Peter Kreeft's 4-vol. set: "Socrates' Children"

[Irenaeus]

I at one time owned Fr. Frederick C. Copleston's acclaimed multi-volume opus, A History of Philosophy, but never more than skimmed the many thick volumes. Peter Kreeft and Word on Fire Institute have combined to produce a merely four-volume set introducing philosophy, Socrates' Children, now available in paperback and for Kindle. This is a briefer work (Vol. I 285 pages, Vol. II 204 pages, Vol. III 415 pages, and Vol IV 504 pages) than Fr. Copleston's and something I am much more likely to read, but it still totals 1,408 pages. According to its beginning pages, it covers 100 philosophers, especially the big nine: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, Hume, Kant, and Hegel.

[gherkin]

To read full history of philosophy requires a major investment of your time. The question is whether it's likely to be worth that investment. What do you want to get out of it? A relatively shallow and largely ephemeral grasp of some ideas from Hegel or whoever is not a great payback. It's likely that you're better served by reading a little deeper about the specific philosophers you're more directly interested in. But academic monographs are not always very helpful both because of what they presuppose and how technical they can be. I always recommend Chesterton's Saint Thomas Aquinas as the greatest introduction to St. Thomas, and Gilson's The Unity of Philosophical Experience as a semi-technical survey of some key developments at the heart of philosophy. Mortimer Adler is another great starting point. You can pick almost any of his works, like, say, Aristotle For Everyone. (Everybody? Anyone? Something like that.)

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Plato? Aristotle? Socrates? Morons.

[Doom]

Plato? Aristotle? Socrates? Morons.

Beat me to it

[Doom]

To read full history of philosophy requires a major investment of your time. The question is whether it's likely to be worth that investment. What do you want to get out of it? A relatively shallow and largely ephemeral grasp of some ideas from Hegel or whoever is not a great payback. It's likely that you're better served by reading a little deeper about the specific philosophers you're more directly interested in. But academic monographs are not always very helpful both because of what they presuppose and how technical they can be. I always recommend Chesterton's Saint Thomas Aquinas as the greatest introduction to St. Thomas, and Gilson's The Unity of Philosophical Experience as a semi-technical survey of some key developments at the heart of philosophy. Mortimer Adler is another great starting point. You can pick almost any of his works, like, say, Aristotle For Everyone. (Everybody? Anyone? Something like that.)

I'm honestly surprised to see a philosopher say this. The history of philosophy is important because most philosophy books are written in response to another book, and it isn't always clear which book they are responding to, or even that they are responding to a book at all unless you understand the philosophy they are responding to. Isn't the fact that Aristotle is largely rebutting Plato rather important to understanding Aristotle? And how can you know that he is responding to Plato unless you're familiar with Plato? Multiply that by several orders of magnitude when reading any modern philosopher such as Plantinga or Feser, William Lane Craig or indeed Peter Kreeft.

[Irenaeus]

To read full history of philosophy requires a major investment of your time. The question is whether it's likely to be worth that investment. What do you want to get out of it? A relatively shallow and largely ephemeral grasp of some ideas from Hegel or whoever is not a great payback. It's likely that you're better served by reading a little deeper about the specific philosophers you're more directly interested in. But academic monographs are not always very helpful both because of what they presuppose and how technical they can be. I always recommend Chesterton's Saint Thomas Aquinas as the greatest introduction to St. Thomas, and Gilson's The Unity of Philosophical Experience as a semi-technical survey of some key developments at the heart of philosophy. Mortimer Adler is another great starting point. You can pick almost any of his works, like, say, Aristotle For Everyone. (Everybody? Anyone? Something like that.)

I have read Chesterton's biography of St. Thomas Aquinas (and his biographies of Chaucer (Chaucer: an introduction in which he discusses Shakespeare quite a bit) and of St. Francis of Assisi). Chesterton is, to me, a magnificent writer. He usually gives a stunning view from 10,000-feet and explains the broadest features and their significance, though this has irked some Amazon reviewers. I've also read Edward Feser's Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide which I found very helpful. Copleston, the Jesuit, wrote not only the above-mentioned A History of Philosophy but also what I believe is a separate biography of Aquinas, the Dominican: Aquinas: An Introduction to the Life and Work of the Great Medieval Thinker (Penguin Philosophy). I've not read it but it might interest many here. It does, me. Fergus Kerr, a Dominican, has written Thomas Aquinas: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions Book 214), which also looks very good.

[gherkin]

To read full history of philosophy requires a major investment of your time. The question is whether it's likely to be worth that investment. What do you want to get out of it? A relatively shallow and largely ephemeral grasp of some ideas from Hegel or whoever is not a great payback. It's likely that you're better served by reading a little deeper about the specific philosophers you're more directly interested in. But academic monographs are not always very helpful both because of what they presuppose and how technical they can be. I always recommend Chesterton's Saint Thomas Aquinas as the greatest introduction to St. Thomas, and Gilson's The Unity of Philosophical Experience as a semi-technical survey of some key developments at the heart of philosophy. Mortimer Adler is another great starting point. You can pick almost any of his works, like, say, Aristotle For Everyone. (Everybody? Anyone? Something like that.)

I'm honestly surprised to see a philosopher say this. The history of philosophy is important because most philosophy books are written in response to another book, and it isn't always clear which book they are responding to, or even that they are responding to a book at all unless you understand the philosophy they are responding to. Isn't the fact that Aristotle is largely rebutting Plato rather important to understanding Aristotle? And how can you know that he is responding to Plato unless you're familiar with Plato? Multiply that by several orders of magnitude when reading any modern philosopher such as Plantinga or Feser, William Lane Craig or indeed Peter Kreeft.

Surprised to see me say...which bit? That the question arises whether reading a 1400 page general history of philosophy is worth the investment of time? But isn't that obvious?

If someone really wants to read a sweeping history of philosophy by a popularizing philosopher, then I'm sure the Kreeft work is definitely worth going for. But as I suggest, it's not entirely obvious that the benefits of such reading are all that great for most people. On the other hand, it is fairly obvious that many, many people who pick up 1400 page books put them down for good after about 120 pages or so. So I'm a bit skeptical of the value of such works for many people. Not all.

I don't agree that you have to read a general history of philosophy, starting with Thales, in order to get a grip on some philosopher you're interested in. If you read a decent work on Aristotle, you'll get the bits of Plato that are relevant. Chesterton does a fine job of explaining the Platonistic and Manichean background to St. Thomas, for example. The Unity of Philosophical Experience is in fact a profound study of how philosophical ideas play out through history. But you don't need everything to get anything.

[gherkin]

I have read Chesterton's biography of St. Thomas Aquinas (and his biographies of Chaucer (Chaucer: an introduction in which he discusses Shakespeare quite a bit) and of St. Francis of Assisi). Chesterton is, to me, a magnificent writer. He usually gives a stunning view from 10,000-feet and explains the broadest features and their significance, though this has irked some Amazon reviewers. I've also read Edward Feser's Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide which I found very helpful. Copleston, the Jesuit, wrote not only the above-mentioned A History of Philosophy but also what I believe is a separate biography of Aquinas, the Dominican: Aquinas: An Introduction to the Life and Work of the Great Medieval Thinker (Penguin Philosophy). I've not read it but it might interest many here. It does, me. Fergus Kerr, a Dominican, has written Thomas Aquinas: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions Book 214), which also looks very good.

Fr. Copleston's book is relatively heavily tied to the then-contemporary concerns of Anglophone philosophers and so isn't necessarily the best window on St. Thomas for the average reader nowadays. I'm not a huge fan of Fr. Kerr's approach, either. The Wittgenstein stuff seeps into people.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Somewhat in the way brine transforms a cucumber?

[gherkin]

I wouldn't know anything about that.