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The Oxford Companion to Philosophy New Edition (Hardcover)

by Ted Honderich (Editor)
Key Phrases: contemporary epistemology, very short introduction, multicultural citizenship, New York, Logical Positivism, New Haven (more...)

4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (25 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal
Grade 10 Up–Opening with a stimulating preface (Philosophy thrives….It is only the sciences and the superstitions that come and go), Honderich presents this considerably revised and expanded update of his 1995 edition as a resource that will be equally useful to scholars and to general readers. Now including more than 2200 alphabetically arranged entries from nearly 300 contributors, it provides an encyclopedic view of philosophy's past and present, its ideas, disputes (the editor himself contributes an article on unlikely philosophical propositions), and key figures, living and dead. The articles range in length from several sentence definitions to meaty topical and biographical essays of several pages. Each concludes with a list of references; a scattered few are illustrated. A massive index backs up frequent cross-references to enhance ease of access. Back matter includes a time line and an absorbing series of maps, or schematic diagrams, of types and schools of philosophy. More extensive in scope and level of detail than the Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1999), this title makes an excellent companion for standard multivolume subject encyclopedias, and will serve college-bound students and beyond well for both quick reference and sustained enquiry.–John Peters, New York Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
"The brave, large aim of this book," boasts editor Honderich, as he did of the 1995 first edition, "has been to bring philosophy together between two covers better than ever before." That is a lofty goal indeed, given such outstanding competition as The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (1999), Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy(2000), and The Shorter Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2005). The latter two are abridgements of the 10-volume Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1998). What all have in common are alphabetical arrangement, 2,000 or so articles of varying length by hundreds of experts, and an emphasis on the Western philosophical tradition beginning with the pre-Socratics and culminating in twentieth-century Anglo-American philosophy while still making room for the continental and non-Western philosophical traditions. All have considerable complementary differences in terms of authors and entries.

As with the first edition, Honderich has provided a reference work of both great value and pleasurable reading. He has allowed authors to show their idiosyncrasies, perhaps nowhere more so than in his own mind-twisting entry on Unlikely philosophical propositions. Some 300 new entries (including Animal consciousness, Cloning, and Corporate responsibility) have been added. Many others have been revised, lengthened, or updated. The distinguished list of contributors has increased from 249 to 291. Subjects range from paragraph-length entries on philosophers (some of whom are represented in the handful of illustrations) and concepts to entries of several thousand words on 20 or so giants of Western philosophy, aspects of the major branches of philosophy, and various national philosophies. There are entries for some 150 contemporary philosophers. Each entry is followed by a reference list. Adding value are appendixes of logical symbols, maps of philosophy showing hierarchical relationships, and a chronology of philosophy with contemporaneous figures and events in the facing column. The index is composed almost entirely of main-entry headings with lists of entries that are related.

This volume is highly recommended for academic, public, and high-school library reference collections and for philosophically curious browsers. For libraries looking for a work more uniformly accessible to the uninitiated, Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a better choice. Craig Bunch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

Hardcover: 1076 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 2 edition (May 26, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0199264791
ISBN-13: 978-0199264797
Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.4 x 2 inches
Shipping Weight: 4.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (25 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #128,709 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!

Inside This Book (learn more)

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
contemporary epistemology, very short introduction, multicultural citizenship, distortive desires, itional calculus, logical calculuses, valid argument schemas, belief that snow, social lore, reluctant desires, philosophical centre, commonplace psychology

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Logical Positivism, New Haven, William James, The Cambridge Companion, Bertrand Russell, Middle Ages, United States, John Locke, David Hume, Philosophical Investigations, John Rawls, John Stuart Mill, Englewood Cliffs, Vienna Circle, Notre Dame, Second World War, Critique of Pure Reason, Donald Davidson, The Hague, Elementary Logic, Gilbert Ryle, Karl Popper, Bernard Williams, Collected Papers

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Citations (learn more)

100 books cite this book:

Eye of the Heart: Knowing the Human Good in the Euthanasia Debate (Lonergan Studies) by William F. Sullivan on 17 pages
Beyond Foundationalism: Shaping Theology in a Postmodern Context by Stanley J. Grenz on 4 pages
Relativism and Reality: A Contemporary Introduction by Robert Kirk on page 13, page 33, and Back Matter
Philosopher: A Kind of Life by Ted Honderich on page 331, page 344, and page 392
On the Contexts of Things Human: An Integrative View of Brain, Consciousness, and Freedom of Will by Ronald J. MacGregor in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)

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	66% buy the item featured on this page: The Oxford Companion to Philosophy New Edition 4.5 out of 5 stars (25) $43.87
	16% buy The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (Oxford Paperback Reference) 4.3 out of 5 stars (15) $11.45
	11% buy The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy 4.3 out of 5 stars (29) $23.09
	4% buy History of Philosophy, Volume 1 4.5 out of 5 stars (27) $13.57

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51 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great for the autodidact in your family, February 19, 2001

By	E. M. Dale (USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (Paperback)

This is a tremendously helpful work. The work is written from the point of view of analytic philosophy, and thus tend to give short shrift to some thinkers in the continental stream. Still, the "fathers" of continental thought (Kant through Hegel, into Nietzche and Heidegger) are well represented and their philosophical works are amply dicussed and fairly treated. Overall, the articles are all that one might want from a "companion to philosophy" (and much of it is actually good reading) I frequently pull the beast (1000+ pages paperback) down from the shelf; that is the best thing I can say about it. You will not regret owning this book, no matter your philosophical bent. If you are a student, I cannot imagine how you have made it this far without it, one-stop encyclopedia can be great resources. Good job, Oxford Press.

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52 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a good introduction, but be wary of the assumptions, January 3, 2005

By	mrgrieves08 (tucson) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (Paperback)

Although I agree that there is much valuable information in this work, it should also be noted that this reference work is an artifact and an outgrowth of the context from which it arose. Specifically, this work is the product of the type of philosophical inquiry promulgated by those who contributed to it (see partial list of contributors above), and thus, many of the entries found in this work can be traced to the now receding tradition of Oxford philosophy that rested on the foundations of logical positivism and linguistic analysis. Consequently, definitions such as the one for "synthetic a priori judgments" traced back to Kant are treated from a perspective endemic to analytic philosophy in which the concept is treated as if it were put forth as a proposition when, in reality, Kant made no such appeal to propositional values in and of themselves, but was concerned with the nature of human knowledge and reality itself. Being cognizant of the analytic bent of this reference reveals that the source of the error cited lies in the fundamental misunderstanding of philosophers enamored by linguistic analysis who imposed this interpretation on the work of Kant to support their own (philosophers such as J.L Austin, Wittgenstein, Gilbert Ryle and Geoffrey Warnock) common point of view.
Another telling example of the inherent philosophical bias presented in this work can be found in the definition of philosophy itself. In the opening paragraph of this entry philosophy is defined as "thinking about thinking," which is congruent with the way that Oxford philosophers had attempted to define it, despite a tradition of over 2,000 years in which understanding the nature of reality--in all of its variated and complex manifestations--was viewed as the central philosophical problem pursued by the pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant and the British Empiricists to Hegel, Heidegger, Nietzsche and Sartre, representing an unbroken tradition of thought to this day.
Being aware of the subjective nature of a text such as this illustrates the truism that all texts are inherently and necessarily products of the minds that create them, and even texts that purport to be merely informational and introductory carry within them certain prescribed notions and ways of presenting knowledge, which can have serious ramifications on the understanding of the information presented itself. Thus, with this work, as it is with all philosophical texts, one should not merely accept the statements presented within as objectively true or valid, but use them as fertile points of departure for critical thinking, meditation and further investigation; that is where the true value of this work lies.

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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Cambridge Whips Oxford in this Field., July 8, 2006

By	Ole Anders (Coquina Beach, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This work is comparable in many ways to the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy: both are modeled on the dictionary format, both are multi-authored, both are very popular, both are in second edition. I have spent many happy hours with both. Each has its excellent and useful entries and each has its mediocre or useless entries. For many purposes they are interchangeable. However, Cambridge charges a little over half of what Oxford wants but the latter is definitely no better. In fact,the logic entries in the Cambridge are uniformly better. The Cambridge entry "Church's thesis" is written by Wilfried Sieg, an accomplished and respected expert in the field. The Oxford entry is by Stewart Shapiro an equally qualified expert. Both imply correctly that Church's thesis is not a proposition admitting of mathematical proof or disproof in the usual sense: it is a proposal to "identify" the pre-theoretic intuitive concept of "effectively calculable function" with the mathematically precise number-theoretic property "recursiveness". But, the Cambridge entry is several times as long the Oxford and it is much more informative concerning the historical and philosophical importance of Church's thesis. A somewhat different comparision applies to the entries titled "Church Alonzo". Again the Cambridge entry a much longer and much more informative than the Oxford. The Cambridge entry is by John Corcoran, one of the editors of the journal HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF LOGIC, whereas the Oxford entry is by Gregory Mellema, who does not have much of a track record in the field. Both entries are flawed. Toward the end of Corcoran's otherwise accurate piece there is a confusing typographical error: 'Church's thesis' is printed where 'Church's theorem' is clearly meant. Mellema's murky and overly elliptical piece does not make it clear that Church's thesis has not been and cannot be be proved in the usual sense; it even suggests the opposite by referring to it as a "result"--a word widely used as a synonym for 'theorem'. The Cambridge victory is far from being a shutout. Oxford deserves some points for its two appendixes: one presents a set of "Maps of Philosophy", which are well worth looking at even if you ultimately think you could have done better yourself, and a useful if somewhat subjective "Chronological Table of Philosophy". I recommend buying the Cambridge but looking at the Oxford in your library's Reference Room.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Overall gazette approach notable
The content may make more frequent use of fallacy and paradox of western or eastern tradition to good effect, otherwise informative especially to highly erudite undergraduates or... Read more

Published 8 months ago by N. Coppedge

5.0 out of 5 stars Good reference.
Like the old Latin dictionary; another thing you need for the shelf. Funny how some understandings change over the years.

Published 10 months ago by James R. McDonald

4.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive, but...
My first observation is that the binding (hardcover) is poor quality. It seems that a lot of my recent Oxford Press purchases have been lower quality than one would expect. Read more

Published 18 months ago by John Scott

4.0 out of 5 stars A superb reference with some surprising omissions.....
I honestly believe this is one of Oxford's best Companions, covering the field of philosophy from the beginning of time to the present, from entries on philosophers, to ideas,... Read more

Published 19 months ago by Brian Kerecz

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Reference Book
Philosophy professors generally tend to stay away from teaching, and act more like guides. While this is ideal since I do not want to be influenced by anyone else's bias, it... Read more

Published 21 months ago by M. Rao

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Companion
I love this book. It's basically an abriged encyclopedia of philosophy, full of concise explanations about philosophers and philosophical themes. It's not perfect. Read more

Published on August 14, 2006 by Randy Walden

5.0 out of 5 stars An impressive achievement
This extraordinary book is an exemplar of the "weighty tome" so beloved by lovers of knowledge; and that is certainly appropriate since it is billed as a "companion to... Read more

Published on June 7, 2006 by Dennis Littrell

3.0 out of 5 stars Mediocre at Best
Strengths: Entries under logic and Wittgenstein. Acceptable: Breadth of entries. Weaknesses: Many entries abstract key concepts without context in convoluted syntax. Read more

Published on March 22, 2006 by D. S. Heersink

5.0 out of 5 stars A new edition - slimmer, won't fit
Yes, I have a loving of oxford companions - unfortunately, my other oxford companions are the previous editions and now the beautiful binded bar spine does not sit next to my... Read more

Published on July 20, 2005 by Simon James

5.0 out of 5 stars I wouldn't leave home without it
Having gotten tired of going to the campus library to meticulously look up concepts, idealogies, philosophers and terms, I broke down and bought the new edition of the "Oxford... Read more

Published on July 11, 2005 by Christopher J. Sugar

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