The Columbia History of Western Philosophy

Book Overview

Richard Popkin has assembled 63 leading scholars to forge a highly approachable chronological account of the development of Western philosophical traditions. From Plato to Wittgenstein and from... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1567313477
• ISBN13: 9781567313475
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Mjf Books
• Length: 864 Pages
• Weight: 2.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.8" x 1.8" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

Destined to become a classic

The Columbia History is destined to become a classic. Richard Popkin assembled a small army of experts to write this history. The result is a text that is useful not only to the scholar, but to the general reader and student as well. Although a book like this suffers the danger that it will be simply a collection of unrelated essays on each philosopher or school of philosophy, Popkin provides notes that connect the separate articles. The thorough bibliography and index make this book particularly useful. Every student of philosophy should own a copy. Highly recommended.

Destined to be the subject's definitive treatment.

This book could have been just another collection of essays on Western philosophy. Instead, Popkin's masterful organization, editing and commentary produced a lucid, well-integrated work. Ideas are presented and developed in the context of their times and mirrored against similar and contrasting ones. The result, in my view, is as seamless as a treatment of this vast subject could possibly be. Any future attempt to tackle this area will have to contend with this superb benchmark.

The most up-to-date and inclusive history of philosophy.

In the line of one-volume histories of philosophy, Popkin's History will immediately take its place as a classic.He includes not only the latest scholarship on the familiar figures and debates, but we also broadens the scope of what ought to be considered and studied in the canon of Western philosophy. This is a summa for the end of the 20th-century. The chapter on analytic philosophy is the most lucid treatment of that difficult topic I have ever read.Popkin has given us a gift in this volume. If you need a basic introduction to the field or if you need a large angle sub specie aeternatis view of philsophy, this is the book to buy.