A History of Western Philosophy

Bertrand Russell is broadly considered a philosophical heavyweight, strengthened by the Nobel Prize for Literature he earned partly on behest of this work. With his strong roots in mathematics and logic as well as his outspoken political stance, Russell can be considered one of the great 20th century polymaths. As such, his History was often criticized on its academic merits and praised on its character, wit, and reach. Indeed, it is these qualities on which the work still stands strong.

Russell never claimed it a work of cultural history, taken his subjectivity on the issue for granted. As such, it is a historic document that can stand for itself, other than the ups and downs of academic discourse that often fade in relevancy as quickly as they rose. The book breathes the humble self-confidence of a kind of well-read great thinker that are getting more rare in current times - a quality that makes the book entertaining and pleasantly (and for the contemporary critic, dangerously) self-sufficient.

It is a big book, that nonetheless almost never felt heavy or overwhelming. Russell's cleverness and wit make it vivid and often even entertaining - and a great performance by Jonathan Keeble even a worthwhile audio experience.

This felt like a fairly comprehensive account of the development of philosophy in the west, but it's hard to know how much I was able to absorb.

The book is written in a way that I felt was very scattered. Some sections have an incredible amount of seemingly unrelated detail, such as the relationships between each Pope and their contemporary kings/emperors throughout the period characterized by the power of the Catholic Church.
Each philosopher ends up being described in relation to the ideas before and after their work. I felt that this confuses the timeline and adds a lot of speculation about how the older philosopher may have responded to newer ideas.
The last section feels dated at times with references to current events, but the majority of the book addresses ideas old enough not to have this feeling.

As far as content is concerned, I found the book spent a lot of time on metaphysical theories, most of which seemed to have limited justification. Of course that’s probably more of a commentary on the philosophers than the author.

In general, a more focused version of this book probably would have been closer to what I had personally hoped for. Spending more time was on fewer philosophers would have helped keep them all clear in my head and fully understand the ideas.

This is a big book.

I didn't expect it to be a fun book but Bertrand Russell's comments at times cracked me up. If there was ever to be a Hitch Hiker's Guide to The Galaxy, the chapters on Ancient Philosophy, Catholic Philosophy and Modern Philosophy and a lot of European History could be taken straight from this book. There were times when I was sure that Douglas Adams took his inspiration for the "The Book" from Russel's writing. The tone was very similar. Very often Russell goes on a tangent to tell you how peculiar a philosopher was before demolishing his work. I must also say that the reader of the Audible book is excellent and made the work very entertaining - only Peter Jones could have read it better.

This book also reminded me that before the internet and word processors this kind of book was very important. It is almost as if he published his hand written notes on the philosophy and allowed us read them in a similar way to the opinionated history book Sapiens.

I think if I had been given this book at around 14, I would have read it from cover to cover and would have gained a better grasp of European history and the history of Western thought from the ancient Greeks to the Second World War and especially how philosophy and politics derive from the, very often, erroneous ideas of those who came before.

The Audible recording is 38 hours and I must say that I enjoyed most of it and would definitely listen to it again, though possibly more carefully and one chapter at a time instead of ploughing through it. There are concepts which he carefully introduces at the start that he comes back to over and over again and if you skip over them you may struggle or get frustrated when he repeatedly mentions them later. It is much more difficult to wind back in the audio version especially as I listened to most of it while walking.

I definitely feel better educated for reading this book and wish I had read it earlier.