Research Catalog

Title

A short history of philosophy / Robert C. Solomon, Kathleen M. Higgins.

Author

Solomon, Robert C.

Publication

New York : Oxford University Press, 1996.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

Higgins, Kathleen Marie

Description

xvii, 329 p.; 25 cm.

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 challenge of accurately and engagingly describing it all, reveling in philosophy as "the art of wonder," the search for meaning, a gripping, dramatic endeavor.
• 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 responses to 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 and interpretations 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.

Alternative Title

Philosophy

Subject

• Philosophy > History
• Philosophy > history

Genre/Form

History

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 315-324) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

• I. The search for world order : ancient philosophy -- The "Axial period" and the origins of philosophy -- The "miracle" of Greece -- Philosophy, myth, religion, and science -- Meaning and creation : cosmogony and the origins of philosophy -- Vedas and Vedanta : early philosophy in India -- The first (Greek) philosopher -- The pre-Socratic philosophers (I) : the stuff of the world -- The pre-Socratic philosophers (II) : the underlying order -- The pre-Socratic philosophers (III) : the pluralists -- Enter the Sophists -- Socrates -- Plato : metaphysician or sublime humorist? -- The philosopher's philosopher : Aristotle -- A footnote to Plate (and Aristotle) -- Tough times : stoicism, skepticism, and Epicureanism -- Mysticism and logic in ancient India : Nagarjuna and Nyaya -- II. God and the philosophers : religious and medieval philosophy -- Religion and spirituality : three philosophical themes -- The wisdom of the East (I) : Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism --^
• The wisdom of the East (II) : Confucius and Confucianism -- The wisdom of the East (III) : Lao-tzu, Chuang-tzu, and Taoism -- Deep in the heart of Persia : Zoroastrianism -- From Athens to Jerusalem : Judaism, Christianity, and Islam -- The Hebrew people and the origins of Judaism -- Greek Jew : Philo of Alexandria -- The birth of Christianity -- The opening of Christianity : St. Paul -- Neoplatonism and Christianity -- St. Augustine and the inner life of spirit -- The first great split within Christianity -- The rise of Islam -- Mysticism -- Persia and the peripatetic tradition -- Diaspora, dialectic, and mysticism in Judaism -- Thinking God : Anselm, Abelard, Aquinas, and scholasticism -- Late scholasticism : Duns Scotus and William of Ockham -- In search of essences : the alchemists -- Philosophical syntheses outside the West -- The reformation : Luther and his progeny -- The counter-reformation, Erasmus, and more --^
• After Aristotle : Bacon, Hobbes, Machiavelli, and the Renaissance -- Before the "discovery" : Africa and the Americas.
• III. Between science and religion : modern philosophy and the enlightenment -- Science, religion, and the meaning of modernism -- Montaigne : the first modern philosopher? -- Descartes and the new science -- Spinoza, Leibniz, Pascal, and Newton -- The enlightenment, colonialism, and the eclipse of the Orient -- Locke, Hume, and empiricism -- Adam Smith, the moral sentiments, and the Protestant ethic -- Voltaire, Rousseau, and revolution -- Immanuel Kant : saving science -- Kant's moral philosophy and the third Critique -- The discovery of history : Hegel -- Philosophy and poetry : rationalism and romanticism -- Romantic West meets East : Schopenhauer -- After Hegel : Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, and Marx -- Mill, Darwin, and Nietzsche : consumerism, energy, and evolution -- Early philosophy in America -- IV. From modernism to postmodernism : the twentieth century -- The rejection of idealism : a century of horrors -- Frege, Russell, and Husserl : arithmetic, atomism, phenomenology -- Zarathustra in the trenches : the limits of rationality -- The American experience in philosophy : pragmatism -- Changing reality : philosophies of process -- Unamuno, Croce, and Heidegger : the tragic sense of life -- Hitler, the Holocaust, positivism, and existentialism -- No exit : the existentialism of Camus, Sartre, and Beauvoir -- From ideal to ordinary language : from Cambridge to Oxford -- Women and gender : the feminization of philosophy -- The return of the oppressed : Africa, Asia, and the Americas -- From postmodernism to the new age -- World philosophy : promise or pretense.

ISBN

• 0195086473 (cloth : acid-free paper)
• 0195101960 (pbk. : acid-free paper)
• 0195085473 (cloth) (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

^^^95012578^

OCLC

• 32396951
• SCSB-11069893

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library