- Paperback: 420 pages
- Publisher: OUP Oxford; New Ed edition (15 Mar 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0192854402
- ISBN-13: 978-0192854407
- Product Dimensions: 24.2 x 18.8 x 2.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 589,767 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
The Oxford Illustrated History of Western Philosophy
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Amazon.co.uk Review
What does philosophy look like? Can you take a picture of it? The Oxford Illustrated History of Western Philosophy may not answer these questions, but it manages to ask them artfully with just a hint of schizophrenia. Sometimes it is a concise but substantive account of the history of Western philosophy. Other times it is a coffee-table book that lends itself to casual thumbing-through. Pause long enough to wonder at Kant's silhouette, Jeremy Bentham's infamous Panopticon, a photo of Machiavelli's writing desk, or the Ephesian wall painting of Socrates. The volume lives up to its name: there are over two dozen full-colour pictures--such as Paul Gauguin's arresting painting Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?--and myriad black-and-white illustrations of all varieties.
Editor Anthony Kenny parses his history into just six chunks of philosophy--ancient, medieval, three flavours of modern, and political--but amazingly the book does not seem to skimp on details. The reader will find everything from a treatise on Psuedo-Dionysius to an explanation of Kant's Paralogisms of Pure Reason to an analysis of Wittgenstein's private language argument. The six contributors to this book are philosophical heavyweights and their accounts are inevitably coloured by their respective likes and dislikes. But in sum The Oxford History of Western Philosophy is first-rate scholarship that succeeds where almost all academic histories fail. --Eric de Place
Review
"A wonderfully lucid exposition of difficult ideas."--Tablet
"Anthony Kenny, the editor of this courageously erudite compendium, reminds us that philosophy has always been fascinated by the interweaving of words and images, while artists have played upon philosophic concepts."--Observer
"Anthony Kenny, the editor of this courageously erudite compendium, reminds us that philosophy has always been fascinated by the interweaving of words and images, while artists have played upon philosophic concepts."--Observer
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First Sentence
THE curtain of history rises on a world already ancient, full of ruined cities and ways of thought worn smooth. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
THE curtain of history rises on a world already ancient, full of ruined cities and ways of thought worn smooth. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A marvel of a book! This wonderful book gives a detailed chronological insight of all the famous and influential philosophers in six parts- Ancient Philosophy, Medivial Philosophy, Descartes to Kant, Continental Philosophy from Fichete to Sartre, Mill to Wittgenstein and Political Philosophy. The authors breifly discuss the main philosophical issues of each period and those that propounded them. Some beautiful plates illustrate and help set the mood of each section. The book is well designed, easy to read and provides a comprehensive history of philosophy. It is also a great book to introduce yourself to the different eras in philosophy and to aquaint yourself with the works of the different philosophers, that is if you are a new reader in philosophy. An extended bibliography (well arranged) provides further information to other texts in philosophy. I must say this book is worth every pound!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A book of this nature is clearly selective and unlikely to go into great depth, but it serves as a really nice introduction to Western philosophy. The chapters are thematic and chronological and give very good introductions to the major thinkers and ideas with some critical comment. The chapter by Roger Scruton is particularly interesting with very witty discussions on Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. The chapter on political philosophy is also successful as it is a potentially dry subject. I worry about books that have too many illustrations, but I think they work quite well here (the photograph of Machiavelli's study certainly tells a story; interesting also to see just how mad Nietzsche actually looked long before his breakdown!) The book serves as an ideal way into philosophical thought and will whet the appetite for more.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In the introduction Sir Anthony Kenny says, "it is not immediately obvious what kinds of picture provide fit material to adorn a philosophical narrative". It might show pictures of objects and places associated with the philosophers, he thinks, and some illustrations of the texts and "a history of philosophy must contain portraits". By far the largest number of illustrations are just that: full-page b&w reproductions of portraits and marble busts of philosophers through the ages. But that phrase, "material to adorn a philosophical narrative", it sounds as if he thinks these pictures are, at best, a decoration. So this isn't like an illustrated car-manual or medical text, where the pictures help you understand the writing; or a good children's story, where the pictures develop the narrative; or an art book, where the text analyses the pictures. Instead, there is this kind of thing, on p.208: a full-page photo of the old British Museum Reading Room, with the caption that it opened in 1842 and was where Marx worked on Das Kapital.
The drawing of Bentham's Panopticon, mentioned above--it's the grandfather of all prison and hospital design, because one person located at the building's centre can monitor all the prisoners/patients, and it is disturbing because it shows how easy it is to control a large group of people. It is perfect for this book, except that the caption has no explanation of what we are looking at, or how it worked! The writers, Kenny and five others, just don't seem to have their hearts in a graphic presentation. At the back is a 'Chronology' section, where you see what else was happening in the world during the lives of the philosophers. It would have been much easier to read in colour, but you just get two typed b&w lists.
I bought the book because I'm interested in the relation of philosophy to the visual arts (aesthetics, for example). I inferred from the publisher's blurb that I might find this book useful, but in fact I didn't. It is simply part of an OUP series of "Illustrated Histories"--there's one about the Royal Navy, one on New Zealand, one about medieval history, etc.
As others have said, the writing is good at explaining difficult philosophical ideas, and so it is too bad that not as much thinking went into the illustrating. What a shame, it's a missed opportunity. As such, it is still an okay general history, though in my opinion it isn't as helpful as John Cottingham's Western Philosophy, An Anthology (of original texts, with commentary). Cottingham has a chapter on beauty and art--including Kant's Critique of (aesthetic) Judgement, a text that, oddly enough, isn't even mentioned in the Illustrated History, which has a chapter on political philosophy instead.
Kenny may, I think, have a sense of ironic humour. There is one picture of "leading philosophers", taken in 1976 at an Oxford conference: three rows of incredibly nerdy-looking men, and two women.
The drawing of Bentham's Panopticon, mentioned above--it's the grandfather of all prison and hospital design, because one person located at the building's centre can monitor all the prisoners/patients, and it is disturbing because it shows how easy it is to control a large group of people. It is perfect for this book, except that the caption has no explanation of what we are looking at, or how it worked! The writers, Kenny and five others, just don't seem to have their hearts in a graphic presentation. At the back is a 'Chronology' section, where you see what else was happening in the world during the lives of the philosophers. It would have been much easier to read in colour, but you just get two typed b&w lists.
I bought the book because I'm interested in the relation of philosophy to the visual arts (aesthetics, for example). I inferred from the publisher's blurb that I might find this book useful, but in fact I didn't. It is simply part of an OUP series of "Illustrated Histories"--there's one about the Royal Navy, one on New Zealand, one about medieval history, etc.
As others have said, the writing is good at explaining difficult philosophical ideas, and so it is too bad that not as much thinking went into the illustrating. What a shame, it's a missed opportunity. As such, it is still an okay general history, though in my opinion it isn't as helpful as John Cottingham's Western Philosophy, An Anthology (of original texts, with commentary). Cottingham has a chapter on beauty and art--including Kant's Critique of (aesthetic) Judgement, a text that, oddly enough, isn't even mentioned in the Illustrated History, which has a chapter on political philosophy instead.
Kenny may, I think, have a sense of ironic humour. There is one picture of "leading philosophers", taken in 1976 at an Oxford conference: three rows of incredibly nerdy-looking men, and two women.
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