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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellcent overview of Western philosophy!, April 25, 2001
This book covers roughly 2,500 years of Western philosophy from Plato to Jean-Paul Sartre. Sproul's sections on Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche and the section on the influence of Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud (even though they cannot properly be called philosophers) were the most insightful sections in the book. The conclusion was excellent as well. Sproul opens the book with an introduction to what philosophy is and why he is interested in it. I think his definition that philosophy is foundational thinking is simple and very accurate. His attention to epistemology (The branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge, its presuppositions and foundations, and its extent and validity) throughout the book was a good to choice. Sproul's explanation of the various philosophers was accessible; the use of diagrams (e.g. his illustration of Kierkegaard and Hegel's synthesis) will help those who are totally unfamiliar with philosophy. Many readers will probably say that the book is far too short (at 203 pages), but I think Sproul's objective was to provide a concise introduction. I think the book could be twice the length and still be concise (then he could have included Pragmatism and perhaps even an Eastern philosopher or two). I think that the book failed to do accomplish its title. What do I mean? I think except for a few places (e.g. Marx), he failed to show the consequences of these ideas. Examples of how these ideas have impacted society would make philosophy more relevant. At the same time, I recognize that perhaps Sproul wanted to reader to reflect on these ideas and then realize when these ideas have influenced the arts, politics etc but I think he failed to show how these ideas have worked themselves out (again, there are a few exceptions) in our world. Also, he rarely mentioned the Christian response to these philosophers; I think perhaps an annotated bibliography of Christian books responding to each philosophical movement (i.e. rationalism, empiricism, Marxism or existentialism) would have been helpful. One book I can recommend that evaluates some of these philosophers (e.g. Kant, Hume, Plato and others) is Norman Geisler's, "Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics." I would recommend this book for Christians who want to learn about philosophy but don't know where to begin.
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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Well written, but lacks influences of last 50 years., February 1, 2002
_Consequences_ covers great philosophers from Thales of Miletus, to the philosophers of modernism. The penultimate chapter before the conclusion covers Darwin and Freud. Sproul discussed how these 19th century thinkers have had great influence on the current secular worldview. As others have noted, the book ends rather abruptly after 200 pages. Throughout this book R. C. Sproul does not hide his biases. He clearly states he is a Christian and a dedicated supporter of the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. He agrees with Roman Catholic philosopher Etienne Gilson, and concludes, "our choice is not between Immanuel Kant and René Descartes or between G. W. F. Hegel and Søren Kierkegaard. We must choose instead between Kant and Thomas Aquinas. Gilson insists that all other positions are mere halfway houses on the road to either absolute religious agnosticism or the natural theology of Christian metaphysics." R. C. Sproul is a very good writer. He is both easy to read, and communicates many ideas in a few words. I gave _Consequences_ four stars because it is a very good introduction to ancient, medieval, and modern philosophy. Some of the discussions of how philosophies interacted with each other were very nice. Sproul also has an excellent skill in explaining such concepts as epistemology (knowledge), ontology (being), and teleology (purpose). This book includes the best short introduction to the medieval scholastics I have ever read. The inclusion of proofs for the existence of God was very nicely done. Kierkegaard is also very good, although Sproul does not seem to go as far as he might to meet him on his own terms. As a fideist Kierkegaard has a different philosophical emphasis than Sproul. To judge Kierkegaard in purely rational way seems unfair; he was more concerned about matters of faith and heart and saw philosophy as a means to expression, rather than a way to find absolute truth. I respectfully disagree with Sproul who feels that fideism is one of the "mere byproducts born of the decomposition of the Christian living God." R. C. Sproul certainly is not as friendly to his philosophy as Calvin College's C. Stephen Evans is in _Faith Beyond Reason_. The book claims to help the reader understand "the concepts that shaped our world." I felt that the book fell short of its purpose because it seems to ignore the influences to our culture in the last fifty years. There was little, if any, mention of postmodernism and eastern philosophy. I found myself checking the copyright date to make sure it wasn't written in the nineteen-fifties. In recent years, the influence of postmodernism has had a profound affect on our culture, and I see the omission as a flaw. In the introduction, Sproul states, "Philosophy forces us to think foundationally." The current voices of postmodern philosophers reject the foundationalism, and much of the rationalism of the modern era. Some people today go as far as saying "What is true for you, is true for you. What is true for me is true for me." That being said, this book and another such as Stanley J. Grentz's _A Primer on Postmodernism_ make a great pair.
The fact that R. C. Sproul is a Reformed Christian, and seems to be quite partial to Thomas Aquinas, does not detract from the fact that he is also a very competent historian of philosophy. I appreciate his ministry to promote thinking among evangelical Christians. After reading _Consequences_, I would highly recommend the highly acclaimed nine-volume series _A History of Philosophy_ by Thomist philosopher Frederick C. Copleston.
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22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A brief introduction to an introduction, March 20, 2007
As I have suggested in the title, this book appears to me to be a "brief introduction to an introduction." The book is not to be confused with Richard Weaver's classic, "Ideas Have Consequences", in which he (Weaver) provides the reader with a pellucid introduction and overview of Western philosophy and how the Age of Reason gave birth to the decline of true philosophy (the study of wisdom, i.e., sophia/logos), and the birth of rationalism (the exaltation of man's reason over revelation) and the granddaughter, postmodernism, which teaches subjective irrationalism ("What I believe is true, IS True"). Unfortunately, for my money, R.C. Sproul, who is a fine theologian and writer, indeed (I have most of his works) misses the mark in what he propounds to be a basic introduction for the non-philosopher. My reasons are twofold: First, the book barely introduces key concepts and then quickly moves on to the next topic or philosopher; and second, what is explained is not clear enough because of my first point. For example, Sproul points out that Plato was an idealist and that Aristotle was a realist, doing this in one single paragraph, and then moves on. His definition of idealism and realism is incomplete. As I have taught my philosophy students, the two schools are indeed simple enough to understand, but more detail is required. Plato's reality was absorbed in the mind; the reality of truth, justice and aesthetics is found in the reality of the mind, for behind all corporeal things, behind the physical appearances we see each day, exists in a metaphysical sphere the reality of such appearances. The black stallion we see running in the field is an inferior black stallion, a "shadow" of its true reality, for somewhere in the heavens exists the perfect black stallion, and sadly, we must content ourselves with its imperfect image. Plato said that reality is a dream, that what is before us is an illusion (similar to Eastern mysticism), that all physical objects, including humans, are sinful. Thus, when John says in his Gospel that the "Word (divine logos to the Greeks) became flesh," this notion would have been utterly contemptible to many Greeks in the first century. Plato, therefore, was an idealist is that he formulated truth in the mind, and from his most famous work, "The Republic", we see his idealism played out in what he envisioned as a perfect society, a society that "should be," not the realistic society of "what is" taught by his student Aristotle, in his book, "The Politics." Aristotle was a realist in that he believed that inductive and scientific investigation of the real world, as opposed to Plato's unreal cosmology, would lead one to both understand the Prime Mover (God) and how the world worked and could be harnessed. Thanks to Aristotle, who became the prevailing philosopher, the West would launch into detailed investigations that would lead to inventions and the notion of human rights, freedom and autonomy. In my view, Sproul gives scant notice to the fundamental differences between idealism and realism, and does not make applications or logical connections, or in his words, he does not demonstrate the consequences of those ideas. I find it remarkable that he gives no space to Cicero, one who constantly quotes or alludes to Plato in his works. Cicero was a loan voice who hearkened decadent Rome back to the wisdom of the Greeks, and laid a foundation for future understanding of ethics, morals, political responsibility and freedom. Sproul should have shown the clear influences between the philosophers. For example, how Plato deeply influenced St. Augustine who credited Plato with being his teacher; how Augustine influenced Luther and Calvin; how Plato influenced Locke and then Freud; how Aristotle influenced, well, everyone, especially St. Thomas, Calvin, then down to philosophers in our own time. In short, all philosophers since Plato and Aristotle have merely stood on the shoulders of those two giants, and one philosopher even penned that all philosophers since Plato are merely a footnote to Plato himself. Both Plato and Aristotle are quite literally the Fathers of Western Civilization, but that idea has little consequence in the book.
To be brief is fine, but to be vastly incomplete could mean that the reader is not getting a necessary foundation in order to understand other philosophers. For example, Sproul takes barely two pages to explain Hegel's theory of thesis/antithesis. He explains that for Hegel, one begins with a thesis from which one derives an antithesis, from which one formulates a synthesis; then the synthesis becomes a new thesis. For the layperson in philosophy, I would (I can only) imagine that this construct would be confusing. Sproul never posits a thesis and antithesis for clarification, but merely provides a graduating graph. The reader is left clueless. On this point, Francis Schaeffer in his book, "Escape from Reason", is a little more helpful.
Why Sproul left John Dewey as a footnote in the last chapter is a mystery to me, as it was John Dewey who nearly single handedly presided over the death of American public education, slowly from the 1920's and 30's to this death in 1965. The Pragmatism philosophy invented by John Dewey is clearly connected to the Existentialism of Hegel, Kierkegaard, Camus and Sartre, and has profoundly influenced American society, particularly the free fall of ethics and morals beginning in the 1960s to the present day. It was Dewey in his 1941 book, "Theory of the Moral Life", maintained that there are two enemies of his beloved "Progressive" Education movement in America, i.e., first, religion in general, and the church in particular with its outmoded creeds, and secondly, parents. He envisioned a society where, in order for students to progress intellectually, that social engineering (public education) will free young people from both religious negative influences and the negative influences of parents. For a brilliant discussion of John Dewey, George Counts and others Doctors of Intellectual Death, read Diane Ravitch's book, "Left Back: A Century of Failed Education Reform." Every parent should own Ravitch's book.
Unfortunately, because Sproul opted for brevity in his introduction to an introduction, the reader is given a fragmented portrait of the history of ideas, their consequences, and their logical outcomes.
I give the book three stars because R.C. Sproul is the author, and a fine one indeed, but I must subtract two stars because the several ideas within are incomplete, and not applied. Stephen Gruber, Ph.D. Prof. Philosophy and History.
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