An Illustrated Brief History of Western Philosophy, 20th Anniversary Edition

by Kenny, Anthony

• ISBN13: 9781119452799
• ISBN10: 1119452791
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781119452805
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2018-11-19
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• More Book Details

Summary

In 1998, the first edition of Anthony Kenny's comprehensive history of Western philosophy was published, to be met with immediate praise and critical acclaim. As the first book since Bertrand Russell's 1945 A History of Western Philosophy to offer a concise single-author review of the complete history of philosophy from the pre-Socratics to the modern masters of the 20^th century, Kenny's work fills a critical gap in the modern philosophy reading list and offers valuable guidance for the general reader of philosophy—an ideal starting point for anyone with an interest in great thinkers and the family lines of philosophical evolution.

Widely considered to be one of the most thorough and accessible historical reviews in philosophy, An Illustrated Brief History of Western Philosophy has earned an estimable and distinctive reputation, both for the compelling writing style of Anthony Kenny, one of the most respected and accomplished living philosophers, and for the rich collection of paintings, illustrations, maps, and photos included with every chapter to complement this review of 2,500 years of philosophical thought.

Newly revised and expanded for a special 20^th anniversary publication, the latest edition of An Illustrated Brief History of Western Philosophy contains all of Kenny's original writings on the history of Western philosophy from ancient to modern, along with new writings on the philosophy of the mid-20^th century, covering important contributions from continental philosophers and philosophers of the post-Wittgenstein anglophone tradition, including the work of many women who have too often been neglected by the historical record.

Author Biography

ANTHONY KENNY has held many prestigious titles over the course of his career, including Master of Balliol College, Oxford; Warden of Rhodes House, Oxford; President of the British Academy; President of the Royal Institute of Philosophy; and Chair of the Board of the British Library. With over fifty books published in his career, his most recent works are The Enlightenment: A Very Short History (2017) and a memoir, Brief Encounters, to be published in September 2018.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

List of Illustrations xv

Acknowledgements xvii

Introduction xix

I PHILOSOPHY IN ITS INFANCY 1

The Milesians 3

Xenophanes 5

Heraclitus 6

The School of Parmenides 8

Empedocles 14

The Atomists 17

II THE ATHENS OF SOCRATES 20

The Athenian Empire 20

Anaxagoras 22

The Sophists 22

Socrates 24

The Euthyphro 26

The Crito 29

The Phaedo 30

III THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLATO 36

Life and Works 36

The Theory of Ideas 38

Plato’s Republic 41

The Theaetetus and the Sophist 50

IV THE SYSTEM OF ARISTOTLE 57

Plato’s Pupil, Alexander’s Teacher 57

The Foundation of Logic 59

The Theory of Drama 63

Moral Philosophy: Virtue and Happiness 64

Moral Philosophy: Wisdom and Understanding 68

Politics 71

Science and Explanation 72

Words and Things 74

Motion and Change 76

Soul, Sense, and Intellect 78

Metaphysics 81

V GREEK PHILOSOPHY AFTER ARISTOTLE 85

The Hellenistic Era 85

Epicureanism 87

Stoicism 89

Scepticism 91

Rome and its Empire 93

Jesus of Nazareth 94

Christianity and Gnosticism 96

Neo-Platonism 99

VI EARLY CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY 102

Arianism and Orthodoxy 102

The Theology of Incarnation 105

The Life of Augustine 107

The City of God and the Mystery of Grace 110

Boethius and Philoponus 113

VII EARLY MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY 118

John the Scot 118

Alkindi and Avicenna 121

The Feudal System 123

Saint Anselm 124

Abelard and Héloïse 126

Abelard’s Logic 128

Abelard’s Ethics 130

Averroes 131

Maimonides 133

VIII PHILOSOPHY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 135

An Age of Innovation 135

Saint Bonaventure 138

Thirteenth-Century Logic 140

Aquinas’ Life and Works 141

Aquinas’ Natural Theology 143

Matter, Form, Substance, and Accident 145

Aquinas on Essence and Existence 147

Aquinas’ Philosophy of Mind 148

Aquinas’ Moral Philosophy 149

IX OXFORD PHILOSOPHERS 154

The Fourteenth-Century University 154

Duns Scotus 155

Ockham’s Logic of Language 162

Ockham’s Political Theory 164

The Oxford Calculators 167

John Wyclif 168

X RENAISSANCE PHILOSOPHY 171

The Renaissance 171

Free-will: Rome vs. Louvain 172

Renaissance Platonism 175

Machiavelli 176

More’s Utopia 179

The Reformation 181

Post-Reformation Philosophy 185

Bruno and Galileo 187

Francis Bacon 189

XI THE AGE OF DESCARTES 194

The Wars of Religion 194

The Life of Descartes 195

The Doubt and the Cogito 198

The Essence of Mind 200

God, Mind, and Body 201

The Material World 20

XII ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 209

The Empiricism of Thomas Hobbes 209

Hobbes’ Political Philosophy 211

The Political Theory of John Locke 214

Locke on Ideas and Qualities 216

Substances and Persons 219

XIII CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV 224

Blaise Pascal 224

Spinoza and Malebranche 227

Leibniz 232

XIV BRITISH PHILOSOPHY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 237

Berkeley 237

Hume’s Philosophy of Mind 242

Hume on Causation 246

Reid and Common Sense 248

XV THE ENLIGHTENMENT 251

The Philosophes 251

Rousseau 252

Revolution and Romanticism 256

XVI THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF KANT 259

Kant’s Copernican Revolution 259

The Transcendental Aesthetic 261

The Transcendental Analytic: The Deduction of the Categories 263

The Transcendental Analytic: The System of Principles 266

The Transcendental Dialectic: The Paralogisms of Pure Reason 269

The Transcendental Dialectic: The Antinomies of Pure Reason 271

The Transcendental Dialectic: The Critique of Natural Theology 274

Kant’s Moral Philosophy 276

XVII GERMAN IDEALISM AND MATERIALISM 280

Fichte 280

Hegel 281

Marx and the Young Hegelians 285

Capitalism and its Discontents 287

XVIII THE UTILITARIANS 290

Jeremy Bentham 290

The Utilitarianism of J. S. Mill 295

Mill’s Logic 297

XIX THREE NINETEENTH-CENTURY PHILOSOPHERS 301

Schopenhauer 301

Kierkegaard 307

Nietzsche 310

XX THREE MODERN MASTERS 313

Charles Darwin 313

John Henry Newman 318

Sigmund Freud 322

XXI LOGIC AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF MATHEMATICS 329

Frege’s Logic 329

Frege’s Logicism 331

Frege’s Philosophy of Logic 334

Russell’s Paradox 335

Russell’s Theory of Descriptions 337

Logical Analysis 340

XXII CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY 342

Henri Bergson 342

Husserl’s Phenomenology 347

The Existentialism of Heidegger 349

The Existentialism of Sartre and de Beauvoir 351

XXIII THE PHILOSOPHY OF WITTGENSTEIN 356

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 356

Logical Positivism 359

Philosophical Investigations 361

XXIV RECENT CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY 372

The Frankfurt School 372

Jacques Derrida 379

Jurgen Habermas 382

XXV RECENT ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY 388

Elizabeth Anscombe 389

W. V. O. Quine 390

Donald Davidson 393

Peter Geach 394

Peter Strawson 396

American Metaphysics 397

The Cartesian Revival 399

Analytical Ethics 401

John Rawls 405

Richard Rorty 406

Afterword 409

Suggestions for Further Reading 412

Index 421