Product Description

These concise and enlightening explorations of our greatest thinkers bring their ideas to life in an entertaining and accessible fashion. Philosophical thought is deciphered and made comprehensible and interesting to almost everyone. Far from being a novelty, each book is a highly refined appraisal of the philosopher and his work, authoritative and clearly presented.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1232165 in Books
• Published on: 1998-05-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 93 pages

Amazon.com Review
In yet another of his popular books explaining the ideas of the great philosophers in accessible language, Paul Strathern takes on "a shadowy figure amongst the incense clouds of theology," who also happens to be "the finest philosophical mind in Europe for a thousand years (since St. Augustine)," St. Thomas Aquinas. Strathern applies his trademark humor to the Summa Theologica ("Christianity's answer to the Talmud") and the Summa Contra Gentiles, whose "imaginary reader is generally reckoned to be an intellectual Arab. After being subjected to hundreds of pages demonstrating the incontrovertible truth of the Christian religion, it is assumed that he has no alternative but to forswear Islam and embrace Christianity. How many intellectual Arabs subjected themselves to this grueling experience and reached the same conclusion is unknown." Underneath the gags, however, you'll gain a reasonable summation of Aquinas's impact on the scholasticism of his era and the validity of his continued, if somewhat diminished, relevance to present-day philosophy.

Review
"Dr. Strathern manages to make philosophic peaks clear-and philosophers human....Miraculously succinct, informative and valuable books." -- Otto Scott's Compass, 1/1/97

"Each of these little books is witty and dramatic and creates a sense of time, place, and character....I cannot think of a better way to introduce oneself and one's friends to Western civilization." -- Katherine A. Powers, Boston Globe 10/20/96

"I find them hard to stop reading....Mr. Strathern's books are well-written, clear and informed; they have a breezy wit about them....Good enough for them to provide genuine education." -- Richard Bernstein, New York Times, 7/2/98

"Witty, illuminating, and blessedly concise." -- Jim Holt, Wall Street Journal, 3/18/97

Each ... book[s] is witty ... creates a sense of time, place, and character ... way to introduce oneself ... to Western civilization. -- Katherine A. Powers, Boston Globe.

Well-written, clear and informed, they have a breezy wit about them...I find them hard to stop reading. -- Richard Bernstein, New York Times.

Witty, illuminating, and blessedly concise. -- Jim Holt, Wall Street Journal.

About the Author
Paul Strathern, a former Somerset Maugham prize winner, has written five novels as well as books on history and travel. His own degree in philosophy was earned at Trinity College, Dublin.

Customer Reviews

Of very little value
I agree with all the previous reviews. I had just finished G.K. Chesterton's book on Aquinas. Chesterton is a marvelous writer, but being a devout Catholic, he assumed the reader would know Aquinas' philosophy. I picked up this book to learn more. I didn't. Strathern constantly sacrificed his point for the sake of cruel witticisms. Other than a bit of history about Aquinas' life, I came away with the impression that Strathern: (a) considers Catholics beneath contempt: (b) believes the people of Medieval times have nothing to say to us (c) is so embittered toward Christianity that he can scarcely bear to credit it with any good. More than anything, this book irritated me because it never gives the basic points of Aquinas' philosophy. Even when granting Aquinas' intellect reluctant praise, Strathern doesn't elaborate on why Thomas was brilliant. I agree with the other reviewer who wondered if Strathern had even read Thomas Aquinas. If all the books in the series are this bad, I won't waste my time.

Thomas Aquinas in 90 Slanders
Strathern says Thomas Aquinas was a towering figure of Medieval philosophy. I had to read another book (Aquinas for Armchair Theologians) to find out why.

Strathern is less interested in revealing Aquinas' philosophy than in reviling his theology. Strathern outlines Aquinas' life, discusses Aquinas' philosophical errors, and ridicules Aquinas' theology. Along the way, he succeeds in ignoring almost every important contribution Aquinas made to the history of Western thought. E.g., Aquinas' profound effect on the thought of Martin Luther King, Jr., helped shape the American Civil Rights movement. But why write about that when you can lampoon Aquinas for making philosophical arguments in support of Christianity?

In the last paragraph of his afterword Strathern celebrates Descartes' dictum "cogito ergo sum" because with it, modern philosophy had begun and the cobwebs of Aquinas' teachings were "swept away forever." A reading of Descartes' "Discourse on Method" reveals that Descartes reasoned from "cogito ergo sum" to the existence of God. Far from "sweeping away" Aquinas' cobwebs, Descartes seems to be very much entangled in them. The belief that reason could provide a pathway to God was not original to Descartes, Aquinas thought of it a few centuries before Descartes' time. There are still enough of Aquinas' cobwebs around for Martin Luther King, Jr., to have quoted Aquinas in his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," and for George Bush, Sr., to have patterned his speech justifying Desert Storm after Aquinas' model for the just war.

Almost everything about modern thought is influenced by Thomas Aquinas, from Greenpeace to the World Court. You won't learn how reading this book. Read "Aquinas for Armchair Theologians" instead.

90 Minutes of Classic philosophers
In Feb., on Maui, my wife found this book in our condo laundry room. and, I read it. I liked it so much, I have not only acquired it, but, most of the 90 Minute series. I keep reading and adding.