The Five Great Philosophies of Life

by William de Witt Hyde

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Genres: Philosophy

240 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 4, 2014

About the author

William De Witt Hyde was an American educator and academic administrator who served as the president of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine for thirty-two years, from 1885 to his death in 1917.

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Worthwhile overview of Epicurean, Stoic, Platonic, and Aristotelian philosophies. A clear theme and bias throughout was the supposed superiority of a Christian philosophy. However, a discussion of Christianity belongs in a survey of religions - not philosophies. The unfounded bias and wasted praises in this fifth chapter are the reason for my poor review.

[Danessa Violette · Rating 5 out of 5]

oldie but a gooodie

Recommended from the classic book lover! This book takes the reader back in time when life was both simpler and more difficult in every aspect.

[Harry Slaughter]

I'm sure it's a great read, but it was not what I was looking for. It discusses ancient philosophies like Stoicism, which I didn't realize because I did not read the book info first :)

[Darius · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Five Great Philosophies of Life" by William de Witt Hyde begins with a description of Epicureanism and Stoicism. Here is how the author describes them.

The Epicurean seeks simple, attainable pleasures. Not excessive consumption, but enjoying day to day living, even while taking it slow, not "over-working", but spending time with friends and simple pleasures, and -- using the author's updated example -- hanging around one's club, socializing, and not doing much more. Even though its advocates were advised not to seek out ambitious material and political goals, the philosophy is essentially materialistic: since happiness comes not from any abstract sense of purpose, nor from aiding a divine end, but from achievable, material goals.

In contrast, Stoicism looks beyond man, seeing him as part of a universal mechanism. Instead of seeking small pleasures, stoicism critiques the nature of emotions by saying that even when we do not control what happens around us, we can completely control how we feel. External states do not necessitate particular mental states [we hear this echo in Christian Science]. Like Epicureans, Stoics too sought human happiness, but they thought it came less from material things than from our selves: our evaluations and our ability to be untroubled by travails.

After these two summaries, the author goes back in time to Plato and Aristotle. This anti-chronological treatment is a bit confusing, but it allows the author to lay down a basis before showing that Plato and Aristotle had a better approach than the Stoics or Epicureans.

He praises Plato for advocating reason, and for pointing out that concrete things are not good or evil outside of a context. One has to look to the larger purpose. Means serve ends, but those ends are usually the means to other ends. We have to trace this chain to know if the original means serves the good. When tracing thus, Plato does not stop at the individual human, but sees the individual as a part of society, who ought to serve that society as a body part ought to serve the individual. Though Plato does not criticize appetite, he does give it short shrift because he is so focused on ever remote ends (hence "Platonic love' is well-named).

Aristotle turns back the view toward the individual. He sees pleasure as a sign of good function, but his view would not fit with Epicureans who put much more focus on material pleasure. Aristotle might have viewed their approach as an attempt to reverse cause and effect. He would be even less compatible with the Stoic subordination of the individual to the universal, and he rejected asceticism. His was fundamentally an individualistic and practical outlook ("We acquire virtues by doing the acts"). Like Plato, he agreed that values were contextual: i.e. with things being good, depending on the context. From this comes the "Aristotelian mean" which is not meant to be an average, but a "right amount".

The author is a modernized christian. He has led up to Aristotle as being the best of the four, and then goes on to add Christianity as the fifth, and the final perfect addition to Aristotle. The author's version of Christianity rejects the asceticism of some early denominations, and rejects most church-created procedures. We must not even do things that Jesus might have done, he says, if those are concretes or just customs of the time. Even being our brother's keeper might require sternness and "teaching a man to fish" rather than in giving hand-outs. What, then, does Christianity add to Aristotle? In de Witt's view, it adds: love (as in "love they neighbor"). So, we do not have Plato's outright communism where every man lives primarily for the community, but instead we have each man living for himself, but with love for his neighbors, thus forming a community.

Summary: A well-written overview of the four ancient philosophies. In each section, the author first presents the philosophy with quotes to support his views, and attempts to argue for the positives. Then, he presents his critique. The fifth section (on Christianity) can be skipped with little loss.

[Moss 慈映夢図 · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Good

This book does an excellent job at detailing heady concepts fairly succinctly as shown by its five handy chapters that each focus on a different philosophy. It frequently addresses our base human instincts and offers insight into them, such as the acquisition of pleasure (and how real pleasure differs from fleeting indulgence) or the avoidance of pain (with emphasis on how to orient yourself so that you can stand up to pain, rather than fruitlessly attempt to outrun it). It lists the positives and negatives of Epicurean and Stoic philosophies with reference to and analysis of the written works of Plato and Aristotle, so it makes a strong case for each claim made.

The Bad
...Then out of butt-fuck nowhere it turns into Christian propaganda in the final chapter, despite having just proved that so much of our individual strength doesn't need to rest on the laurels of organised Western religion as previously thought. It's a pretty baffling turn, but the first four chapters are still great. The earlier chapters also reference how one compromise or wrong-doing, no matter how small, sullies the entirety of something, and yet we get to experience a demonstration of that philosophy in this very book by the mere inclusion of this unnecessary fifth chapter. The irony!

I still got a lot from this book. Philosophy is usually insightful but not always interesting, and I think Hyde manages a good balance here.

[D. James Schwebel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent introduction to Epicurean, Stoic, Platonic and Aristotelian Philosophies. The Christian Spirit of Love was both scattered and confusing at best. Interest faded at that point. There is a strong bias towards the superiority of Christian Teachings - this was unwanted, especially in a philosophical text.

But for the newcomer, the first 4 chapters are a worthwhile read. Skip the last.

[Anthony · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was influential on me as a teenager. The first two chapters were my earliest exposure to non-Platonic ancient Greek philosophy (although his Stoicism is mostly Roman). I decided to go back and try to finish the book 10 years later. I had to stop after Plato.

The source material is great if you don't have access to it otherwise. However, it's almost as if the author deliberately misinterprets the original text. He uses hyperbole when commenting on Epicureanism and Stoicism, nearly reducing the philosophies to their charicatures--especially in later chapters. His preference for Christianity is apparent through the text.

[Ratia Vox · Rating 2 out of 5]

Biased

The first four chapters are worth a read, but that fifth one wrecked it all with its blatant preference for Christian doctrine. Undermined the entire discussion.

[Peggy Snyder · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hard to read

Could not follow book. Very hard to understand. Maybe would be better if it was audible or able to start and finish in one setting.