Product Description

Conceived originally as a serious presentation of  the development of philosophy for Catholic  seminary students, Frederick Copleston's nine-volume  A History Of Philosophy has  journeyed far beyond the modest purpose of its author to  universal acclaim as the best history of  philosophy in English.

Copleston, an Oxford Jesuit  of immense erudition who once tangled with A. J.  Ayer in a fabled debate about the existence of God  and the possibility of metaphysics, knew that  seminary students were fed a woefully inadequate diet  of theses and proofs, and that their familiarity  with most of history's great thinkers was reduced  to simplistic caricatures. Copleston set out to  redress the wrong by writing a complete history of  Western philosophy, one crackling with incident and  intellectual excitement -- and one that gives full  place to each thinker, presenting his thought in a  beautifully rounded manner and showing his links  to those who went before and to those who came  after him.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #49748 in Books
• Published on: 1993-03-01
• Released on: 1993-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 544 pages

From the Publisher
Conceived originally as a serious presentation of the development of philosophy for Catholic seminary students, Frederick Copleston's nine-volume A History Of Philosophy has journeyed far beyond the modest purpose of its author to universal acclaim as the best history of philosophy in English.

Copleston, an Oxford Jesuit of immense erudition who once tangled with A. J. Ayer in a fabled debate about the existence of God and the possibility of metaphysics, knew that seminary students were fed a woefully inadequate diet of theses and proofs, and that their familiarity with most of history's great thinkers was reduced to simplistic caricatures. Copleston set out to redress the wrong by writing a complete history of Western philosophy, one crackling with incident and intellectual excitement -- and one that gives full place to each thinker, presenting his thought in a beautifully rounded manner and showing his links to those who went before and to those who came after him.

From the Inside Flap
Conceived originally as a serious presentation of  the development of philosophy for Catholic  seminary students, Frederick Copleston's nine-volume  A History Of Philosophy has  journeyed far beyond the modest purpose of its author to  universal acclaim as the best history of  philosophy in English.

Copleston, an Oxford Jesuit  of immense erudition who once tangled with A. J.  Ayer in a fabled debate about the existence of God  and the possibility of metaphysics, knew that  seminary students were fed a woefully inadequate diet  of theses and proofs, and that their familiarity  with most of history's great thinkers was reduced  to simplistic caricatures. Copleston set out to  redress the wrong by writing a complete history of  Western philosophy, one crackling with incident and  intellectual excitement -- and one that gives full  place to each thinker, presenting his thought in a  beautifully rounded manner and showing his links  to those who went before and to those who came  after him.

Customer Reviews

Philosophy - the basics
The volume is "the first volume of a complete history of philosophy". (p.v) Although to "mention a "point of view" at all, when treating of the history of philosophy, may occasion a certain lifting of eyebrows" (p. v), the author has "no hesitation in claiming the right to compose a work on the history of philosophy from the standpoint of the Scholastic philosopher"(p. vi) as "no true historian can write without some point of view, some standpoint, if for no other reason than that he must have a principle of selection, guiding his intelligent choice and arrangement of facts." (p. v) Scholastic philosophers study philosophy as the "philosophia perennis". (p. 2)

Modern philosophers, especially since René Descartes (A.D. 1596 - A.D. 1650) and Immanuel Kant (A.D. 1724- A.D. 1804), divorce thought from reality and start like Descartes from Consciousness, from the fact that man has innate ideas in his mind.

This is not the starting-point of Copleston and others who study philosophy as the perennial philosophy. They start from Being, not from Consciousness, and for them it is reality which imposes its structures on the mind, not like Kant, the mind imposing its structures on reality.

This perennial philosophy has been outlined by Plato (428 B.C. - 348 B.C.) and Aristotle (384 B.C. - 322 B.C.) and elaborated by St. Thomas Aquinas (c. A.D. 1225 - A.D. 1274). For Copleston, perennial philosophy is Thomism in a wide sense. The Thomist system is however not closed at any given historical epoch and incapable of further development in any direction. (p. 7)

Most intellectuals today, on the one hand, view Plato as interested in ideas and Aristotle as interested in things and they maintain, on the other hand, that Plato separated the Form from the objects of which it is the Form, whereas Aristotle argued that to the universal in the mind, there corresponds the specific essence in the object.

Plato's and Aristotle's philosophies are therefore diametrically opposed, they say, some even going so far as to label Plato as a neo-Kantian. Copleston demonstrates that Plato is not a neo-Kantian. Copleston concludes that Platonism and Aristotelianism "should not be considered as two diametrically opposed systems, but as two complementary philosophical spirits and bodies of doctrine." (Volume I, p. 275) After having argued that a synthesis between the Platonic Theory of Forms and the Aristotelian view of the universal was needed (Volume I, p. 203), Copleston will demonstrate in Volume II how St. Thomas Aquinas achieved this synthesis and harmonised the synthesis with Christian theology. This is why, as mentioned earlier, for Copleston, perennial philosophy is Thomism in a wide sense. This also explains why for Copleston, the first three volumes of his History - Greece and Rome, Medieval Philosophy, and, Late Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy - form only one volume, why Volume III ends with "A Brief Review of the First Three Volumes" and why this review cannot but contain references to Volumes II and III.

A quick review of the history of Western thought will suffice to bear out the constant presence of Plato's and Aristotle's philosophies. In philosophy and in everyday life, the questions "What do you mean?" and "How do you know?" will be constantly present. It was therefore important to demonstrate that there is no contradiction between the Platonic and Aristotelian bases of the principles we need to answer these questions, Aristotle's principle of non-contradiction saying that the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject and in the same respect. This is Copleston's achievement in the present Volume I, which therefore also contains its own "Concluding Review".

Copleston will conclude the final volume of his History, Volume XI, by saying that, for him, the problem of God is THE metaphysical problem par excellence. One can criticise this conclusion but one should also recognise that the argument is consistent with one of the conclusions of the present Volume I wherein Copleston argues that Greek philosophy was a preparatory intellectual instrument for Christianity, a "preparatio evangelica." (Volume I, p.502).

In his own critique of the present Volume I, Copleston writes on p. 408 of Volume III of the History that he does "not think ... that one is justified in interpreting the pre-Socratics as nothing more than speculative forerunners of science." (Volume III, p. 408)

Many readers complain about the quotations in languages other than English. Those readers seem to forget that the book is not "An Introduction to Philosophy" but "A History of Philosophy". They also seem to forget that in the present Internet age, search engines and translation programs are available at no cost. When looking up the translation, you learn a lot. As Copleston puts it: "Mental effort and perseverance are no doubt required in order to penetrate the riches of Greek thought, but any effort that is expended in the attempt to understand and appreciate the philosophy of these two men of genius, Plato and Aristotle, is amply rewarded." (Volume I, p. 486)

Volume One of the Finest History of Western Philosophy
The first volume of Frederick Copleston's monumental history of philosophy was published more than a half century ago with the intention, in the author's words, "of supplying Catholic ecclesiastical seminaries with a work that should be somewhat more detailed and of wider scope than the textbooks commonly in use and which at the same time should endeavor to exhibit the logical development and interconnection of philosophical systems." Copleston certainly attained his goal, not only for seminarians, but also for everyone interested in the history of Western thought. He ultimately produced nine brilliant volumes which still stand as the finest and most complete summary of Western philosophy from the earliest Pre-Socratics to modern Existentialists and Structuralists (the last of the volumes covering Sartre, Camus and Levi-Strauss, among others).

The first volume, which covers the conception of Western philosophy in the seed of the early Ionian thinkers, through the gestation of Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Zeno, Anaxagoras, and the Sophists, ultimately culminating in the birth of Western philosophy in the axis of Socrates-Plato-Aristotle and its post-Aristotelian Roman afterbirth, is a detailed and analytical discussion of the origins of Western thought. Complete in itself, it provides a comprehensive introduction to the beginnings of Western rationalism and a useful starting point for a general study of the history of philosophy in the West or a more detailed exploration of the ancient thinkers from the Pre-Socratics to Plotinus.

If any criticism can be made of Copleston's work, it is that his analyses are dominated by an overriding scholasticism, by Copleston's adherence to traditional, Thomist perspectives on these thinkers. This criticism is difficult to make, however, because he never minces words in disclosing his point of view and because, despite his own Jesuitical intellectual predilections, his treatment is always comprehensive, thoughtful and genuine.

The Academic Standard
I've heard some people say that Copleston's writing is a bit on the dry side. Sometimes, but remember; this is philosophy we're talking about here. I recommend getting the Oxford Dictionary of philosophy if you are having trouble understanding the writing.

If you are a philosophy student, this entire series is a must. Regardless of what any individual may think about the author or the series, this series is the academic standard for history of philosophy. A student cannot really get through a good philosophy degree without reading the entire series.

Bottom line: Layman beware-this may be over your head! Philosophy students-this entire series is a must read.