The Truth About Everything: An Irreverent History of Philosophy : With Illustrations [Hardcover]

Matthew Stewart (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1997

The two main branches of modern philosophy, analytic and continental, each attack the other as irrelevant. Matthew Stewart says they are both right. "The Truth About Everything" is an earnest lampoon by on Oxford PhD set on bursting the bubble of philosophers everywhere. His claim is that philosophy endeavours to reveal the truth about everything, and since this is clearly impossible, the history of philosophy is nothing but a mish-mash of misconceptions, false starts, and blind alleys. His acid humour and frank discussions are a welcome comic interlude for the serious student of philosophy.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The two main branches of modern philosophy, analytic and continental, each attack the other as irrelevant. Matthew Stewart says they're both right. The Truth About Everything is an earnest lampoon by on Oxford Ph.D. set on bursting the bubble of philosophers everywhere. His claim is that philosophy endeavors to reveal the truth about everything, and since this is clearly impossible, the history of philosophy is nothing but a mish-mash of misconceptions, false starts, and blind alleys. His acid humor and frank discussions are a welcome comic interlude for the serious student of philosophy.

Review

"The brute fact is that virtually all of what passes today for philosophy is practiced within the modern university." Matthew Stewart, who holds a doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University, entreats and invites all of us to visualize and use philosophy as a vehicle to think critically about our world. Clearly he advocates that philosophy be liberated from the encrustedness that has grown upon it within the confines of Academe. Indeed, providing the dynamic framework by which to keep one's mind "open and critical" is the genuine gift of the Western philosophical traditions. There is affirmation given to the heart of philosophy, namely, the disposition to love knowledge. In an extremely iconoclastic manner, Stewart tests a broad spectrum of philosophical systems and their proponents against their intentions to represent the truth about everything - from Socrates to Descartes, Hobbes to Kant, and Hegel to Heidegger -and finds them wanting. For example, he writes that "[t]he dialectical method is just about asking decent questions. Anything more is mystification ..". Stewart contends that philosophy should not be professionalized. He cautions that "[w]e should guard against the idea . . . that there is some special technique to thought, that philosophers have some special purchase on the mysterious faculty of thought. Stewart provides a sweeping history of philosophical traditions, which in order to be appreciated fully in all of its subtle irony, must be read with a firm grounding in Western systematized thought. -- From Independent Publisher

While attempting to bring order and structure to the history of philosophy, professionals in modern universities have apparently lost sight of what philosophy really is. So says Matthew Stewart, who has discovered that in the professors' well-intended pursuit of the truth and knowledge, this area of thought has been dissected, organized into a series of schools, movements, cults of personality for great individuals, and tainted with mysticism, all of which reduces the accessibility and value of philosophy's noble pursuit.
The Truth About Everything is an open, sometimes hilarious guided tour through the history of philosophy from outside the traditional, institutional perspective. With an unusually frank and irreverent style, using parables and imaginary dialogues, Stewart deftly exposes the myths laminated onto the history of philosophy and offers a realistic assessment of influential philosophers, and the movements that often surround them as well as efforts made to advance human knowledge and happiness.
Stewart shows that simply knowing theories, recognizing revered schools, and distinguishing the views of great philosophers is not what real philosophy is about. Included in this delightful romp through philosophy are sections on the Presocratics, the Sophists, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Hellenistic philosophers, Neoplatonism, Eastern philosophy, Medieval philosophy, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Empiricism, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Foucault, Derrida, Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, and "The End of Philosophy".
The Truth About Everything employs numerous illustrations and graphics to accompany Stewart's zestful passages. Centuries of stodgy pretentiousness dissolve to expose philosophy as the vehicle all of us have the responsibility to use when making sense of the world. -- And be aware that your tour guide through this history is wielding a sledgehammer to some of the pillars of philosophy that scholars hold dear. -- Midwest Book Review

Product Details

• Hardcover: 482 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books (January 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573921106
• ISBN-13: 978-1573921107
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #896,265 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars necessary, but not sufficient, July 23, 2000

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Michael T. Zeddies "Mike Zeddies" (usa) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Truth About Everything: An Irreverent History of Philosophy : With Illustrations (Hardcover)

this book is right about many things, but wrong about some important things. philosophy certainly has a lot of sacred cows in need of skewering, and stewart does an admirable job of satirizing popular (and academic) notions of just what philosophy is...however, even he admits in the end that his critique is not only inadequate but somewhat ironically self-refuting...and his exclusive attention to the metaphysical and epistemological traditions leaves out pretty much everything written in ethics, political theory, and aesthetics, all of which are certainly central to philosophy! i find this strange and hypocritical for someone who admonishes us to teach philosophy as a part of other disciplines, rather than as a discipline in its own right. his treatment of certain areas--kant's ethics, the american pragmatists--is pitifuly brief and inadequate, and one gets the feeling that the author is out of his league in certain areas (not surprising, since he does try to cover all the big names to at least _some_ degree!) but then i'm not sure how seriously the author wishes us to take him...in the end, his closing words of advice "be responsible! be good! be true to yourself!" only beg the questions philosophy wishes to answer: _why_ should we be good? _why_ should we be responsible? _why_ should we be true to ourselves? more importanly, _HOW_ does one act good, responsible, stay true to one's self, etc...i get the feeling the author doesn't think these are particularly philosophical questions. but they are--and that's the point. i'm all for recognizing that philosophy isn't something professors do at college--it's something we all do, every day. but then we should take such questions as seriously as possible, right? so what exactly is it the philosophers are doing wrong? still, an enjoyable read, and educational, for philosophers of all kinds, whether professional or amateur.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The "sophists" as just "consultants" of their time., August 25, 1997

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[e-mail] (San José, Costa Rica) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Truth About Everything: An Irreverent History of Philosophy : With Illustrations (Hardcover)

Did you ever think of a history of philosophy that was not just interesting but funny? This is that book. Prepare to laugh and to find chapters like "Descartes : I drink therefore I am" and "Sartre : Being-in-the-Cafe". But, in my opinion, this most unusual adjective for a philosophy book --funny-- is not the principal one that I can say of it. Oddly as it may seem, at the end of the book, the adjectives that came to my mind (or body?) were : saddening, shocking, distressful. Because it woke me up from my dogmatic dream : that philosophy was important and useful. This book imposes a dramatic change of view about philosophy and the great philosophers. For example, after reading the chapter on the sophists, I got the impression that they were just "consultants" of their time. If this is true, they contributed much more to the welfare of their society than the lazy Socrates. Of course, nobody is saying that this book contains THE truth about philosophy, but it contains ENOUGH truth for me to unhesitatingly make the decision NOT to read any other philosophy book in my life. Besides, I've already read more philosophy books than I want to remember. If you are an amateur philosophy fan as I WAS, don't miss this book, it might be your last.
P.S. : Whatever you do, don't skip the chapter "Heidegger : Much Ado about Being"

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Flawed, but nearly unique, December 29, 2000

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"arlodriver" (Dearborn, MI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Truth About Everything: An Irreverent History of Philosophy : With Illustrations (Hardcover)

While Stewart's book is certainly neither exhaustive or perfect in its portrayl of every significant philosopher, it certainly is a rather unique entry into worthwhile philosophy reads. For one its rather humourous, and two, it attempts to be critical. While most introductions to the subject tend to be far to pious and pedantic, Stewart can point out an obvious flaw or two in nearly anyones favorite philosopher (unless your favorite is David Hume). This book is probably a better read for the novice rather than the newbie, but all the same it pokes much needed holes in the rather pompous tradition of the History of Philosophy.