Dru’s Reviews > Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition > Status Update

Done with CD 6 of 7...the early 20th century.

This was MUCH harder to follow than any of the previous lectures. Possibly it's because everyone *knows* who Socrates, Augustine, Hume and Marx were. The modern thinkers are unknowns. I only knew about Freud and James. And it also seems like the "single thread" which was Western thought has now become a complicated "web". Let's hope it wraps up well.

Set 5 of 7 done! This covered the age of "ideology", or as it's better known, "the 1800s". Post-enlightenment thinkers, dominated by Germans, but not exclusively. Kant, Kierkegaard, Adam Smith, Marx, Nietzsche and more. This one was hard to follow, and would almost require a require a re-listen.

Highlights:
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason
Kierkegaard's "Leap of Faith"
Marx's economic theories

4 of 7 sets down. #4 was on "The Enlightenment", that period more or less around 1680-1715 (+/- 80 years). Driven by Isaac Newton on the one hand, but also saw the rise of some other classic texts on human thought, such as Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations". The rise of Deism, and David Hume's scathing criticism of "Natural Religion" (seeing proof of God by studying nature). A great addition to the series!

3 of 7 done! And now that we're beyond the medieval Christian lectures, things are starting to get interesting again. It is still somewhat disheartening to see so many great minds (Descartes comes to mind) trying desperately to tie themselves into knots fitting "God" into mathematics, logic and science.

However, the lecture on Newton was VERY inspiring! I never quite appreciated all he'd accomplished!

Finished with the 2nd (of 7) CD sets, lectures 13-24. Unfortunately, this whole set is about the foundation of Christian thought. And while the lecturers make it clear that the "Western Intellectual Tradition" includes a blending of classic Greek thought and Biblical Hebrew/Christian thought, I found this whole section rather troubling. It all sounded like "pseudo-profound bullshit". Let's hope Set 3 gets better.

Finished Part 1 of 7 (first 12 half-hour lectures out of the 84 in the series). Will fit the remainders in as time allows, but not sure I can grind through 42 straight hours of history lectures, no matter how interesting.