A Passion for Wisdom A Very Brief History of Philosophy

by Solomon, Robert C.; Higgins, Kathleen M.

• ISBN13: 9780195112085
• ISBN10: 0195112083
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-05-01
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

_ When the ancient Greek philosopher, Pythagoras, was asked if he was a wise man, he humbly replied "No, I am only a lover of wisdom." This love of wisdom has been central to the philosophical enterprise for thousands of years, inspiring some of the most dazzling and daring achievements of the human intellect and providing the very basis for how we understand the world. Now, readers eager to acquire a basic familiarity with the history of philosophy but intimidated by the task will find in A Passion for Wisdom: Philosophy Through the Ages , a lively, accessible, and highly enjoyable tour of the world's great ideas. Without simplifying their subject, editors Robert Solomon and Kathleen Higgins tell the story of philosophy's development with great clarity and refreshing wit. The brevity of their study, in fact, allows readers to see more clearly the connections and divergences between philosophers, as well as the way ideas change, reappear, and evolve over time. The authors begin with the most ancient religious beliefs and bring us right up to the feminist and multicultural philosophies of the present. Along the way, major philosophers are highlighted, from Plato and Aquinas to William James and Simone deBeauvoir, and major categories explored, from metaphysics and ethics to politics and logic. We also see the evolution of enduring ideas--how, for example, the value of subjective experience is treated in Augustine, Luther, Descartes, and Kirkegaard, how the idea of dynamic change appears in the work of Heraclitus, Darwin, Hegel, and Nietzsche, and how the recurring dichotomies between faith and reason, belief and skepticism, mysticism and empiricism occupy philosophers from one generation to the next. The authors make clear the many ways philosophers have argued with, borrowed from, and built on each other's ideas throughout the ages. We see Francis Bacon rejecting Aristotelian dogma, the impact of Buddhism on Schopenhauer, and the influence of Hume and Rousseau on the monumental philosophy of Imanuel Kant. The book is enlivened as well by telling anecdotes and sparkling quotations. We're treated to Thomas Hobbes' assessment--"Life is nasty, brutish, and short," Hegel's description of Napoleon as "world history on horseback," Schopenhauer's assertion that Art allows us a "Sabbath from the penal servitude of willing," and many other memorable and provocative observations. Accessible, comprehensive, and delightfully written, A Passion for Wisdom is a splendid introduction to an intellectual tradition that reaches back over three thousand years. More than that, it is a much-needed reminder for the present of the power inherent in humanity's wonder before the world.

Author Biography

About the Authors:
Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M. Higgins are both Professors of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. This is their seventh book together.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Timeline	xi
Part I Is There Ultimate Truth?
In the Beginning	3	(6)
Whence the World? Early Philosophy in India	9	(3)
The Hebrews, Their God, and the Law	12	(3)
Why Suffering? Zoroastrianism and the Problem of Evil	15	(3)
What is Enlightenment? Buddhism and Jainism	18	(4)
In Search of Harmony: Confucius, Taoism, and Mo	22	(4)
The Stuff of the World: Early Greek Philosophy	26	(7)
How Should We Live? Socrates and the Sophists	33	(3)
The Philosopher's Philosophers: Plato and Aristotle	36	(7)
When the Going Gets Tough: After Aristotle	43	(2)
Before the ``Discovery'' of Africa and the Americas	45	(6)
Part II Faith and Reason
The Birth of Christianity	51	(3)
Neoplatonism, Augustine, and the Inner Life of Spirit	54	(3)
To Mecca: The Rise of Islam	57	(2)
Altered States: Mysticism and Zen	59	(2)
Reason and Faith: The Peripatetic Tradition	61	(2)
Thinking God: Scholasticism	63	(3)
``Rebirth'' in Religion and Philosophy: Renaissance and Reformation	66	(3)
The New Science and its Politics	69	(3)
Who Knows? The Role of Doubt in Descartes and Montaigne	72	(3)
Why Do Things Happen? Spinoza, Leibniz, and Newton	75	(5)
The Search for Universals: Enlightenment	80	(1)
``Show Me!'' Locke, Hume, and Empiricism	81	(2)
Philosophy and Revolution	83	(4)
Adam Smith and the New World of Commerce	87	(2)
Part III From Modernity to Postmodernism
The Domain(s) of Reason: Kant	89	(5)
Hegel and History	94	(4)
The Battle Between Poetry and Philosophy: Romanticism	98	(3)
Beyond Hegel: Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, and Marx	101	(3)
Where to, Humanity? Mill, Darwin, and Nietzsche	104	(4)
From Puritanism to Pragmatism: Philosophy in America	108	(5)
Back to Basics: Frege, Russell, and Husserl	113	(3)
The Limits of Rationality: Wittgenstein, Freud, and Weber	116	(3)
The Progress of Process: Against Analysis	119	(1)
The Tragic Sense of Life: Unamuno, Croce, and Heidegger	120	(2)
Reactions to Fascism: Positivism and Existentialism	122	(3)
Philosophy Discovers ``the Other'': The Question of Postmodernism	125	(4)
A Brief Bibliography	129	(4)
Index	133