Customer Reviews

Young Person's Guide to Philosophy

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book provides excellent, brief, and simply worded accounts summarizing key arguments of the great philosphers (and some also-rans). Strength: clear but not condescending sketches of some very difficult ideas. Drawback: Personality eccentricities are overemphasized. The recommended age range is misleadingly low: my nine-year-olds who are advanced readers found it challenging but within their grasp; an advanced 8-year-old friend gave it up as too hard; and a 10-year old friend who is a very good reader found it profitable and informative. I'd recommend 9-12 as the age range.

We paid overdue fines at the library on this book as we waited for interested family members to finish reading it. Now we're buying it to keep on hand as a good reference tool. It's a children's book but was also a good review/overview for adults too.

I just wonder what the publisher thought when the idea of an overview of philosophy for young people was first proposed. Luckily, they must not have been paying much attention because this extraordinary book is in print. It's really amazing that they could pull this book off. How do you explain what the great thinkers throughout history have thought to teenagers and younger? Somehow, Jeremy Weate was able to break down philosophies to their most basic forms. Weate was also aided by his sense of humor and by the pictures of Peter Layman which can help keep interest from swaying. This really is a very valuable resource. This book is supposed to be directed toward readers of the ages 4-8, but I think it is better for a little older audience. I was able use it very effectively in some college English courses I took in high school. A Young Person's Guide to Philosophy is really excellent. It is really an interesting read and can be very useful.

This is absolutely the best introductory philosophy book forchildren I have ever seen. The philosophers are covered in historicalorder starting with the presocratics and ending with living philosophers. The pictures are stunning in the first half of the book. My 9yo loves it!

Decartes would approve! This book is a wonderful introduction to philosophy for kids and young adults alike. I don't think that it is too much for kids 5-8; our 7 year old reads it and comes to us with new knowlege and questions to accompany. I would recommend it to anyone intersted in inspiring their kids to think about the world around them in new ways and to further their understanding of some of the greatest figures in history.

[...]

I bought this philosophy book for my school library because our collection has none (books about philosophy). It is difficult to explain philosophy and psychology as a Dewey Decimal category without any philosophy or psychology books to show as examples.

According to the product description, this book is aimed at the age 4-8 audience, a laughable designation unless there really is a budding philosophy genius in that age group. Another description shows a designation of grades 5-8, a more realistic assessment. In fact, I can't wait to put this book into the hands of one of our incoming 8th graders in August.

What's in "A Young Person's Guide to Philosophy"? The first few pages explain the great unanswerable questions that thinking persons have asked since man had a cognitive brain. Why am I here? Where did the universe come from? Where do we go when we die? And so on.

Then the story of philosophy begins chronologically with the Early Greeks and their individual, almost single-minded focus and extends through Post-modernism.

One full-page color illustration shows each philosopher in his setting (and one "her" setting) with little splats of information all around him. The facing page outlines his background, time period, and philosophical beliefs (very briefly identified).

After the major figures of Western Philosophical Thought are identified, then Schools of Philosophy are pursued and a more detailed structure developed. Each philosopher is placed in his proper school.

"A Young Person's Guide to Philosophy" perfectly suits what I want in our library: a fairly simple philosophy book with enough detail to interest the hardiest and heartiest learner.

The book is a good introduction for kids. Though not particularly very much inclusive when it comes to the choice of philosophers, it does give a fairly good introductory idea to totally new students to the study of philosophy of the ones chosen. The drawings by Lawman are beautiful. I liked very much the inclusion of Hypatia, which, to my mind, is something absolutely new to any history of philosophy. With the exception of Beauvoir, it is a pity that no other women had been chosen. On the whole, the book is wonderfully produced (a truism when it comes to DK publications), and well writen.

I think this might be a little difficult for four-to-eight-year olds, but it does give a clear and simple overview of the ideas of the great philosophers. There were a few typos, and the various type sizes were distracting. Each section begins with a full-page drawing of a particular philosopher and his milieu with callouts. The callouts are the part that might appeal to the four-to-eight-year olds. Many of them are quite silly.

This book is a chronological list of major Western philosophical thinkers, starting with Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, and finishing with Marcuse. Each thinker has the dates of his life (or her dates, in the case of the one female philosopher mentioned). It's aimed at children. Of course, the brief format means that only a couple of broad features of each philosopher are mentioned.

Nevertheless, if you are a Catholic (or a Protestant) I wouldn't recommend giving this book to your children, since it contains several implicit attacks on Christianity in particular and religion in general. For example, in the introduction you learn that "in the past it was dangerous to question God's existence. The 15th-century Italian philosopher Savonarola was burned at the stake for his unconventional views". The author seems to have forgotten that Savonarola was a Dominican priest, and never had the least intention of denying God's existence; he was burned because of his vehement attacks on Pope Alexander VI as the Antichrist, etc. On the same page one can learn that "The Church strongly opposed this idea [heliocentrism]", and the author specifically mentions Copernicus in this connection. He seems to have forgotten that Albert Widmanstadt preached the Copernican theory to Pope Clement VII in 1533, and Copernicus dedicated his work on the subject to Pope Paul III, and was himself an orthodox Catholic. No Catholic opposition was occasioned to the heliocentric system until 70 years after these events, when Copernicus' works were forbidden (1616) until 9 sentences were emended which stated the heliocentric system was "certain" (as it obviously wasn't, since the sun is not the centre of the universe as Copernicus argued). When these sentences were amended, the book was allowed again in 1620. What all this goes to show is that the Church by no means "strongly opposed" Copernican ideas, but merely showed a cautious prudence in refusing their being stated as certain facts, when they contradicted the opinions of the most eminent ancient and contemporary scientists.

On the page on Descartes, the author states that "He [Descartes] was a scientist at heart, but at the time the Church was persecuting Galileo and other scientists for their scientific theories", which is of course total nonsense. The Church in general and the Jesuits in particular were one of the greatest sponsors of scientists in that period, especially astronomers. Galileo's "persecution" consisted in an imprisonment in a mansion with a personal servant, because he broke his own promises in 1616 not to assert that heliocentricity is certain, not because he supported heliocentricity. "The Church taught that the Earth was the centre of the universe", yes, as did all the major scientists of the time from Ptolemy to Tycho Brahe. This one incident can hardly constitute a general opposition to scientists, as the author seems to infer.

Likewise, the Aristotle page states that the Church advocated Aristotle's views on the inferiority of women. The same page contains the ridiculous assertion that "with no such thing as microbiology to prove otherwise, he said only men carried human 'seed'. This put women on a par with soil..." With soil! Certainly, Aristotle argued that women are misbegotten men, but how does this inferiority entail quality with soil?

The Spinoza page implicitly attacks the Jews of Amsterdam for condemning the pantheistic ideas of that philosopher.

In general the book is infused with a clear political view, including support for the French Revolution and feminism, and seeming to support Sartre's "collective struggle against oppression" (Communism). The author praises de Beauvoir for "noticing the unfairness of it all" (traditional feminine roles) and states that education allows women to "break free from opression". And whereas Hegel provided the basis for an apparently innocent political movement known as "Marxism", the author by no means considers Nietzsche a basis for National Socialism; he exonerates him from this association by saying that it's an unfair "taint" on his name, created by his sister's "narrow [Hitler-supporting] views".

In short, the book contains quite a few attacks on religion and a clear political view. Therefore, if you're Catholic (or follow any other traditional religion) be careful before giving it to your kids.