Bertrand Russell

The History of Western Philosophy

Will Dawson

There is here a reciprocal causation: the circumstances of men's lives do much to determine their philosophy, but, conversely, their philosophy does much to de- termine their circumstances.

Hailed as “lucid and magisterial” by The Observer, this book is universally acclaimed as the outstanding one-volume work on the subject of Western philosophy. Considered to be one of the most important philosophical works of all time, the History of Western Philosophy is a dazzlingly unique exploration of the ideologies of significant philosophers throughout the ages—from Plato and Aristotle through to Spinoza, Kant and the twentieth century. Written by a man who changed the history of philosophy himself, this is an account that has never been rivaled since its first publication over sixty years ago. Since its first publication in 1945, Lord Russell’s A History of Western Philosophy is still unparalleled in its comprehensiveness, its clarity, its erudition, its grace, and its wit. In seventy-six chapters he traces philosophy from the rise of Greek civilization to the emergence of logical analysis in the twentieth century. Among the philosophers considered are: Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, the Atomists, Protagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Cynics, the Sceptics, the Epicureans, the Stoics, Plotinus, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Benedict, Gregory the Great, John the Scot, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, William of Occam, Machiavelli, Erasmus, More, Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, the Utilitarians, Marx, Bergson, James, Dewey, and lastly the philosophers with whom Lord Russell himself is most closely associated—Cantor, Frege, and Whitehead, coauthor with Russell of the monumental Principia Mathematica.

History of Western Philosophy

Avery

This felt like a fairly comprehensive account of the development of philosophy in the west, but it's hard to know how much I was able to absorb.

The book is written in a way that I felt was very scattered. Some sections have an incredible amount of seemingly unrelated detail, such as the relationships between each Pope and their contemporary kings/emperors throughout the period characterized by the power of the Catholic Church.
Each philosopher ends up being described in relation to the ideas before and after their work. I felt that this confuses the timeline and adds a lot of speculation about how the older philosopher may have responded to newer ideas.
The last section feels dated at times with references to current events, but the majority of the book addresses ideas old enough not to have this feeling.

As far as content is concerned, I found the book spent a lot of time on metaphysical theories, most of which seemed to have limited justification. Of course that�s probably more of a commentary on the philosophers than the author.

In general, a more focused version of this book probably would have been closer to what I had personally hoped for. Spending more time was on fewer philosophers would have helped keep them all clear in my head and fully understand the ideas.

Anton

Eye opening, mind twisting and reassuring

I’m by no means a philosopher: I’ve only read two works mentioned in this book (the Bible and the Meditations by Marcus Aurelius). Still, this book was fun and easy to read. And in many ways this book has blown my mind.

This book presents a history of human though and how it evolved over time. You can see what puzzled minds of great thinkers throughout the history and how with each next chapter the ideas where getting more and more intricate. It’s fascinating that some problems that I think about these days have been on our minds for centuries: what Ancient Greeks called “godly bed” is now discussed in form of category theories. Reading this book placed many questions like this in the historical perspective.

I felt connected with each topic highlighted in this books. Philosophy can be remote from daily life and philosophical works can be dry and condescending. Not this book. Each chapter was clearly presenting a problem, how it came about, what solution has the thinker proposed and how that solution was wrong. The writing style is both entertaining and captivating, which helped with the most mind boggling ideas that change the way you see the world, it certainly changed mine. 

I fished reading this book with a thought “so we aren’t done yet” and it felt reassuring. At times it feels like the modern world has everything figured out. The “developed” world has science, market economy, democracy. Yet as I’m writing this there is a war that is a war between democracy and totalitarianism. This book talked about proponents of both ideas, as well as if war is a good method of figuring out who has the truth. So it seems like humanity haven’t figured everything out yet. Yet there’s is hope. This book showed that over time we are getting better and philosophizing and figuring things out.

And Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day

A History of Western Philosophy

Nelson Zagalo

The narration of the audiobook is great.

About the book, I've written y review in portuguese here:
https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com...

Counterpoint

Erik Schön

A logician/empiricist's perspective on the history of western philosophy

Sunyi Dean

This book is valuable, not only for introduction it provides into philosophy, but for the compassion and integrity with which it is presented. 

Bertrand Russell writes,

"When an intelligent man expresses a view which seems to us obviously absurd, we should not attempt to prove that it is somehow true, but we should try to understand how it ever came to seem true. This exercise of historical and psychological imagination at once enlarges the scope of our thinking and helps us to realize how foolish many of our own cherished prejudices will seem to an age which has a different temper of mind." (p. 39)

No truer words were ever spoken. (I often wish that other people would attempt to understand my point of view, as - I hope - I attempt to understand theirs, rather than just assuming I'm uninformed or misguided.) We like to think that we are superior to our predecessors, that we are the inheritors of an enlightened age - but perhaps it would be more accurate to simply say that we are inheritors.

History of Western Philosophy (Routledge Classics)

Rachel Prudden

As someone who has never formally studied philosophy, I found this book valuable for piecing together the background arguments that appear in almost all philosophical writing. I'm enjoying being able to pick out which metaphysics people are arguing by, which comes up more often than I'd have guessed. Russell is very far from being a neutral interpreter of philosophical systems other than his own, but personally I didn't find this to be a negative. What really helped me was the narrative, showing how different thinkers expanded and negated each other's thoughts.