A Little History of Philosophy by Nigel WarburtonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Context & Why I read this book
I listened to this as an audiobook on my last vacation in Greece since I read on some forum that it supposedly helps with better and more rational thinking.
What is the book about as a whole?
The book presents the most important philosophers and their ideas throughout the ages — starting in ancient Greece with Socrates and Plato and culminating with contemporary Australian philosopher Peter Singer. Philosophers discussed are Socrates, Plato, Aristotele, Pyrrho, Epicurus, Epictetus, Cicero, Seneca, Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Descartes, Pascal, Spinoza, Locke, Reid, Berkeley, Voltaire, Leibniz, Hume, Rousseau, Kant, Bentham, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Mill, Darwin, Kierkegaard, Marx, Peirce, James, Nietzsche, Freud, Russel, Ayer, Camus, Wittgenstein, Arendt, Popper, Kuhn, Foot, Thomson, Rawls, Turing, Searle, and Singer.
The book's structure
The book is divided into 40 chronologically ordered chapters, each presenting one or more important philosophers (Kant gets two) and their most famous ideas
One lesson
Aristotle believed that heavier materials fall faster than lighter ones and the ones who came after him simply believed him. Such "truth by authority" — trusting someone's ideas only because of his status in society — is bad for intellectual progress.
Reading Recommendation / Who should read this?
I truly enjoyed listening to this. Very suitable for an audiobook format. It gave me a good overview and of the most important ideas in philosophy. For someone who didn't study the field but is very interested in it, it's the perfect introduction. Most of the philosophers I was already familiar with, but the details of their contributions I did not know. Overall I rate this a 7 out of 10 (⭑⭑⭑⭑) on my rating scale, mostly for its structure and how the content is presented. However, it is and can only be an introduction. Who wants to learn more has to consult the originals.
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