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The World's Great Philosophers
The World's Great Philosophers provides an introduction to and overview of some of the most profound and influential thinkers in the history of philosophy.
- GenresPhilosophy
384 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2003
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May 3, 2024
This book attempts to summarize the ideas of 40 major philosophers in less than 400 pages. Each of the entries is made by different authors, specialists on the specific philosophers. For most of them, I would say the book does a pretty good job, at least as far as I can tell. The book is not as simplistic as the name and the cover may lead you to think, in fact, the writing has the same level as academic articles, just condensed to allow the book to be a decent size.
Because each entry is by a different author, some are much easier to read than others. The parts on Frege and Husserl are especially painful.
Following the name of it, the book is not only about Western philosophy, but also Indian and Chinese philosophy. I found their entries nice too, as someone who is familiar with some Chinese and no Indian philosophy. Some choices on the philosophers are questionable, why put William James and John Dewey, but no Peirce? I can get why you wouldn't want to fill your limited roster with American pragmatists, but I feel Peirce is the most important one of them. Even Rorty made it.
This book is not aimed at beginners, but at people with some familiarity with philosophy already. Unless you have already read the primary texts of all the philosophers in the book(and considering the book includes ancient greek, scholastic, modern and oriental authors, I don't think many have), you can learn something from it. It will be more useful to someone who's not an expert yet though, such as I. If you have already read the primary texts of the main canonical western authors, then this book is not aimed at you.
For its purposes, I give it a 4.
Because each entry is by a different author, some are much easier to read than others. The parts on Frege and Husserl are especially painful.
Following the name of it, the book is not only about Western philosophy, but also Indian and Chinese philosophy. I found their entries nice too, as someone who is familiar with some Chinese and no Indian philosophy. Some choices on the philosophers are questionable, why put William James and John Dewey, but no Peirce? I can get why you wouldn't want to fill your limited roster with American pragmatists, but I feel Peirce is the most important one of them. Even Rorty made it.
This book is not aimed at beginners, but at people with some familiarity with philosophy already. Unless you have already read the primary texts of all the philosophers in the book(and considering the book includes ancient greek, scholastic, modern and oriental authors, I don't think many have), you can learn something from it. It will be more useful to someone who's not an expert yet though, such as I. If you have already read the primary texts of the main canonical western authors, then this book is not aimed at you.
For its purposes, I give it a 4.
Displaying 1 of 1 review