World Philosophies [Paperback]

Ninian Smart (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0415228522 | ISBN-13: 978-0415228527 | Publication Date: June 2000 | Edition: 1

World Philosophies is a comprehensive survey of the world's philosophical and religious traditions by one of our foremost religious thinkers. Ninian Smart discusses notable figures such as Plato and Kierkegaard in the West, the Buddha and Mao Zedong in Asia, Tempels and Knibanga in Africa, and Rodo and Royce in America. Covering a wide range of topics including Indian ideas of testimony and evidence, Chinese notions of moral development, Buddhist concepts of cosmology and Latin American critiques of materialism, Smart sheds new light on the astonishing diversity of philosophies that have developed throughout history.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Smart (The World's Religions, LJ 11/1/98) presents a narrative history arranged geographically. After an introductory outline chapter, the concepts that arose on the ancient subcontinent of India, in Chinese antiquity, and so on, are developed culture by culture and epoch by epoch. Smart weaves an explanation of religious developments among Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, and Christians into nearly as thorough a tapestry as his presentation of secular thought. This seems wholly appropriate, given how religious ideas traditionally suffuse philosophical ones, but, in many cases, the author's interest in religious nuance downplays the distinction between religion and philosophy. Most troubling in this large and academic text is the complete lack of quotation and, too often, the absence of particular vocabulary developed by the philosophers and movements under discussion. The exhaustive chapter-by-chapter bibliographies range widely to include reference works, primary sources, and popular works. For academic collections.?Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley P.L., CA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

As usual, Smart writes clearly, simply and with an evident relish for his subject. An excellent, 65-page bibliography is included. The book is in some ways a remarkable tour de force.
–Murdith McLean, St. Johns College, The University of Manitoba, Philosophy in Review

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Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (June 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415228522
• ISBN-13: 978-0415228527
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,356,678 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The ideal coffee-table book for philosophers, October 15, 2003

By 

K. T. Ong (Singapore) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: World Philosophies (Paperback)

Unlike so many meretricious books which purport to be about philosophy but are actually limited to Western philosophy, Smart's book really takes on the philosophical traditions of well nigh the entire human race. It is incredible how any single scholar's mind could be so encyclopedic. From antiquity down to the present day, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Islamic and even African philosophy are covered side by side with Western thought (which is subdivided into its Greek/Roman, European and North American camps), with no partiality being shown towards any tradition. Even 20th-century developments of the non-Western traditions are discussed. Due to the vast scope of this 454-page book, though, individual philosophers are necessarily and somewhat regrettably given only brief treatment (about one-and-a-half pages per thinker on average), the focus being on the larger picture of the development of ideas and of cultures. Still, it would probably be too much to ask for more from a single author, besides which as a compensation hardly a single important philosopher from any tradition has been left out (except Asanga and Vasubandhu from the Buddhist tradition) -- even the less well-known thinkers such as Feuerbach, Merleau-Ponty and Nishida Kitaro are included. (If only two or more authors could co-author this book, so that more could be written about each thinker.) Smart is always fair and sympathetic towards the different traditions as well: you don't find his language changing from cold, dry academic analysis when discussing, say, Africa, to glowing adulation and praise when looking at, say, the ancient Greeks (who else). And if the book appears to have strong religious leanings, hey, what do you expect, a lot of philosophy was and still is tied in to religious concerns. A small number of typographical errors can be found scattered throughout the book, and Smart also seemed to have some trouble with the proper Pinyin romanization of Chinese names and terms, but on the whole these faults are negligible. So all things said, if you simply want to wallow in the enormous wealth of human thought (and not just Western thought, please, for heaven's sake), this is the book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Correcting last reviewer, March 27, 2008

By 

A Philosopher - See all my reviews

This review is from: World Philosophies (Paperback)

I originally dismissed this book because of what the last reviewer had mentioned-- specifically that the author "mentions God twenty times per page." However, after examining this book at the local bookshop, I found this to be completely false. Smart gives a very sharp, though concise, rendering of the key concepts, ideas, and history of the world's rich philosophical traditions. In addition to Asian philosophies and Western philosophies, African and Latin American are also considered. While this book does suffer from lack of depth, it provides a rare source for the basic framework of most philosophical systems-- ancient, classical, and contemporary.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A delightful read, March 24, 2002

By 

Sreenivas K "SriniK" (Potomac, MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: World Philosophies (Hardcover)

"Philosophy" has suffered from a Western-only myopia and this delightful read is impressive for its breadth. Under one cover the quintessence of every significant philosophical development, both "Western" and "Eastern" is presented. A must read for further study. The paperback ... is very good value.