_ When the ancient Greek philosopher, Pythagoras, was asked if he
was a wise man, he humbly replied "No, I am only a lover of
wisdom." This love of wisdom has been central to the philosophical
enterprise for thousands of years, inspiring some of the most
dazzling and daring achievements of the human intellect and
providing the very basis for how we understand the world. Now,
readers eager to acquire a basic familiarity with the history of
philosophy but intimidated by the task will find in A Passion for
Wisdom: Philosophy Through the Ages, a lively, accessible, and
highly enjoyable tour of the world's great ideas.
Without simplifying their subject, editors Robert Solomon and
Kathleen Higgins tell the story of philosophy's development with
great clarity and refreshing wit. The brevity of their study, in
fact, allows readers to see more clearly the connections and
divergences between philosophers, as well as the way ideas change,
reappear, and evolve over time. The authors begin with the most
ancient religious beliefs and bring us right up to the feminist and
multicultural philosophies of the present. Along the way, major
philosophers are highlighted, from Plato and Aquinas to William
James and Simone deBeauvoir, and major categories explored, from
metaphysics and ethics to politics and logic. We also see the
evolution of enduring ideas--how, for example, the value of
subjective experience is treated in Augustine, Luther, Descartes,
and Kirkegaard, how the idea of dynamic change appears in the work
of Heraclitus, Darwin, Hegel, and Nietzsche, and how the recurring
dichotomies between faith and reason, belief and skepticism,
mysticism and empiricism occupy philosophers from one generation to
the next. The authors make clear the many ways philosophers have
argued with, borrowed from, and built on each other's ideas
throughout the ages. We see Francis Bacon rejecting Aristotelian
dogma, the impact of Buddhism on Schopenhauer, and the influence of
Hume and Rousseau on the monumental philosophy of Imanuel Kant. The
book is enlivened as well by telling anecdotes and sparkling
quotations. We're treated to Thomas Hobbes' assessment--"Life is
nasty, brutish, and short," Hegel's description of Napoleon as
"world history on horseback," Schopenhauer's assertion that Art
allows us a "Sabbath from the penal servitude of willing," and many
other memorable and provocative observations.
Accessible, comprehensive, and delightfully written, A Passion for
Wisdom is a splendid introduction to an intellectual tradition that
reaches back over three thousand years. More than that, it is a
much-needed reminder for the present of the power inherent in
humanity's wonder before the world.
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