Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy

by Edward Craig (editor)

The most complete and up-to-date philosophy reference for a new generation, with entries ranging from Abstract Objects to Wisdom, Socrates to Jean-Paul Sartre, Ancient Egyptian Philosophy to Yoruba Epistemology.
The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy includes:
* More than 2000 alphabetically arranged, accessible entries
* Contributors from more than 1200 of the world's leading thinkers
* Comprehensive coverage of the classic philosophical themes, such as Plato, Arguments for the Existence of God and Metaphysics
* Up-to-date coverage of contemporary philosophers, ideas, schools and recent developments, including Jacques Derrida, Poststructuralism and Ecological Philosophy
* Unrivalled international and multicultural scope with entries such as Modern Islamic Philosophy, Marxist Thought in Latin America and Chinese Buddhist Thought
* An exhaustive index for ease of use
* Extensive cross-referencing
* Suggestions for further reading at the end of each entry

Genres: Philosophy, Reference, Nonfiction

1064 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 1, 1999

About the author

Edward John Craig was educated at Charterhouse. He read philosophy at Trinity College, Cambridge (1960–1963), and was Reader in Philosophy at Cambridge from 1992 to 1998. He became Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy in 1998, a chair he held until his retirement in 2006. He is a Fellow of Churchill College. He edited the journal Ratio from 1988 to 1992. He is also a former cricketer at first-class level: a right-handed batsman for Cambridge University and Lancashire.

There is more than one author with this name in the Goodreads database.

Reviews

[Jacob Aitken · Rating 5 out of 5]

I suppose the one thing more difficult to write a concise summary of almost every philosophical system and philosopher is to write a review about a book on the topic. Given that it is an encyclopedia one cannot form the review around various loci. Further, no one individual is trained in every philosophical arena. I am familiar with various models of Western and Christian philosophy. However, I am not capable of evaluating and judging Eastern models.

With those caveats in mind, I can say this book succeeds because of the following reasons: the format of the articles, the presumably gifted individuals writing the articles, and the surprisingly broad scope of the articles.

1. Obviously with any encyclopedia, some articles are going to be longer than others. Men like Plato and Spinoza can expect quite a few columns or even pages. What separates this volume from others is that each article has a very small *annotated* bibliography for further review. The annotation almost makes it worth the price of the book.

2. While I haven't followed up on every contributor, I did immediately peruse the articles related to my field of study and recognized many of the names as leading philosophers. This lends credibility to the project.

3. I was surprised at just who they included. Leading authors like Dostoevsky were rightly acknowledged as key philosophers. More importantly, to continue with Dostoevsky as an example, these articles were cross-referenced to other similarities and figures (though I suppose this is quite common for encyclopedias). The net result is that fifteen minutes of careful reading can make one reasonably familiar with a certain field (say, Russian philosophy). While I am pleased with the broad scope, as is to be expected, many of the welcome additions were in fact too shallow in analysis (the article on "Byzantine Philosophy," for example). Somewhat surprisingly, though, the section on Hegel missed many key aspects of his thought.

Conclusion:

Although I am no expert in the philosophy of science or Eastern models, given that the Western contributors were experts in their fields, I can only assume this is largely the case for other branches. The cost of the book does appear prohibitive at first, and I suppose a book of this size can never sell for cheap, it does appear that used versions are popping up at affordable prices.

[Jimmy Cline]

Wow, I just discovered this the other day. I love Routledge. This is probably the most up to date encyclopedia of philosophy that I've seen so far.

[NAOMI POINDEXTER · Rating 5 out of 5]

Keep on your shelf and refer to often

[Daniel Clemence · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exceptional A to Z on philosophical concepts throughout humanity including but not limited to Aesthetics, ethics, epistemology, logic, politics, theology, psychology all to name a few. This is a reference book with useful information on philosophy, which has a Western focus but is not exclusively Western in its worldview. Exceedingly useful for philosophers and non-philosophers alike.