The dream of reason : a history of western philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance

An exceptionally rich, intelligible and illuminating history of Western philosopy from the sixth century BC to the Renaissance, "The Dream Of Reason" provides an introduction to the puzzling personalities of the philosophers, as well as an extremely sensitive and persuasive presentation of their views. "The Dream of Reason illustrates how the story of philosophy is more the history of a sharply inquisitive cast of mind than of a sharply defined discipline. We engage immediately with both the personalities and the arguments of every major philosopher from Ancient Greece to the birth of modern philosophy in the seventeenth century; the modern era will be addressed in a second volume. Among a large cast of curious individuals, we encounter Thales, perhaps the first philosopher, certainly the first of a long line of absent-minded professors; Empedocles, who in the fourth century BC invented a theory of matter which convinced nearly everybody until the Renaissance, despite the fact that Empedocles believed himself to be a reincarnated bush; Anaxagoras, who was convicted of impiety for believing that the heavenly bodies were not gods to be worshipped but red-hot rocks to be avoided; Diogenes, the cynic who lived in an earthenware tub; and Epicurus, no bon viveur, but a philosopher devoted to the simple life."--BOOK JACKET. Philosophy is a subject with a long history and a short memory. In this landmark new study of Western thought, Anthony Gottlieb looks afresh at the writings of the great thinkers, questions many pieces of conventional wisdom and explains his findings with unbridled brilliance and clarity. From the pre-Socratic philosophers such as Empedocles, whose account of the cosmos seems "a mixture of the physics of Stephen Hawking and the romantic novels of Barbara Cartland," through the celebrated days of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, up to Renaissance visionaries like Erasmus and Bacon, "philosophy" emerges here as a phenomenon unconfined by any one discipline. Indeed, as Gottlieb explains, its most revolutionary breakthroughs in the natural and social sciences have repeatedly been co-opted by other branches of knowledge, leading to the illusion that philosophers never make any progress. Already a classic, this landmark account of early Western thought now appears in a new edition with expanded coverage of the Middle Ages. The Dream of Reason takes a fresh look at the writings of the great thinkers of classic philosophy and questions many pieces of conventional wisdom. The book invites comparison with Bertrand Russell's monumental History of Western Philosophy , "but Gottlieb's book is less idiosyncratic and based on more recent scholarship" (Colin McGinn, Los Angeles Times ). A New York Times Notable Book, a Los Angeles Times Best Book, and a Times Literary Supplement Best Book of 2001. Illuminating history of Western philosophy from the sixth century BC to the Renaissance, this work provides an introduction to the puzzling personalities of the philosophers, as well as a presentation of their views.