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Philosophical Essays
Gateway to the Great Books is a 10-volume series of books originally published by Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. in 1963 and edited by Mortimer Adler and Robert Maynard Hutchins. The set was designed as an introduction to the Great Books of the Western World, published by the same organization and editors in 1952. The set included selections – short stories, plays, essays, letters, and extracts from longer works – by more than one hundred authors. The selections were generally shorter and in some ways simpler than the full-length books included in the Great Books.
John Erskine, "The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent"
William Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief"
William James, "The Will to Believe", "The Sentiment of Rationality"
John Dewey, "The Process of Thought" from How We Think
Epicurus, "Letter to Herodotus"; "Letter to Menoeceus"
Epictetus, The Enchiridion
Walter Pater, "The Art of Life" from The Renaissance
Plutarch, "Contentment"
Cicero, "On Friendship"; "On Old Age"
Francis Bacon, "Of Truth"; "Of Death"; "Of Adversity"; "Of Love"; "Of Friendship"; "Of Anger"
George Santayana, "Lucretius"; "Goethe's Faust"
Henry Adams, "St. Thomas Aquinas" from Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres
Voltaire, "The Philosophy of Common Sense"
John Stuart Mill, "Nature"
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Nature"; "Self-Reliance"; "Montaigne; or, the Skeptic"
William Hazlitt, "On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth"
Thomas Browne, "Immortality" from Urn-Burial
(Source: Wikipedia)
John Erskine, "The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent"
William Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief"
William James, "The Will to Believe", "The Sentiment of Rationality"
John Dewey, "The Process of Thought" from How We Think
Epicurus, "Letter to Herodotus"; "Letter to Menoeceus"
Epictetus, The Enchiridion
Walter Pater, "The Art of Life" from The Renaissance
Plutarch, "Contentment"
Cicero, "On Friendship"; "On Old Age"
Francis Bacon, "Of Truth"; "Of Death"; "Of Adversity"; "Of Love"; "Of Friendship"; "Of Anger"
George Santayana, "Lucretius"; "Goethe's Faust"
Henry Adams, "St. Thomas Aquinas" from Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres
Voltaire, "The Philosophy of Common Sense"
John Stuart Mill, "Nature"
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Nature"; "Self-Reliance"; "Montaigne; or, the Skeptic"
William Hazlitt, "On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth"
Thomas Browne, "Immortality" from Urn-Burial
(Source: Wikipedia)
- GenresPhilosophyNonfiction
580 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1963
3 people are currently reading
49 people want to read
About the author
Robert Maynard Hutchins
661 books42 followersRobert Maynard Hutchins (LL.B., Yale Law School, 1925; B.A., Yale University, 1921) was an educational philosopher, dean of Yale Law School (1927-1929), and president (1929–1945) and chancellor (1945–1951) of the University of Chicago.
While he was president of the University of Chicago, Hutchins implemented wide-ranging and controversial reforms of the University, including the elimination of varsity football. The most far-reaching reforms involved the undergraduate College of the University of Chicago, which was retooled into a novel pedagogical system built on Great Books, Socratic dialogue, comprehensive examinations and early entrance to college. Although the substance of this Hutchins Plan was abandoned by the University shortly after Hutchins resigned in 1951, an adapted version of the program survives at Shimer College in Chicago.
Editor-in-Chief of Great Books of the Western World and Gateway to the Great Books; co-editor of The Great Ideas Today; Chairman of the Board of Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica (1943-1974).
He was the husband of novelist Maude Hutchins.
While he was president of the University of Chicago, Hutchins implemented wide-ranging and controversial reforms of the University, including the elimination of varsity football. The most far-reaching reforms involved the undergraduate College of the University of Chicago, which was retooled into a novel pedagogical system built on Great Books, Socratic dialogue, comprehensive examinations and early entrance to college. Although the substance of this Hutchins Plan was abandoned by the University shortly after Hutchins resigned in 1951, an adapted version of the program survives at Shimer College in Chicago.
Editor-in-Chief of Great Books of the Western World and Gateway to the Great Books; co-editor of The Great Ideas Today; Chairman of the Board of Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica (1943-1974).
He was the husband of novelist Maude Hutchins.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 5, 2021
Heme aquí volviendo a la colección 'The Great Books of the Western World'. En esta ocasión escogí el tomo 10 de la serie 'Gateway to the Great Books', que reúne textos breves y extractos selectos de algunas obras filosóficas, para complementar los ricos volúmenes de la colección principal.
Como todo el proyecto, esta entrega adolece de excesivos androcentrismo y etnocentrismo. Cada vez que leo alguno de estos volúmenes no puedo evitar rodar los ojos ante la selección de autores, una en la que señores angloparlantes de los que nadie ha oído hablar son escogidos por encima de mujeres y personas de otras nacionalidades que aún hoy son relevantes para la llamada "cultura occidental". Sin embargo, al instante me calmo y me recuerdo que, después de todo, esta colección fue creada en la década de los sesenta, y que aunque no todos los nombres aquí son precisamente inmortales, no hay un solo ensayo del que se pueda decir que no tiene algo de valioso.
No todos los textos incluidos se ganan las cinco estrellas, pero los que sí las merecen son suficientemente buenos como para que el volumen merezca esa calificación. Aun los textos que podríamos considerar menores juegan un papel en el cuerpo del volumen, pues no se trata de una colección arbitraria, sino que tiene cierta estructura temática. Así, los primeros ensayos tratan acerca del pensar, el creer, el conocer y el aprender; son textos de epistemología, pues, aunque siempre relacionados con asuntos concretos, como la ética en la vida cotidiana o la educación para el mundo moderno.
Entre mis textos favoritos se encuentran los que nos llevan a la Antigüedad: Epicuro, Epicteto, Plutarco y Cicerón nos hablan a través de los siglos para demostrarnos que las inquietudes de los seres humanos son siempre las mismas. ¿Cómo llevar una buena vida? ¿Cómo ser felices? ¿Cómo es una buena amistad? ¿Cómo perder el miedo a la vejez y a la muerte? A todos nos acosan de vez en cuando pensamientos depresivos y angustiantes, y creo que se puede encontrar mucho de consuelo y confort en las palabras de aquellos hombres sabios.
Otros textos tratan sobre la filosofía misma, es decir, sintetizan y analizan la obra de otros filósofos del canon, como Lucrecio, Santo Tomás, Montaigne o Goethe. Si el volumen tiene el objetivo de ser una "puerta de entrada" a los grandes libros, cumple muy bien su función, pues ahora quiero leer más de lo que han escrito pensadores como John Dewey o George Santayana.
Algunos textos están puestos en oposición los unos a los otros; una de las ideas centrales de este proyecto es que la humanidad sostiene una "gran conversación" consigo misma a través del tiempo y del espacio, gracias a la palabra escrita. Así, podemos asistir a un debate entre William Kingdom Clifford y William James, sobre la ética de la creencia, en la que uno defiende el deber ético de sólo creer en aquello que está demostrado, y el otro sostiene que tal es un afán imposible. O una discusión entre John Stuart Mill y Ralph Waldo Emerson, sobre concepciones opuestas de la Naturaleza, según la Ilustración y según el Romanticismo.
El volumen termina con un par de reflexiones sobre la inmortalidad, sobre lo pueril de nuestros deseos de alcanzarla, no sólo como la continuación ilimitada de nuestra vida natural, sino como el afán por conseguir una fama que supere nuestro tiempo en la tierra. Excelente forma de concluir un libro que te hará pensar sobre tantísimos otros aspectos de la vida humana.
Como todo el proyecto, esta entrega adolece de excesivos androcentrismo y etnocentrismo. Cada vez que leo alguno de estos volúmenes no puedo evitar rodar los ojos ante la selección de autores, una en la que señores angloparlantes de los que nadie ha oído hablar son escogidos por encima de mujeres y personas de otras nacionalidades que aún hoy son relevantes para la llamada "cultura occidental". Sin embargo, al instante me calmo y me recuerdo que, después de todo, esta colección fue creada en la década de los sesenta, y que aunque no todos los nombres aquí son precisamente inmortales, no hay un solo ensayo del que se pueda decir que no tiene algo de valioso.
No todos los textos incluidos se ganan las cinco estrellas, pero los que sí las merecen son suficientemente buenos como para que el volumen merezca esa calificación. Aun los textos que podríamos considerar menores juegan un papel en el cuerpo del volumen, pues no se trata de una colección arbitraria, sino que tiene cierta estructura temática. Así, los primeros ensayos tratan acerca del pensar, el creer, el conocer y el aprender; son textos de epistemología, pues, aunque siempre relacionados con asuntos concretos, como la ética en la vida cotidiana o la educación para el mundo moderno.
Entre mis textos favoritos se encuentran los que nos llevan a la Antigüedad: Epicuro, Epicteto, Plutarco y Cicerón nos hablan a través de los siglos para demostrarnos que las inquietudes de los seres humanos son siempre las mismas. ¿Cómo llevar una buena vida? ¿Cómo ser felices? ¿Cómo es una buena amistad? ¿Cómo perder el miedo a la vejez y a la muerte? A todos nos acosan de vez en cuando pensamientos depresivos y angustiantes, y creo que se puede encontrar mucho de consuelo y confort en las palabras de aquellos hombres sabios.
Otros textos tratan sobre la filosofía misma, es decir, sintetizan y analizan la obra de otros filósofos del canon, como Lucrecio, Santo Tomás, Montaigne o Goethe. Si el volumen tiene el objetivo de ser una "puerta de entrada" a los grandes libros, cumple muy bien su función, pues ahora quiero leer más de lo que han escrito pensadores como John Dewey o George Santayana.
Algunos textos están puestos en oposición los unos a los otros; una de las ideas centrales de este proyecto es que la humanidad sostiene una "gran conversación" consigo misma a través del tiempo y del espacio, gracias a la palabra escrita. Así, podemos asistir a un debate entre William Kingdom Clifford y William James, sobre la ética de la creencia, en la que uno defiende el deber ético de sólo creer en aquello que está demostrado, y el otro sostiene que tal es un afán imposible. O una discusión entre John Stuart Mill y Ralph Waldo Emerson, sobre concepciones opuestas de la Naturaleza, según la Ilustración y según el Romanticismo.
El volumen termina con un par de reflexiones sobre la inmortalidad, sobre lo pueril de nuestros deseos de alcanzarla, no sólo como la continuación ilimitada de nuestra vida natural, sino como el afán por conseguir una fama que supere nuestro tiempo en la tierra. Excelente forma de concluir un libro que te hará pensar sobre tantísimos otros aspectos de la vida humana.
April 6, 2022
There’s a clear white-man-Western-privileged perspective that runs through all of the other volumes in this series, and this last volume in the series did not prove an exception.
All the selections in all of the 10 volumes were interesting and worthwhile and each are deserving of being fully read. I only skipped one article from the complete series and that was the Euler article on the bridges because I had read it before and it was tediously entwined with mathematics and I was listening to these volumes and it was devilishly hard to follow the math just by listening. Euler rocks, I fault the editors for not giving a better selection from Euler. For example, there is nothing that is more interesting than Euler’s number (e=2.72…), and how it is transcendental and yet is foundational to almost everything in the universe as much as ‘e to the i pi equals negative one’ (the five most important constants in the observable universe are each included in that equation: e,i,pi,1,0).
This particular volume was disappointing because what could have been. The selections mostly focused on what I would call ‘pragmatic philosophy’. It’s as if the editors had an agenda and wanted to sell his particular view point of morality while presenting different thinkers who fit into 1963 white-man-Western-privileged world-view. The only way to get out of the epistemological trap we all reside in is to see the world empathetically from another perspective, these essays over all do trap the reader into one narrow perspective when other perspectives might be more beneficial. I enjoy this series overall but the what could have been does bother me.
For this volume in particular, I can’t really fault any of the essays because they were all quite good and give a certain needed perspective, but, at the same time, there is so much more to philosophy than what William James or Ralph Waldo Emerson have to offer, and not to actually cause fist-to-cuffs but Cicero and Voltaire as philosophers lack something as far as I’m concerned.
I’ll give the over all series a strong five stars, and would even say that everyone should read (or listen) to this remarkable series, because the essays are great overall even if they give a re-enforcement to a worldview that is thankfully no longer the only way of thinking about the world. I can’t really criticize any of the particular articles in these volumes, but I sure can criticize the parochial white-man-Western-privileged certainty that the editor clearly has overall.
This particular volume in the series was the weakest by far of the entire series. Ironically, when I started reading the 10 volumes in the Gateway, I couldn’t wait to get to this one because I love philosophy. Sadly, I was disappointed in the overall selection of the philosophy articles and irritated at the pragmatic and at time quotidian selections this volume presented. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking philosophy is as quotidian as this volume makes it out to be. It is not and there is a plethora of better essays out there on philosophy.
All the selections in all of the 10 volumes were interesting and worthwhile and each are deserving of being fully read. I only skipped one article from the complete series and that was the Euler article on the bridges because I had read it before and it was tediously entwined with mathematics and I was listening to these volumes and it was devilishly hard to follow the math just by listening. Euler rocks, I fault the editors for not giving a better selection from Euler. For example, there is nothing that is more interesting than Euler’s number (e=2.72…), and how it is transcendental and yet is foundational to almost everything in the universe as much as ‘e to the i pi equals negative one’ (the five most important constants in the observable universe are each included in that equation: e,i,pi,1,0).
This particular volume was disappointing because what could have been. The selections mostly focused on what I would call ‘pragmatic philosophy’. It’s as if the editors had an agenda and wanted to sell his particular view point of morality while presenting different thinkers who fit into 1963 white-man-Western-privileged world-view. The only way to get out of the epistemological trap we all reside in is to see the world empathetically from another perspective, these essays over all do trap the reader into one narrow perspective when other perspectives might be more beneficial. I enjoy this series overall but the what could have been does bother me.
For this volume in particular, I can’t really fault any of the essays because they were all quite good and give a certain needed perspective, but, at the same time, there is so much more to philosophy than what William James or Ralph Waldo Emerson have to offer, and not to actually cause fist-to-cuffs but Cicero and Voltaire as philosophers lack something as far as I’m concerned.
I’ll give the over all series a strong five stars, and would even say that everyone should read (or listen) to this remarkable series, because the essays are great overall even if they give a re-enforcement to a worldview that is thankfully no longer the only way of thinking about the world. I can’t really criticize any of the particular articles in these volumes, but I sure can criticize the parochial white-man-Western-privileged certainty that the editor clearly has overall.
This particular volume in the series was the weakest by far of the entire series. Ironically, when I started reading the 10 volumes in the Gateway, I couldn’t wait to get to this one because I love philosophy. Sadly, I was disappointed in the overall selection of the philosophy articles and irritated at the pragmatic and at time quotidian selections this volume presented. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking philosophy is as quotidian as this volume makes it out to be. It is not and there is a plethora of better essays out there on philosophy.
May 27, 2015
There are some good essays in this volume, mixed in with some painfully dull, pointless reads that I'd recommend skimming. If you want a great way to be introduced to a lot of different classic authors, this is a good book to pick up.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews