Table Of ContentFrom Socrates to Foucault
BG -Religion
ISBN 978-0-7607-9196-7
,
~~~~~Jijl ~~I,I~~IJ I~IIIMIIII
THE GREAT
PHILOSOPHERS
THE GREAT
PHILOSOPHERS
From Socrates to Foucault
JEREMY STANGROOM
JAMES GARVEY
METRO BOOKS
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Contents
Ancient & Medieval Thomas Paine 80
Jeremy Bentham 84
Socrates 8
Georg Hegel 88
Plato 12
Aristotle 16
Marcus Aurelius 20 19th Century
Saint Thomas Aquinas 24 Arthur Schopenhauer 92
John Stuart Mill 96
Soren Kierkegaard 100
Karl Marx 104
Niccolb Machiavelli 28
Charles Sanders Peirce 108
Francis Bacon 32
William James 1 12
Friedrich Nietzsche 1 16
Edmund Husserl 120
Thomas Hobbes 36
John Dewey 124
Rene Descartes 40
Blaise Pascal 44
John Locke 48
Bertrand Russell 128
Baruch Spinoza 52
Ludwig Wittgenstein 132
Gottfried Leibniz 56
Martin Heidegger 136
Sir Karl Popper 140
Jean-Paul Sartre 144
George Berkeley 60
AJ Ayer 148
Voltaire 64
Michel Foucault 152
David Hume 68
Jean-Jacques Rousseau 72
Immanuel Kant 76 Index 756
Introduction
No ONE IS ENTIRElY SURE WHAT PHilOSOPHY IS. If that's not a reassuring first sen
tence in a book on thirty-~even great philosophers, it's at least an honest
one. There arc three sorts of view of what philosophy is, and no broad
agreement about which one i~ right. It's worth wondering about these three
answers a I ittlc.
Some maintain that philosophy is best defined by its abstract subject
matter. Philosophy as traditionally conceived deals with the Big Three
Questions. What exists? Hov. do we know? What are we going to do about
it? The answers involve us in metaphysics, the study oi the nature of reality;
epistemology, the study oi the conditions required to know something; and
ethics, an attempt to say what it is to live a morally good life. These arc dis
tinctly human questions in the sense that it is hard to be human without
wondering about them at some time or other. Great minds sometimes settle
on them, think about them, and the result is philosophy.
Some argue instead that one might philosophize about anything, that
philosophy is best defined by a particular method. The method has a lot
to do with careful and systematic thinking, giving reasons for conclusions,
and getting those wnclusions into dear view. Anyone can have a view
about what's right or wrong, but the view becomes philosophy if it is
explicitly characterized, has some support in reason.
Finally, some take it that philosophy consists in a kind of attitude or way
of life. Distinctive of thi~ way of living is a critical view of things, a refusal
to accept what others accept without further reflection. It has got more than
one great philosopher into serious trouble. Our exemplar here is Socrates,
who thought that the unexamined life was not worth living. He not only
thought this, he died for it. Many join him in thinking that the word 'philos
ophy', literally 'love of wisdom', marks out an approach to life as against a
method or set of questions.
Someone who plumps for any of these answers will be happy to find
representatives of his or her view in this book. Certainly answers to all three
Big Questions get a lot of attention, as docs the distinctive method of phi
losophy, as do the lives of philosophers. There is tension here, too, and it's
impossible to resolve it. rans of method will be annoyed to find Nietzsche
and Hegel on the list. Proponents of the subject-matter view might blanch
at the inclusion of Machiavelli. Those who sec philosophy as a way of life
will wonder about Bacon and Heidegger.
everthcless, the list hangs together. If it's hard to say just what philos
ophy is, it's easy to spot when you sec it. Wittgenstein argues that some
terms pick things out not in virtue of a strict definition, but by something
like family resemblance. Maybe not everyone in the family album sports a
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v<:rsion of grandfather's admirable nose, but it's cletlr thtlt all arc members
of the same family. So too with the great philosophers. l'hilosophy has
been under way for more than two thousand years, and in such a long
stretch, it would be something of a miracle if all philo~opher~ filled a sin
gle mould.
This book traces the biggest thoughts in the largest and most influen
tial parts of philosophy's long walk through history. You will find here
thinkers of the first philosophical thoughts in till' W0~t, the Ancient Greek
and rarly Roman philosophers to whom so much is owed. You will sec the
way in which their concerns became the concerns of those who followed;
the way their answers shaped what we now recogni1c as philosophy.
Mediaeval philosophy makes an appearance, carrying ancient concerns
on to Renaissance philosophers, adding an emphasis on religion to the
mix. The thinking of the modern era, the modern explosion of philosophy
ushered in by Descartes, is well represented here too. rounders and rep
resentatives of the rationalist and empiricist s< hools get a fair hearing, as
do the dark conclusions of those who favour scepticism.
The long walk is, thankfully, carrying on, and you will find here the
thoughts which make contemporary philosophy what it is, and perhaps
what it is on the way to becoming. Philosophy, whatever it is, is certain
ly ~till under way, and this book takes account of both the discipline as
it is practised now and the history which made contemporary philosophy
possible.
Usually, the introduction to a book like this offers some sort of apolo
gy ior culling corners, says that it's impossible to characterize fully the
thoughts of so many great philosophers in a single plate. You also find
apologies of another sort, excuses for inc.luding ~ome philo~ophers and not
others. You will find no apologies for such obvious and unavoidable facts
here. Docs it make any sense at all to apologize for a iac.t or set of facts?
This book is written for intelligent people who know what they're getting
into when they buy a book. If this book is not the last word on the great
philosophers-and what book possibly could be it is certainly <J collec
tion of useful first words. Included with each entry is <1 list of works you c<Jn
read if you want to take your study of philosophy further. You won't find
any last words there either.
No matter how you view philosophy, regMdless of what you think it is,
you have here accounts of the lives and thoughts of the very best thinkers
in the philosophical neighbourhood, dealing carefully and rJtionally with
the most human of questions, the hardest questions, the questions which
maller most.
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