the kinds of seemingly intractable problems of meaning, reality or justice that philosophy deigns to take on.
The book is a sympathetic view of philosophy but not a pandering one; a book which makes the subject seem relevant and alive today. I probably wouldn’t read it straight through if given the chance again, but it is a very worthwhile reference book to have lying around to dip into for all those times you want to brush up on your Feyerabend, Foucault or Frege.
And a surprisingly decent read Philip Stokes’ phone book of thinkers was. Over 250 pages the book covers 100 philosophers, each being given 2-3 pages of text and pictures, with a ‘best of’ break-out box at the side describing their greatest hits.
The 2-3 pages rule was broken for a grand total of 3 philosophers: not, as you may imagine, for titans like Immanuel Kant, Plato or John Locke. No, the three philosophers in the pantheon of erudite men (and two women: Simone de Beauvoir and Mary Wollstonecraft) who are deemed worth of more pages than Aristotle: Michel de Montaigne, John Rawls and Peter Singer. Two are too modern to be considered sages in the top drawer yet; and one is a brilliant essayist but seldom considered in the pantheon of philosophy’s greats.
Oh, and there is one more thing to complain about structure wise: where is Nietzsche? How on Earth can a philosophy book containing the fairly obscure Mortiz Schlick or Rudolf Carnap (yes, I apparently hate the Vienna Circle), or the philosophy adjacent like Ernst Mach, fail to have one of the most influential (anti-)philosophers of all time?
But I digress. Aside from a few issues such as these, the book does a surprisingly good job at condensing a panoply of thinker’s thinking into a miniscule space. Martin Heidegger, for instance, is well tackled. The notoriously challenging German’s ideas are distilled into a few fairly intelligible paragraphs.
What I particularly like, aside from the clear exposition, is the fact that the author then criticises Heidegger. Indeed, throughout the book, issues with particular ideas are pointed out. Often when reading commentaries on philosophy you can’t help but feel that you don’t understand the great Hegel or Kant because you are just not smart enough. This book will give you a little bit of confidence that perhaps what the philosopher said doesn’t quite make sense. The value, as Stokes makes clear, is in the kernels of good ideas these works contain.
Perhaps the book’s greatest strength is its modernness. Firstly, it actually includes philosophers who are not dead (or at least were not dead when the book was written). Peter Singer (and his undue four pages) is just one of many recent thinkers. Secondly, the book makes clear what old philosophers have contributed to current ideas. Sure, the philosophy of a Berkeley or a Leibniz is a bit strange and is rightly challenged by the author. But, at least in this book’s telling, these philosophers have still brought something to the table. They have all pushed forward the work on the kinds of seemingly intractable problems of meaning, reality or justice that philosophy deigns to take on.
The book is a sympathetic view of philosophy but not a pandering one; a book which makes the subject seem relevant and alive today. I probably wouldn’t read it straight through if given the chance again, but it is a very worthwhile reference book to have lying around to dip into for all those times you want to brush up on your Feyerabend, Foucault or Frege.
Displaying 1 of 1 review