A Short History of Philosophy

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

• ISBN13: 9780195086478
• ISBN10: 0195086473
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1996-01-04
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Philosophy is a singularly expansive enterprise, a fascinating outgrowth of a human nature that demands we question who and why we are. In A Short History of Philosophy, the most accessible concise portrait of philosophy in seventy years, Robert Solomon and Kathleen Higgins meet the challengeof accurately and engagingly describing it all, revelling in philosophy as "the art of wonder," the search for meaning, a gripping, dramatic endeavor. Here is the entire history of philosophy--ancient, medieval, and modern, from cultures both East and West--described in its historical and cultural context. "The concepts that lie at the heart of philosophy antedate history by thousands of years," the authors write in their introduction, notingthat the ancient concept of immortality, prehistorical ideas about magic, and the complex set of beliefs implied by the practice of human sacrifice all exhibit philosophic underpinnings. Solomon and Higgins chart the profound development of philosophical thought around the world and through thecenturies from the first stirrings of speculation and wonder to the rise of distinct (and often antithetical) philosophical traditions, moral constructs, and religious practices. From the early Greek and Asian philosophers and the mythological traditions that preceded them, to the great Greek,Indic, and Chinese philosophers, to the drama of the great religious philosophies, the authors have spun a marvelous tale that leads to the development and decline of modernity. Along with the major characters, such as Aristotle, Kant, and Confucius, Solomon and Higgins draw engaging portraits ofless well-known alchemists, mystics, rebels, eccentrics of all sorts, including figures often ignored in philosophy--figures such as Teresa of Avila, who contributed to the mystical traditions of Catholicism; al-Razi, a contrarian Persian philosopher within the Arabic tradition who described thephilosophical life as "godlike;" and Erasmus, the Dutch philosopher who parodied the foolishness of man in his praise of folly. With a clear, witty style and a flair for making complex ideas accessible, the authors also convincingly demonstrate the relevance of philosophy to our times, emphasizing the legacy of the revolutions wrought by science, industry, colonialism, and sectarian warfare, and the philosophical responsesto the traumas of the twentieth century (including two world wars and the Holocaust): existentialism, positivism, postmodernism, feminism, and multiculturalism among them. But Solomon and Higgins go beyond merely retelling the rich history of philosophy; the authors provide their own twists andinterpretations of events, resulting in a story that reveals the continuing complexity and diversity of a richly textured and nuanced intellectual tradition. All who are "lovers of wisdom" will find much to reward them in this book.

Author Biography

About the Authors:
Robert C. Solomon is Quincy Lee Centennial Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of more than twenty books, including From Hegel to Existentialism, About Love, and A Passion for Justice.
Kathleen M. Higgins is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author or editor of many books, including Nietzsche's Zarathustra and The Music of Our Lives. This is their sixth book together.

Table of Contents

Biographical Chronology	xiii
The Search for World Order: Ancient Philosophy	1	(78)
The ``Axial Period'' and the Origins of Philosophy	1	(6)
The ``Miracle'' of Greece	7	(4)
Philosophy, Myth, Religion, and Science	11	(6)
Meaning and Creation: Cosmogony and the Origins of Philosophy	17	(5)
Vedas and Vedanta: Early Philosophy in India	22	(3)
The First (Greek) Philosopher	25	(4)
The Pre-Socratic Philosophers (I): The Stuff of the World	29	(3)
The Pre-Socratic Philosophers (II): The Underlying Order	32	(4)
The Pre-Socratic Philosophers (III): The Pluralists	36	(3)
Enter the Sophists	39	(4)
Socrates	43	(6)
Plato: Metaphysician or Sublime Humorist?	49	(7)
The Philosopher's Philosopher: Aristotle	56	(11)
A Footnote to Plato (and Aristotle)	67	(1)
Tough Times: Stoicism, Skepticism, and Epicureanism	68	(6)
Mysticism and Logic in Ancient India: Nagarjuna and Nyaya	74	(5)
God and the Philosophers: Religious and Medieval Philosphy	79	(96)
Religion and Spirituality: Three Philosophical Themes	81	(3)
The Wisdom of the East (I): Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism	84	(7)
The Wisdom of the East (II): Confucius and Confucianism	91	(5)
The Wisdom of the East (III): Lao-tzu, Chuang-tzu, and Taoism	96	(3)
Deep in the Heart of Persia: Zoroastrianism	99	(1)
From Athens to Jerusalem: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam	100	(5)
The Hebrew People and the Origins of Judaism	105	(6)
Greek Jew: Philo of Alexandria	111	(3)
The Birth of Christianity	114	(4)
The Opening of Christianity: St. Paul	118	(3)
Neoplatonism and Christianity	121	(1)
St. Augustine and the Inner Life of Spirit	122	(4)
The First Great Split Within Christianity	126	(3)
The Rise of Islam	129	(4)
Mysticism	133	(1)
Persia and the Peripatetic Tradition	134	(5)
Diaspora, Dialectic, and Mysticism in Judaism	139	(3)
Thinking God: Anselm, Abelard, Aquinas, and Scholasticism	142	(5)
Late Scholasticism: Duns Scotus and William of Ockham	147	(2)
In Search of Essences: The Alchemists	149	(3)
Philosophical Syntheses Outside the West	152	(2)
The Reformation: Luther and His Progeny	154	(6)
The Counter-Reformation, Erasmus, and More	160	(3)
After Aristotle: Bacon, Hobbes, Machiavelli, and the Renaissance	163	(4)
Before the ``Discovery'': Africa and the Americas	167	(8)
Between Science and Religion: Modern Philosophy and the Enlightenment	175	(68)
Science, Religion, and the Meaning of Modernism	175	(3)
Montaigne: The First Modern Philosopher?	178	(2)
Descartes and the New Science	180	(6)
Spinoza, Leibniz, Pascal, and Newton	186	(6)
The Enlightenment, Colonialism, and the Eclipse of the Orient	192	(2)
Locke, Hume, and Empiricism	194	(5)
Adam Smith, the Moral Sentiments, and the Protestant Ethic	199	(3)
Voltaire, Rousseau, and Revolution	202	(3)
Immanuel Kant: Saving Science	205	(5)
Kant's Moral Philosophy and the Third Critique	210	(4)
The Discovery of History: Hegel	214	(7)
Philosophy and Poetry: Rationalism and Romanticism	221	(2)
Romantic West Meets East: Schopenhauer	223	(3)
After Hegel: Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, and Marx	226	(4)
Mill, Darwin, and Nietzsche: Consumerism, Energy, and Evolution	230	(5)
Early Philosophy in America	235	(8)
From Modernism to Postmodernism: The Twentieth Century	243	(64)
The Rejection of Idealism: A Century of Horrors	243	(2)
Frege, Russell, and Husserl: Arithmetic, Atomism Phenomenology	245	(8)
Zarathustra in the Trenches: The Limits of Rationality	253	(6)
The American Experience in Philosophy: Pragmatism	259	(5)
Changing Reality: Philosophies of Process	264	(2)
Unamuno, Croce, and Heidegger: The Tragic Sense of Life	266	(8)
Hitler, the Holocaust, Positivism, and Existentialism	274	(5)
No Exit: The Existentialism of Camus, Sartre, and Beauvior	279	(3)
From Ideal to Ordinary Language: From Cambridge to Oxford	282	(4)
Women and Gender: The Feminization of Philosophy	286	(6)
The Return of the Oppressed: Africa, Asia, and the Americas	292	(7)
From Postmodernism to the New Age	299	(5)
World Philosophy: Promise or Pretense	304	(3)
Notes	307	(8)
Selected Bibliography	315	(10)
Index	325