Vincent E. BarryRecensioni

12/4/21

Part I is Introduction. The author introduces "Philosophy" with a dialogue, list of "main points", subsections on Meaning and Value, a showcase example (Socrates), summary/conclusions emphasizing its three main "themes" (epistemology [knowledge], metaphysics [reality], axiology [value] 12). He then engages in questioning, and his answering points to higher level human needs. He promises an "exciting but disturbing enterprise", noting that Socrates paid with his life for what he believed. He concludes with Voltaire's "Story of a Good Brahman". Then he lists titles -- Adler, Bontempo, Durant, Jung, Korner, Nott, among others, briefly summarizing their books. And that's just the first half of the Introduction.

Part II is Axiology -- touching upon ethics and values, with social concepts -- the State, law, freedom, and aesthetics.
Part III is Epistemology - knowing, reason, empiricism, phenomenology, Truth, and Science.
Part III is Metaphysics - reality and "being"; religion, the numinous.

The material is organized radially, with the possibility of self-discovery at each hub of the following ten Chapters containing selected Readings:

1. Meaning and value: Plato, Russel.
2. Human Nature: Freud, Descartes, Plato, Skinner, Sartre, Humphries (a synopsis of Buddhist doctrines)
3. Ethics: Moore, Bentham, Aquinas, Kant,
4. Social Philosophy: Plato, JS Mill, Rawls, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Adam Smith, MLKing Jr, Marx
5. Art: Dostoyevsky, Plato, Aristotle, Croce, Dewey, Langer
6. Knowledge: Descartes, Berkeley, Hume,
7. Truth: Russell, Blanshard (coherence), William James (pragmatism)
8. Science: Siu, Bacon, Platt (inference)
9. Reality and Being: Lucretius, N. Malcolm (identity), Hanson, Aristotle, Dewey, Husserl, Kierkegaard, Sartre
10. Religion: St Anselm (ontology), St Aquinas (cosmology), Hume, John Hick (human creativity), Kierkegaard (faith).

Mine is old and beat up, but I still regard this as an excellent introductory text to philospophy.½