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"Kenny's authoritative work, compiling four volumes, is the finest single-author history of Western philosophy since Frederick Copleston- a Herculean task executed with erudition and entertainment. From the dream of the ancient Greeks to the deconstruction of postmodernists, he accessibly treats the major branches of philosophy: ethics, politics, religion, epistemology, language, metaphysics, aesthetics, and logic. --Christopher, Benson --First Things
Product Description
This book is no less than a guide to the whole of Western philosophy -- the ideas that have undergirded our civilization for two-and-a-half thousand years. Anthony Kenny tells the story of philosophy from ancient Greece through the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment into the modern world. He introduces us to the great thinkers and their ideas, starting with Plato, Aristotle, and the other founders of Western thought. In the second part of the book he takes us through a thousand years of medieval philosophy, and shows us the rich intellectual legacy of Christian thinkers like Augustine, Aquinas, and Ockham. Moving into the early modern period, we explore the great works of Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Leibniz, Spinoza, Hume, and Kant, which remain essential reading today. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Hegel, Mill, Nietzsche, Freud, and Wittgenstein again transformed the way we see the world. Running though the book are certain themes which have been constant concerns of philosophy since its early beginnings: the fundamental questions of what exists and how we can know about it; the nature of humanity, the mind, truth, and meaning; the place of God in the universe; how we should live and how society should be ordered. Anthony Kenny traces the development of these themes through the centuries: we see how the questions asked and answers offered by the great philosophers of the past remain vividly alive today. Anyone interested in ideas and their history will find this a fascinating and stimulating read
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is an outstanding contribution to the history of philosophy. The presentation of the ideas of major philosophers and schools of philosophy is comprehensive and beautifully written. Anthony Kenny provides a subtle critique of the ideas he explores, as well as a few personal details about philosophers that bring them to life. He helps the reader explore ideas in a way that makes this work more engaging than Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Reading this book exercised parts of my brain that I had not hitherto known existed.
Prof. Kenny has written a work that answers all your questions about Western philosophy, and then encourages you to pursue the matter further.
An education in itself.
Prof. Kenny has written a work that answers all your questions about Western philosophy, and then encourages you to pursue the matter further.
An education in itself.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4 reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
I love it!
14 Jan 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
From the reviews of its individual volumes, there's little I can add here. The biggest complaints are Kenny's cutoff date of 1975 (30 years to the first volume's publication), that "he didn't give enough pages to Philosopher X!," and that he downplayed the contributions of 20th century Continental philosophers. It's easy to think that our favorite (and recent or current) philosopher is not just a fad but so important that his greatness just isn't appreciated! Yet this is the same complaint with EVERY history of philosophy. Yes, with every single one. Better it would been to have added a fifth volume for 20th century philosophy. At least Kenny recognizes that many philosophies do not survive far beyond their own day and looking back, seem faddish. Thus his short-shrift of postmodernism (Have we really learned much beyond the original writings up to 1981?).
Kenny does something rare, which is to credit the influence that Marx, Darwin, and Freud had on philosophy, even though they rarely can be counted as philosophers. Intended as an introductory undergraduate text, it's really good as such. Don't ask it to be comprehensive and don't ask Kenny to give your favorite philosopher more pages than another in the same period. As is, it's pretty fantastic and a welcome history.
Kenny does something rare, which is to credit the influence that Marx, Darwin, and Freud had on philosophy, even though they rarely can be counted as philosophers. Intended as an introductory undergraduate text, it's really good as such. Don't ask it to be comprehensive and don't ask Kenny to give your favorite philosopher more pages than another in the same period. As is, it's pretty fantastic and a welcome history.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Very highly recommended as a key acquisition!
22 Feb 2011
Format:Hardcover
A New History of Western Philosophy offers a fine definitive collection of philosophical history and ideas from ancient to modern times, and is a recommended pick for any library seeking writings on philosophy and its history, whether it be a general or school collection. Four fine books blend into one volume and come from a scholar who chronologically discusses works from Cicero to Freud, offering social, political, and philosophical history in the first major single-author narrative to appear in decades. Very highly recommended as a key acquisition!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Best Overall Survey of Western Philosophy: A New Classic
29 Jun 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
If any person is looking for just one book to give them an overview of every major western philosophical notion of the last 2500 years this is it. It does not go into as much detail on some specifics as other great classics such as Russell's not so new version of the same title, or Durant's beautiful Story of Philosophy, but it does cover far more ground than any other work in the sense of understanding the big picture of western philosophy.
In reading this book one will gain the best initial understanding of how a certain philosopher connects to another, or how a certain school of thought leads to the next. This book, it is true, does not go into great detail on any particular philosopher. But that is not what scaping histories are for. If that is what is being sought after, buy individual books on individual philosophers or philosophies.
As far as the authorship goes, it is highly readable. It is not quit as beautiful as Will Durant's prose scholarship (though of course no one's is) but it was about as close as a page-turner comes to non-fiction. I found myself highly fascinated and growing deeper in my understanding of overall philosophy - often going through dozens of pages without even noticing. Each chapter flows logically into the next and makes perfect sense. Kenny certainly mastered the art of high quality scholarship without being pedantic.
Basically, if one is anything less than an expert on western philosophy this book holds value. If one has absolutely no, or at least very little, understanding of philosophy then this book will open a whole new world to their mind. Even if said reader is well educated in philosophy this book will increase one's overall understanding so that they may go on to, through other books, better learn of the great many philosophical specifics. I will both gladly and hastily recommend this book as the first for anyone to gain knowledge in philosophy. Surely this will become the standard survey into western philosophy for the next half-century.
In reading this book one will gain the best initial understanding of how a certain philosopher connects to another, or how a certain school of thought leads to the next. This book, it is true, does not go into great detail on any particular philosopher. But that is not what scaping histories are for. If that is what is being sought after, buy individual books on individual philosophers or philosophies.
As far as the authorship goes, it is highly readable. It is not quit as beautiful as Will Durant's prose scholarship (though of course no one's is) but it was about as close as a page-turner comes to non-fiction. I found myself highly fascinated and growing deeper in my understanding of overall philosophy - often going through dozens of pages without even noticing. Each chapter flows logically into the next and makes perfect sense. Kenny certainly mastered the art of high quality scholarship without being pedantic.
Basically, if one is anything less than an expert on western philosophy this book holds value. If one has absolutely no, or at least very little, understanding of philosophy then this book will open a whole new world to their mind. Even if said reader is well educated in philosophy this book will increase one's overall understanding so that they may go on to, through other books, better learn of the great many philosophical specifics. I will both gladly and hastily recommend this book as the first for anyone to gain knowledge in philosophy. Surely this will become the standard survey into western philosophy for the next half-century.
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