A History of Western Philosophy

The seventy-six chapters of this great history, beginning with “The Rise of Greek Civilisation” and ending with “The Philosophy of Logical Analysis,” are distributed through three books.

Book I (Ancient Philosophy) comprises three parts —”The Pre-Socratics”; “Socrates, Plato and Aristotle”; and “Ancient Philosophy after Aristotle.”

Book lI (Catholic Philosophy) is divided into two parts -“The Fathers,” and “The Schoolmen.” Book III (Modern Philosophy) also comprises two parts -“From the Renaissance to Hume,” and “From Rousseau to the Present Day.”

“My Purpose,” Bertrand Russell says in his preface, “is to exhibit philosophy as an integral part of social and political life: not as the isolated speculations of remarkable individuals, but as both an effect and a cause of the character of the various communities in which different systems flourished.”

A History of Western Philosophy is the product of a mind that refuses to be awed by anything under the sun – not even the majesty of latter-day mathematics to which Lord Russell himself has largely contributed. It is written with wit, salt, and clarity — as if the author were Voltaire’s representative on earth.