Customer Reviews

History of Philosophy, Vol. 6: From the French Enlightenment to Kant (Modern Philosophy)

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More than 200 pages of Copleston's Vol. 6 is devoted to the notoriously difficult writings of Immanuel Kant, in effect a book within the book. You will find there a detailed explication of what Kant wrote, what he was trying to accomplish, and why. The discussion is both scholarly and very readable.

The two main players in this volume is Rosseau and Kant, whose mentality is about as different as one can fing in the field of philosophy.

Rosseau has his idealistic notion of The Noble Savage, The Social Contract, amongst other things that one can clearly see is more how he wished the world was than how it actually operated. His ideas are so blatantly wrong even given the knowledge of the times it makes one wonder why he gets so much prominence. It does make for an interesting psychological study of how a social misfit tries to justify being inept for common society.

Kant is where one finds some real meat to chew on, whether or not you agree with him. There's no doubt he created a revolution in Philosophy, but the question remains.... is he right? Is time and space an a priori construct that allows humanity to experience phenomena. Is substance an a priori construct to discern objects from one another? His argumentation for some is solid, like his ideas on substance, which has been largely substantiated through neuroscience. The notions of time and space are much more difficult, and his ideas on these are much more debatable.

The main issue is his severance of the phenomenal world of he experience with the noumenal world which is not directly experienced. He never really sufficiently links the thing-in-itself with the object as experience, which later philosophers jumped on rather rapidly.

His moral theory while claiming to be completely on reason, is really mostly emotive(as Copleston rightly states), essentially saying that do an action only if you would think it justified for another to do the same. Hence, it's wrong to lie because you wouldn't wanyt everybody to lie. While okay, it's not a good enough foundation to really make a solid base. His views on aesthetics and art are fascinating, and surprisingly the most interesting of what he wrote.

Copleston bares his teeth a little more than usual with Kant, which took this reader a little bit by surprise. Now, Copleston was a Thomist, and Kant essentially tried to destroy metaphysics as it was understood by the ancients, so it's understandable. Mostly Copleston attacked Kant because of the philosophers after Kant who took his Critique to its logical conclusion, with ridiculous results. Needless to say, a mindblowing read, and his best since Volume 3.

Copleston's series, "The History of Philosophy", is quite possibly the best introduction to the history of philosophical thought that has ever been published and certainly the best currently in print.

You will be hard pressed to find a better collection of solid philosophical surveys in one place. The beauty of the series is that Copleston has clearly done his research on each period and each thinker of Western philosophy.

I cannot recommend this series any more highly. It is a must-have collection for anyone who is a scholar (professional or casual) of philosophy, theology or any of the arts.

If this isn't on your bookshelf, it should be!

I would echo the thoughts of "meadowreader:" this volume is mostly about Kant, who is considered one of the most difficult of all philosophers. The contents of Volume VI include an overview of the French Enlightenment, two chapters on the madman Rousseau, an overview of the German Enlightenment, and then on to pp. 182-392, which are devoted to Immanuel Kant.

With each new volume, my admiration for the stunning achievement of Father Copleston increases. He makes it possible to at least somewhat enjoy and understand the individual philosophers as individuals, but it also becomes clearer and clearer that the serious student needs to go back to page 1 of volume 1 and begin reading with full attention, probably taking notes along the way!

However, this volume by itself is a real treat for unfortunates like myself who have never understood what Kant was up to. At the very least, in simplistic terms, Kant was trying to reconcile the obvious facts about the universe uncovered by Newton with the dogmatic "we-can-know-nothing-about-the-world" attitude of David Hume. Clearly, Kant thought, Hume had missed the trail somewhere: the burning question was "Where?"

So the intellectual detective story continues!

Copleston has done it again. I have read the first five volumes of this history and just finished the sixth. Though he is a Jesuit (of course a Catholic) his elucidating History, which, perhaps one may think to lean slightly in favor of the Catholic point of view in regards to Epistemology and Metaphysics, among other things, comes nowhere close. He balances his own beliefs, telling the reader at some points, I believe thus and thus, while concurrently maintaining his objective role as scholar and historian of Phiolosophy. He will often make statements like, "if it is in fact true," for instance, regarding the existence of God. Though his own beliefs are ultimatley positive in this respect, he does not forget that he is writing a history and does not sacrifice the beliefs of any given philosopher for his own.


This is just one example among many in this book, and I have done so purposely for the sake of brevity. I do not enjoy reading nine and ten paragraph reviews and rarely will do so. All that needs to be said of a product, with very rare exception, can be done so in three or four paragraphs at most.

If you are thinking of purchasing this product, think no more, but act. If you have read previous volumes from this author, you do not need me to tell you how wonderful this History has been...

This book is excellent overall. The author tackles some very
difficult philosophical issues that have been the subject
of much debate over the centuries. He explains how St.Thomas
gave philosophy its charter with important theological and
philosophical arguments. In essence, he argued that God is the
cause or reason for our existence. St. Thomas was a realist
in that he attempted to formulate his arguments through logic.

The early philisophic Christians drew hostility from pagans and theoretical atheists who decried the role of God in the affairs of man/persons.

The Gnosticists spoke of a duality between God and matter conceptually similar to Grecian arguments. St. Anselm sought to prove God's existence pointing to a perfection of creation through the greatness of the deity and wisdom-presumptively Divine wisdom.

Copleston's work is a comprehensive rendition of philosophy
over thousands of years. He tries to cover too much.
In so doing , the author brings a certain "unity" of the
work to the complex subject of philosophy. This concept of
unity is seen in the works of St. Augustine and St. Bonaventure.

St. Augustine was a great theologian and writer of foundational
Latin, literature and grammar. He developed a theory which
postulated that everything would evolve given the passage of
time in the famous "rationes seminales". The author explained
the development of the "university system" during the
Middle Ages. The university provided modern Europe with
grammar,logic,geometry, math, astronomy and other subjects
in the sciences and social sciences. Ibn Sina was a great
Moslem philosopher who lived around 1000 AD. He developed
logic, physics and higher mathematics into practical
applications. St. Bonaventure studied in a Franciscan order.
He perfected programs in philosophy and theology. In addition,
he attempted to unify the concept of man and matter.

This work will benefit historians, philosophers, logicians,
theologists and a wide constituency within Academia.

As with the other books in this series on Western Philosophy, Copleston provides an in-depth tour of the thoughts of the greater and lesser thinkers. Read Copleston only if you really want to explore the ideas that are presented here from Voltaire and others and their relationship to one another.