Format:
xviii, 137 p
,
22 cm
ISBN:
0195112083
Content:
Readers eager to acquire a basic familiarity with the history of philosophy but intimidated by the task will find in A Passion for Wisdom: A Very Brief History of Philosophy a lively, accessible, and highly enjoyable tour of the world's great ideas. Without simplifying their subject, 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
Content:
Readers eager to acquire a basic familiarity with the history of philosophy but intimidated by the task will find in A Passion for Wisdom: A Very Brief History of Philosophy a lively, accessible, and highly enjoyable tour of the world's great ideas. Without simplifying their subject, 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
Note:
Bibliography: p129-132. - Includes index
,
Preface -- Timeline -- pt. 1. Is there ultimate truth? -- In the beginning ; Whence the world? Early philosophy in India ; Hebrews, their god, and the law ; Why suffering? Zoroastrianism and the problem of evil ; What is enlightenment? Buddhism and Jainism ; In search of harmony : Confucius, Taoism, and Mo ; Stuff of the world : early Greek philosophy ; How should we live? Socrates and the Sophists ; Philosopher's philosophers : Plato and Aristotle ; When the going gets tough : after Aristotle ; Before the discovery of Africa and the Americas -- pt. 2. Faith and reason -- Birth of Christianity ; Neoplatonism, Augustine, and the inner life of spirit ; To Mecca : the rise of Islam ; Altered states : mysticism and Zen ; Reason and faith : the Peripatetic tradition ; Thinking God : Scholasticism ; Rebirth in religion and philosophy : Renaissance and Reformation ; New science and its politics ; Who knows? The role of doubt in Descartes and Montaigne ; Why do things happen? Spinoza, Leibniz, and Newton -- Search for universals : enlightenment ; Show me! : Locke, Hume, and empiricism ; Philosophy and revolution ; Adam Smith and the new world of commerce -- pt. 3. From modernity to postmodernism -- Domain(s) of reason : Kant ; Hegel and history ; Battle between poetry and philosophy : Romanticism ; Beyond Hegel : Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, and Marx ; Where to, humanity? Mill, Darwin, and Nietzsche ; From Puritanism to pragmatism : philosophy in America ; Back to basics : Frege, Russell, and Husserl ; Limits of rationality : Wittgenstein, Freud, and Weber ; Progress of process : against analysis ; Tragic sense of life : Unamuno, Croce, and Heidegger ; Reactions to Fascism : positivism and existentialism ; Philosophy discovers the other : the question of postmodernism.
Language:
English
Keywords:
Philosophie
;
Geschichte
Author information:
Solomon, Robert C. 1942-2007
Author information:
Higgins, Kathleen Marie 1954-
