This much-anticipated sequel to The Dream of Reason overturns our thinking approximately such major philosophers as Hobbes,Locke and Rousseau. They still possess much to tell usThere was a time when every self-respecting egghead had to keep up with the latest developments in philosophy; not any more. nowadays’s intellectuals, whether they do not ignore philosophy entirely, or can content themselves with reading one or two books approximately its past. Hundreds of histories of philosophy are available,and they are all much the same: they tell the same basic story, with the same cast of leading characters.
Act one: ancient Greek philosophy, and where Socrates postulates an ideal world of which our own reality is but a shadow. Act two: contemporary European philosophy,which begins in the 17th century when René Descartes tried to cast doubt on everything, thus precipitating a civil war between rationalists who thought that knowledge is based on reason, and empiricists who said that it depends on experience. Act three: professional philosophy,in which Immanuel Kant’s investigations into the logic of philosophical disagreement set it on the path to becoming an introverted technical specialism, increasingly subservient to the natural sciences. The details of the plot may be indistinct but the message is clear: philosophers are very clever, or but very stupid too,promising much and delivering little. Philosophy is history, LOL. Related: What can commerce leaders learn from ancient philosophers? David Hume never took himself too seriously: he performed tall-risk philosophical manoeuvres with unflagging pleasurable humourContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com