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y/n?
S
the first part about the the greeks is mostly ok. afterwards it gets worse and worse. better try windelbands history of philosophy.
N
>>7418444
why does it get worse?
I'm reading and liking it so far.
>>7418449
because he openly shows when he doesn't like or doesn't agree with or just simply doesn't understand philosophers (for example leibniz or nietzsche). its all veeery biased.
If you know absolutely nothing about philosophy, it's a good start. His overview of the Greeks (especially the presocratics) hits on many of their important points and does a good job explaining the significance of their thinking. The section on medieval philosophers is OK--honestly, I don't remember that part too well. But when it comes to the modern philosophers, Russell is heavily biased to the point that even if you don't know the philosophers he's discussing at all it's still obvious that he's not giving them a fair shake. Some chapters (eg Leibniz) are very good, while others are atrocious, coming off as an at-times purposeful misreading meant to make his subjects sound idiotic (his chapter on Nietzsche is notoriously bad). If you already have a copy lying around, then I'd recommend you read it, but if you're planning on ordering it online, there are better options (not that I could name one off the top of my head.) All in all, it's useful for familiarizing yourself with who the most famous philosophers of all time are and what they generally believed, but you have to take a lot of it with a grain of salt.
N
>>7418462
Well, at least it is very clear when it is his opinion.
Its a good book
>trusting an Anglo's opinion on anything
Did anyone here read Hegel's history of philosophy? Thinking in reading it.
>>7418591
I found this post quite funny.
>>7418596
"Thinking in reading it" was an awful way to phrase it, I guess my 'non-nativeness' in English is showing.
It's honestly okay as an introduction, but there are better histories out there (although not as accessible).
It's gets really bad at points though. The Buddha vs Nietzche roleplay is horrible, a lot of it due to Russel writing it with complete sincerity.
You could do worse though, but you could do better.
>>7418435
Read Durant's. It's much better.
Bertrand Russell is cancer.
Doesn't understand Nietzsche. Doesn't understand Aquinas. Trash writer.
>>7418435
I'm going to apply for philosophy as a second major on march but I've only ever read the greeks. Someone recommended me this book, is it good to get a basic outline of the most important theories throughout time? What else should I read so I'm not the dumbest fuck in class when I start in August?
I want to fight Bertrand Russell irl
>>7418435
no go with Copleston
>>7418435
Most of the above anons have already pointed out that there are certain deficiencies in Russell's history. His takes are best when he's dealing with thinkers who put a premium on logic (even then, he seems unable to imagine that there's more to philosophy then formal logic, or that the philosophers might use bad arguments intentionally sometimes; he *almost* gets it with Leibniz, who he largely understands), but with other philosophers he seems to miss the point almost entirely (people have already noted that his "take-down" of Nietzsche is embarrassingly bad; his chapter on Hegel is probably the worst though, since it should be inexcusable that a man like Russell who was a British Idealist for about a decade could've apparently never picked up *any* lick of Hegel. That chapter's not just infuriating as a supposed refutation of Hegel--it just doesn't even make sense as at all describing Hegel in the slightest.).
People seem to like his take on the Greeks; he's fine with them when, again, modal logic has become a thing, but he has trouble dealing with things like the dialectical components to Aristotle's thinking, and he's miserably unable to make *good* sense of Parmenides and Plato, having taken them to be writing straightforward treatises that he thinks are interested in the same subjects as his logical studies are (ignoring that Parmenides' poem is, well, a poem in Homeric meter, and that Plato's writings are all largely fictional dialogues emphasizing dialectical reasoning, and not formal logic.).
He's at least funny, sometimes. Copleston's histories are better.
>>7418435
If you want a great history of philosophy, read Copleston. Russell is really not good at all with this.
literally the worst intro to philosophy
Russel may have been good with mathematics and logic and whatever but reading Sophie's World will give you a better view of philosophy than this crap
Anything existential or Christian will be always misrepresented.
He claimed the Augustine became a Christian because his mother was nagging him.
He wrote Kierkegaard was Catholic.
He didn't get Nietzsche.
You can feel his hate for Christianity whenever he mentioned it in any context, for Descartes or Aquinas.
Skip the book, read only if you must.
>>7418606
you sound like a sperg.
>write a modern book specifically to update on Russel's volume
>actually know your subject matter
>isn't biased as shit
>people still pick Russel instead
>>7419911
Y-you yoo.
>>7420042
Being autistic is something for which you should feel proud, not ashamed. It's a compliment because autism allows you to have radically different perspectives on things that can lead to important discoveries or great works of art which neurotypical people don't have the capability of producing.
>>7419904
>you can feel his hate for christianity
Hegel's lectures on the history of philosophy are a 100 times better. Just read those and then find another source for everything post-hegel.
>>7420071
I could only find volume 1 online.
>>7420075
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hp/hpinaug.htm
>>7420090
Thank you so much.
>>7420090
>tfw studying Philosophy at Heidelberg
>>7420103
>tfw Johan will kill you
>>7420100
That site has all the works of Hegel, some have old, out of copyright translations but it does the work.
>>7419519
Reading up until the Greeks is fine if you read the Greeks after.
>>7420056
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_klmfrj2jM
it's good, don't listen to people on /lit/, they just hate bertrand.
>>7422322
Sorry, I don't have the attention span to waste an hour on a video about autism unless it has to do with genetics, to which I'm highly inclined. I wouldn't say that we neurodiverse people are superior beings because the perspective of neurotypical people is important as well and is necessary in less creative, more menial positions. Autism allows one to see the world from a vista that spawns interesting ideas for humanity's progress.
>>7419916
>Implying Kenny isn't a worshiper of the cult of Wittgenstein and "free will"
Not as bad as Russel, but Kenny has his own biases as well
>>7422566
Exactly. He's comparatively better than Russell, but he tends to have similar problems.
Read up to Hume and then stop.
>>7422566
The 4th Volume is heavily biased towards analytical philosophy, for example here's what he has to say about derrida
>>7424666
oops wrong pic, read this first
If Buddha and Nietzsche were confronted, could either produce any argument that ought to appeal to the impartial listener? I am not thinking of political arguments. We can imagine them appearing before the Almighty, as in the first chapter of the Book of Job, and offering advice as to the sort of world He would create. What could either say?
Buddha would open the argument by speaking of lepers, outcast and miserable; the poor, toiling with aching limbs and barely kept alive by scanty nourishment; the wounded in battle, dying in slow agony; the orphans, ill-treated by cruel guardians; and even the most successful haunted by the thought of failure and death. From all this load of sorrow, he would say, a way of salvation must be found, and salvation can only come through love.
Nietzsche, whom only Omnipotence could restrain from interrupting, would burst out when his turn came.
"Good heavens, man, you must learn to be of tougher fibre. Why go about sniveling because trivial people suffer? Or, for that matter, because great men suffer? Trivial people suffer trivially, great men suffer greatly, and great sufferings are not to be regretted, because they are noble. Your ideal is a purely negative one, absence of suffering, which can be completely secured by non-existence. I, on the other hand, have positive ideals: I admire Alcibiades, and the Emperor Frederick II, and Napoleon. For the sake of such men, any misery is worth while. I appeal to You, Lord, as the greatest of creative artists, do not let Your artistic impulses be curbed by the degenerate fear-ridden maunderings of this wretched psychopath."
Buddha, who in the courts of Heaven has learnt all history since his death, and has mastered science with delight in the knowledge and sorrow at the use to which men have put it, replies with calm urbanity:
>>7424670
"You are mistaken, Professor Nietzsche, in thinking my ideal a purely negative one. True, it includes a negative element, the absence of suffering; but it has in addition quiet as much that is positive as it to be found in your doctrine. Though I have no special admiration for Alcibiades and Napoleon, I, too, have my heroes: my successor Jesus, because he told men to love their enemies; the men who discovered how to master the forces of nature and secure food with less labour; the medical men who have shown how to diminish disease; the poets and artists and musicians who have caught glimpses of the Divine beatitude. Love and knowledge and delight in beauty are not negations; they are enough to fill the lives of the greatest men that have ever lived."
"All the same," Nietzsche replies, "your world would be insipid. You should study Heraclitus, whose works survive complete in the celestial library. Your love is compassion, which is elicited by pain; your truth, if you are honest, is unpleasant, and only to be known through suffering; and as to beauty, what is more beautiful than the tiger, who owes his splendour to his fierceness? No, if the Lord should decide for your world, I fear we would all die of boredom." "You might," Buddha replies, "because you love pain, and your love of life is a sham. But those who really love life would be happy as no one can be happy in the world as it is."
>>7424675
For my part, I agree with Buddha as I have imagined him. But I do not know how to prove that he is right by any argument such as can be used in a mathematical or a scientific question. I dislike Nietzsche because he likes the contemplation of pain, because he erects conceit into a duty, because the men whom he most admires are conquerors, whose glory is cleverness in causing men to die. But I think the ultimate argument against his philosophy, as against any unpleasant but internally self-consistent ethic, lies not in an appeal to facts, but in an appeal to emotions. Nietzsche despises universal love; I feel it the motive power to all that I desire as regards the world. His followers have had their innings, but we may hope that it is coming rapidly to an end.
>>7424668
Kinda revealing that he uses what's already been widely acknowledged to be a mistranslation ("There is no outside-text", not that it matters to people like Kenny...).
It's like he doesn't even want to *try* to offer an actual exposition or refutation.
>>7424680
>>7426708
>analytic philosophy
>"I never studied anything formally..."
You do realize that analytic philosophy isn't represented by posts on /sci/, right?
