Customer Reviews

Philosophic Classics, Volume II: Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy (6th Edition)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I don't usually like anthologies and rarely teach from them -- I tend to prefer a primary text approach, partly because it allows students to see the development of ideas in their full context and because I expect philosophy students to be interested in developing their personal library of philosophy. This volume, however, is an exception and I've been using this volume for several years (and three separate editions) to teach my "History of Philosophy: 17th and 18th Century." Since I try to cover quite a bit in the course (empiricism, rationalism, social contract theory, transcendental philosophy -- in the works of Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Pascal, Berkeley, Hume, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Kant), but don't have the time to read everything by every thinker, this volume is almost perfect. It has almost everything I cover and includes both good brief introductions and fairly broad excerpts from each thinker. There is enough, at least, to illustrate the general approach and broad themes and key issues from most every thinker it includes. I've looked at a few other anthologies of Modern philosophy and they are usually either too specific (e.g. focused on 17th but not 18th century philosophy) or too broad and narrow in their coverage. This one is just right, and would be an excellent volume to get for an orientation to the basic problems of modern philosophy that sets the stage for both 19th Century continental thinkers like Hegel and Schopenhauer and Marx and Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, as well as for 20th century developments in both analytic (that picks up from Hume and to a lesser degree Kant and largely bypasses the German Idealist movement) as well as continental philosophy (in Heidegger, Sartre, etc.).

One quibble: I do wish there was more from Rousseau -- the latest volume has excerpts from the Social Contract and while that may be his most historically important work it doesn't show as clearly as some of his other works his distinctive approach to thinking -- that does not fall clearly under a rationalist or empiricist label. To give a better flavor of Rousseau I supplement this volume with Hackett's translation of the Second Discourse (On the Origins of Inequality).

The fourth edition claims to have these advantages: it includes (1) a selection from Rousseau (2) additional material from Locke's Essay and (3) a new translation of the Meditations.

(2) consists of a short chapter on faith and reason. In exchange, we've lost II.11, on abstraction. Since there's little material from Book III, and nothing from III.vi, it's very hard for the reader to make sense of Berkeley's extended attack on abstract ideas in the introduction to the Principles.

Re. (3): Inexplicably, the editor has decided to replace John Cottingham's standard 1986 translation of the Meditations with a `new' translation by Laurence Lafleur, first published in 1951. Perhaps the editor had no choice, but it seems disingenuous to present this as an improvement.

Moreover, the third edition included a crucial selection from Kant's first Critique (the transcendental deduction); this has been deleted.

This is a big step down from the third edition.

This anthology is an expensive attempt to clone Hackett's Modern Philosophy, edited by Ariew and Watkins. The Hackett reader is almost half the price of this one and includes far better translations.

As a student, this came at the better price than the bookstore and right when I needed it. Thank you.

This is a good and comprehensive book if you are taking any 17th and 18th century philosophy courses. There are helpful intorductions beore each philosopher which give a bit of background on them as well as briefly summarize their main theories.

I got this for a class in college. It came in time, and was in really good condition. It sure beats paying full price at the college bookstore!

This anthology would (does?) make a good text for a history of philosophy class as well as a companion to classically-inclined philosophers such as Nietzsche (who Kaufmann has played no small role in creating for the English-speaking world) and Heidegger. It is as good as an anthology as I've seen covering the pre-medieval period. That said, the volume suffers from a lack of depth and would benefit from the more extensive footnotes and references to primary sources or translations that I've grown accustomed to in Kaufmann's other works.

This item came fast and in great condition! Thanks! LOVED doing business with you!