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Product Details
Series: Routledge Classics
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Routledge; Rev Ed edition (May 9, 2002)
'Very powerful ... this book is an impressive contribution to our endless argument about the meaning of ethical concepts.' – The Observer
About the Author
Alasdair MacIntyre is Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of numerous books, including After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, revised edition, and Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedia, Genealogy, and Tradition, both also published by the University of Notre Dame Press.
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
This is a reissue of a 1964 work. MacIntyre provides a new introduction that critically reviews what he sees as the strength and weaknesses of the book. The book itself, however, is unchanged from the 1964 text. Beginners will find this a difficult book to work through. MacIntyre presumes the reader has a basic understanding of the ideas and philosophers he discusses. But for those with adequate background this is a wonderful book, full of many insights. Be warned, though, this book is not a neutral review of the subject matter. In this book MacIntyre lays the groundwork for his own particular version of ethics (developed most fully in After Virtue). Much of the book is dense and part of it is, arguably, poorly written. But it is worth the work needed to get through it.
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I was always in a certain kind of doubt when it was asked of me to recommend one or the other of numerous histories of philosophy. They are not your ordinary texts, which you can browse about in your leasure time. They often require some thinking to really grasp what author had in mind and where does he stand at all. After all history of philosophy is elusive subject even to profficient ones. Looking back, in something less than seven thousand years of culture as we know it (it began with emergence of Summerian epos - Gilgamesh), one finds himself before wast ammount of data, to put it that way. When faced with them, one feels compelled to escape in any direction avaliable to him.
But neverthelles, something drives you to continue your studies, to learn and feed upon knowledge of others, to live in times long forgotten and to think an re-think thought again and again. But without that initial spark which puts great flames in motion all would be in vain. MacIntyre book is one that feeds that flame, helping it to grow.
If one really wants to understand key questions of ethics and how, at the first place they came to be, one should start with MacIntyre. You won't find your asnwers listed here, rather contrary, MacIntyre, in his almost positivistic scepticism, states many pro et contra arguments for theories presented in his book, that reader finds himself confused on many occasions. But precisely that kind of expose is what drives one to continue searching and to complete questions posed by MAcIntyre. A task that takes whole lifetime and more.
In the end I have to mention that ethics described here concernes itself mostly with western ethics and ethical thought. East is left out. For which purpose, I'll let you find for yourself.
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I wonder if the other reviewers who panned this book stuff their own shirts or send them out. I suspect that rather than disliking the book they dislike the message. MacIntyre uses this book to drop the bread crumbs to lead moderns back to the foundation of Western Civilization, which curiously enough takes us back to the beginning. "You shall not cease from exploration; and the end of your exploring will be to arrive where you started and to know the place for the first time." MacIntyre is one of those philosophers who holds that there is a real world, that there are right and wrong choices for human beings, that we have screwed up our language and philosophical discourse to the point where they mean nothing and the only answer is to rectify our basic understanding, to recalibrate our thought to reality. I find the author to be difficult because his thought is so loaded with content and one must follow him carefully. DON'T BUY THE KINDLE EDITION YET. THE GREEK TERMS ARE DISTORED BY POOR SCANNING AND THERE ARE NUMBEROUS TYPOS (LIKE LEAVING OUT THE WORD "NOT" IN A SENTENCE).
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Alasdair MacIntyre's "A Short History of Ethics" is an uneven attempt at examining the history of Western culture through the development of ethics. It is quite clear that MacIntyre aims to advance his thesis of the decline of morality and ethical philosophy in the modern era with this short history of ethics. MacIntyre is generally skeptical and critical of most ethical theories, and offers a succinct criticism of most theories immediately after introducing them. While some chapters, like those on Homeric and pre-classical and Hellenistic Greek Philosophy, Christianity, New Values, and Modern Moral philosophy, offer engaging insights, others are redundant and seemingly irrelevant to the advancement of his general thesis. MacIntyre admits in the preface that this book suffers from too many aims. This problem is most troubling when MacIntyre attempts to offer a ~20-page summary of Plato or Aristotle which can neither be expected to inform the advanced reader or to introduce these seminal philosophers to beginning students of philosophy. While there are surely better "History of Philosophy" and "History of Ethics" books available, MacIntyre's "Short History of Ethics" occasionally surprises the reader with insightful criticisms and arguments which make it an uneven if mildly engaging little book on Ethics.
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This book is a very readable outline of the history of western moral philosophy. I found it highly enjoyable and also think I learned something from reading it. Perhaps I could compare it to Russell's History of Western Philosophy, though limited to the field of ethics. Like Russell, MacIntyre makes his opinins known at times, but one doesn't have to agree with him to enjoy the book.
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