Wednesday 23 April 2008

A Brief History of Western Philosophy

A Brief History of Western Philosophy, by Anthony Kenny
This week, I'm reading A Brief History of Western Philosophy by Anthony Kenny. I started reading this book because one of my students from last term asked for a suggestion for an introduction to philosophy. The best I could think of off hand was A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell, which is very good, but over a thousand pages in length. Kenny's book is only four hundred pages!
Obviously, Kenny's history is not as detailed as Russell's, but I don't think that's a problem. He gives a good account of the basic ideas and new contributions of the major thinkers in the Western philosophical tradition, and he also relates them to the political and social history that they occur in, which Russell tended not to do.
I think Kenny gives fairly clear explanations, so if you're looking for a short (but not too short) introduction to Western philosophy from the pre-Socratics through to Wittgenstein, I would recommend this book.

2 comments:

  1. From your description,It's should be a good book but it too thick for me to read,and the word in the field of philosophy is rather difficult.Moreover even in Thai lanuage I still confused when I read that kind of book so it will terrible if I have to read Western Philosophy.However, I will recommend this book to others interested Philosophy.

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  2. This book sound interesting because you said it gives fairly clear explanations that mean it is easier to understand than another one. Actually I am interested in philosophy but I think it is too comprecatied to understand and I think if I read it in Englihs version, it is too difficult and too comprecatied for me to read and understand it. Anyway could you give an example of the basic ideas that you like in this book?

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