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Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson Paperback – September 7, 2004

by Jennifer Michael Hecht (Author)

146 customer reviews

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In the tradition of grand sweeping histories such as From Dawn To Decadence, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and A History of God, Hecht champions doubt and questioning as one of the great and noble, if unheralded, intellectual traditions that distinguish the Western mind especially-from Socrates to Galileo and Darwin to Wittgenstein and Hawking. This is an account of the world's greatest ‘intellectual virtuosos,' who are also humanity's greatest doubters and disbelievers, from the ancient Greek philosophers, Jesus, and the Eastern religions, to modern secular equivalents Marx, Freud and Darwin—and their attempts to reconcile the seeming meaninglessness of the universe with the human need for meaning,

This remarkable book ranges from the early Greeks, Hebrew figures such as Job and Ecclesiastes, Eastern critical wisdom, Roman stoicism, Jesus as a man of doubt, Gnosticism and Christian mystics, medieval Islamic, Jewish and Christian skeptics, secularism, the rise of science, modern and contemporary critical thinkers such as Schopenhauer, Darwin, Marx, Freud, Nietzsche, the existentialists.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“A remarkably wide ranging history.” (Booklist (starred review))

“Hecht gleefully invites readers on a lively stroll through three millennia of clashes between believers and nonbelievers.” (Detroit Free Press)

“Hecht aims to give doubt its due in her lively and endlessly provocative new book.” (Christian Century)

“Hecht is right that doubt’s story deserves to be told ... [and] she tells it in just the right spirit.” (Alan Wolfe, New Republic)

“Jennifer Michael Hecht has forever changed the way I will think about history — religious or otherwise.” (Krista Tippett, Speaking of Faith -- Minnesota Public Radio)

About the Author

Jennifer Michael Hecht is a philosopher, historian, and award-winning poet. She is the author of Doubt: A History and The End of the Soul; the latter won the Phi Beta Kappa Society's 2004 Ralph Waldo Emerson Award. Hecht's books of poetry include The Next Ancient World and Funny. She earned her Ph.D. in history from Columbia University and teaches at The New School in New York City.

Product details

Paperback: 576 pages
Publisher: HarperOne; Reprint edition (September 7, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0060097957
ISBN-13: 978-0060097950
Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.4 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 146 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #240,078 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #210 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Epistemology
- #362 in Books > History > World > Religious > Religion, Politics & State
- #385 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Religious Studies > Church & State

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ethics and the like or in some cases schools of thought such as ...

January 9, 2015

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This book provides a different dynamic view of how philosophy developed. While engaged in studying philosophy decades ago I found that the approaches to this study fell into a couple of categories. Either the view was historical meaning that philosophers were discussed chronologically and tied to each other that way, or they were grouped into disciplines such as ontology, cosmology, epistemology, metaphysics, ethics and the like or in some cases schools of thought such as existentialism. While all of these approaches were valuable and allowed the student to tie sequential philosophers together they all lacked a clear integration of thought beyond the periods in which they lived. This book uses the concept of "Doubt" as the integrating principle of all of these branches of thought and takes a process view of how our civilization has developed over the millennia. It also factors in Eastern as well as Western thought development, thus providing a flow of the evolution of our knowledge over time. Finally it takes the approach that all of these aspects of philosophical thought are interdependent and evolved together relying upon each other to find a comprehensive view of what life is and how we relate to it. I found the book to be difficult to put down, a quite different experience with philosophical or theological histories than others I have read over the years. Admittedly it helps to have knowledge of these thought disciplines but for the most part the book is written in a very easy to follow format and doesn't require years of study to understand and appreciate how these concepts have developed. It helps to take different views of historical development to further understanding of these principles and this book provides one of the most valuable I have experienced over the past 50 years.

10 people found this helpful

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A Great Book for Skeptics

October 6, 2015

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I was drawn to this book because Jennifer Hecht was listed on a website as one of the top voices of Atheism and this appears to be her most well-known book. This is not really a book intended to advocate atheism so much as a chronicling of Doubt through history starting with the foundation of Judaism. Jennifer doesn’t limit herself to Western doubt and explores the critics of Hinduism as well as the most popular atheistic philosophies including Taoism, Confucianism and of course Buddhism which like Hinduism came from India.

I found it very interesting to read early critical arguments against the existence of Gods, a lot of which were quite powerful. I sort of always thought that the Roman or Hindu Gods were simply accepted as real by just about everyone in ancient times or those who doubted were cowed into silence by threat of violence. I was delighted to see that skepticism has existed probably as long as belief and the skeptics were not unknown figures but peoples whose names I was aware of but didn’t realize were skeptics. I was also delighted to see that many of these ancient thinkers employed some very clever logical arguments. I pay fairly close attention to atheist arguments and some of these were new even to me. For instance one thinking ponders that if one is reincarnated with no knowledge of a previous existence isn’t that the same as dying.

Although the book clearly has atheist sympathies it’s not an out and out attack on religion and I appreciated that. It’s not that I mind attacks on religion in the least but I do enjoy reading books promoting skepticism that don’t immediately send theists fleeing (see Sam Harris). Hecht’s book doesn’t have the entertainment value of say a Christopher Hitchens book but it’s historically informative and still fun to read.

6 people found this helpful

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Marvelous, and well-worth the effort

November 9, 2015

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

A marvelous, dense, but readable history of religious doubt, from the earliest writings to the 21st century. I've been working on this for about 10 months, carrying it around on my Kindle and inching along, giving me plenty of time to digest between readings of other books. It's well worth the effort and has a large bibliography I plan to use frequently. Covers Greek, Roman, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, and Muslim doubt, among others, with Buddhism, of course, beginning as a religion of non-theists. There's lengthy discussion of the various schools of doubt, as well as analysis of our America's Founding Fathers, many of whom, especially Jefferson, were doubters or downright non-believers and specifically worded the Bill of Rights to ensure that religion would never again intrude on our politics. If only.....

Given the current international situation, with fundamentalism as a core issue, I was delighted to find mention of the modern author Ibn Warraq (a pseudonym), an ex-Muslim who wrote "Why I Am Not a Muslim" and who castigates Western society for not subjecting Islam to the critical method, as Christianity and other religions have been, and instead being afraid to criticize it. Something to think about.

4 people found this helpful

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Stephen T. Pehnec

CONTINUES TO AMAZE !!!

August 28, 2016

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

CONTINUES TO AMAZE !!!
It's the best primer ever for students and lovers of philosophy, especially in the face of superstitions and their dogmas. Supremely well-researched. The Notes and Bibliography are treasure troves for sources. I've never seen anything so indispensable to a scholar, a thinker, a skeptic, a doubter than this. The new linchpin in my philosophy/science/religion library. A source you can trust.

6 people found this helpful

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