History of Western Philosophy Russell Epub Download: A Comprehensive Guide to the Development of Tho

220COMMENTAMES BOOK THREE MODERN PHILOSOPHY Much of what is to be said in a general way on Russell's work has been pointed out in the preceding sections of this report. The same criticisms as raised against Russell's presentation of Ancient and Medieval philosophy prevail also, and perhaps in an even higher degree, in regard to his dealing with Modern Philosophy. One encounters in this part the same arbitrariness of choice, concerning personalities and problems, and the same superficiality of discussion, if one dees not prefer to consider this latter characteristic the effect of a definite bias. Russell's book purposes to study the history of philosophy mainly in so far as it has bearings on the development of political thought and political action. One might presume that this relation would become particularly visible and important with the philosophies of modern times; first, because our knowledge of influences, dependencies, of the infiltration of philosophical ideas in political theory and behavior, and of the determination of the former by the contemporary political situation is much more complete than it is when we are dealing with Antiquity or the Middle Ages. One obvious reason for our better acquaintance with such questions is the simple fact that we have at our disposal a far more complete evidence than that available in regard to the distant past. Secondly, the ideas, philosophical and political, proposed in modern and recent times are much more congenial to modern thinking than those of either the age of Plato or that of Aquinas. The philosopher of to-day presumably understands Hegel's position , or J. St. Mill's, or even that of Leibniz better in its relation to the socio-political conditions of their times than that of the Stoics or of Aegidius Romanus. Thirdly, a greater number of thinkers were directly concerned with problems bearing on politics in recent times than were in the past. One turns therefore, with a certain expectation to the parts of Russell's work which are to be discussed now, only to be deeply disappointed. The author fails utterly to fulfill what the title of his book seemed to promise. COMMENTAMES221 One reason for this disappointment is the disregard the author displays for many figures which were of definite importance for the development of political thought. Either he did not consider these writers as sufficiently influential, or he was unable to realize the rôle they played. In any case, the student who would want to learn something on modern philosophy in its relation to political thought will not profit by the perusal of this book; he would get a very incomplete and rather distorted notion of the content of Western philosophy and its influence on political developments, more by his own interests for a particular aspect or problem than by the desire to supply the reader with comprehensive information. Hence, he selects sometimes as particularly important or characteristic one or the other detail and disregards the whole of a philosopher's ideas. We shall see how this attitude of selectivity works out, for instance, in his chapter on Kant. There are several ways of writing a history of philosophy. One may present a perfectly objective report, so as to enable the reader to become acquainted with the fundamentals of a philosophical doctrine; the classical example of this mode of precedure is Ueberweg-Heinze. Or one may view the history of philosophy as preparation for the system in which one believes oneself and consider the latter as the culmination of the whole development throughout the centuries; this is the case with Hegel or also with Deussen. One may also write a history of philosophy to show the relations ideas and systems had with other factors, social, political, or others. Here one has to show how philosophies determined the emergence and influence of, e.g., notions on government or human relations, and on the other hand, how philosophical doctrines depended on and were fashioned by the trends of their own times. It is obviously the latter method which Russell intended to use. The title of his work states that he is going to present the. history of philosophy "from the earliest times up...

Dr Eugenia Russell is an author and Lecturer in History at St Marys University, Twickenham. She has lectured on the history of empires, Renaissance learning and exploration, the Ancient World, art history and political philosophy.

history of western philosophy russell epub download

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Andrew Irvine received his Ph.D. from the University of Sydney for work in the Department of Traditional and Modern Philosophy on mathematical truth and scientific realism. Since then he has published and lectured on topics in the philosophy of mathematics, the history and philosophy of logic, and the philosophy of law. He is especially interested in the work of the twentieth-century philosopher, essayist and social critic, Bertrand Russell.

This book redraws the intellectual map and sets the agenda in philosophy for the next fifty or so years. By making the theory of signs the dominant theme in Four Ages of Understanding, John Deely has produced a history of philosophy that is innovative, original, and complete. The first full-scale demonstration of the centrality of the theory of signs to the history of philosophy, Four Ages of Understanding provides a new vantage point from which to review and reinterpret the development of intellectual culture at the threshold of "globalization".

Deely examines the whole movement of past developments in the history of philosophy in relation to the emergence of contemporary semiotics as the defining moment of Postmodernism. Beginning traditionally with the Pre-Socratic thinkers of early Greece, Deely gives an account of the development of the notion of signs and of the general philosophical problems and themes which give that notion a context through four ages: Ancient philosophy, covering initial Greek thought; the Latin age, philosophy in European civilization from Augustine in the 4th century to Poinsot in the 17th; the Modern period, beginning with Descartes and Locke; and the Postmodern period, beginning with Charles Sanders Peirce and continuing to the present. Reading the complete history of philosophy in light of the theory of the sign allows Deely to address the work of thinkers never before included in a general history, and in particular to overcome the gap between Ockham and Descartes which has characterized the standard treatments heretofore. One of the essential features of the book is the way in which it shows how the theme of signs opens a perspective for seeing the Latin Age from its beginning with Augustine to the work of Poinsot as an indigenous development and organic unity under which all the standard themes of ontology and epistemology find a new resolution and place.

A magisterial general history of philosophy, Deely's book provides both a strong background to semiotics and a theoretical unity between philosophy's history and its immediate future. With Four Ages of Understanding Deely sets a new agenda for philosophy as a discipline entering the 21st century. 2ff7e9595c