【2024BOOK05】"Lectures on History of Western Philosophy". This book is based on the liberal education course taught by Professor Zhao Lin at two universities in China, and it is definitely one of my favorite books I've read this year. I've always been curious about what Western philosophy is all about. Still, the books I had read before left me feeling confused and unable to grasp the essentials. "Lectures on History of Western Philosophy" gave me my first understanding of the basic knowledge of the history of Western philosophy———from the Milesian School to Hegel, in over 2500 years, what the renowned sages like Thales, Heraclitus, Democritus, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Abelard, Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Kant, and Hegel were actually contemplating; what their basic ideas were and how they related to one another; and, if we abandon the ideological bias, what those seemingly obscure terms, like metaphysics, scholasticism, materialism, idealism, agnosticism, and epistemology, actually mean. Professor Zhao Lin's book uses straightforward language and crystalizing analysis, allowing me to glimpse how philosophy, as a different path from science, has led human wisdom to reach one peak after another.
Besides, I deeply empathize with Professor Zhao Lin's opinion that we should be skeptical but educated. "You must truly understand the subject before being qualified to question it." This point is so enlightening, given a world full of polarized opinions.