Customer Reviews

A History of Philosophy (Book One: Vol. I - Greece & Rome; Vol. II - Augustine to Scotus; Vol. III -Ockham to Suarez)

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Although written over 60 years ago, Copleston's masterly study remains perennially helpful, although it must be said it presupposes linguistic abilities or competencies in ancient languages that would be far less common today (a lot of untranslated Greek and Hebrew). There are no doubt simpler accounts around, but this repays careful reading and will take many students far beyond an elementary introduction. So far I've only covered the material on the pre-Socratics, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, but these really are the foundational thinkers for western philosophy. Copleston's own Thomist sympathies are clear but are not thrust upon the reader. Having these three volumes in one makes for a bulky book but the serious student of the hisotry of this discipline will readily see the advantages of tracing through the fundamental ideas of classical Greek philosophy in late antiquity and the Middle Ages (including the impact on Islamic thought).

I bought the book for it's chapter on Suarez because there is little else available on this Spanish thinker. This is too bad because his thought was influencial in his time and an honest apprisal of his works would impact America as he was one of the thinkers seminal. We find it difficult to follow Scholastic thought disparaged as it has been by so=called Enlightenment thinkers. This is a thick book, and skimming entries, I have put it back on the shelf to be used more as a reference book although I suspect if read in conjunction with Jaki's many books on the History of Science those latter books would be more clear. Science, itself, makes philosophical claims although scientists don't recognize that and some scientists, like Duhem, are suppressed by science. I'd be open to a book in English on Suarez after reading the chapter on him and that might be the best use of the book, introductory enough to whet on's appetite for more in depth study.