The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant (Book Review)
This book can be one's baptism in philosophy. I was gifted this book when I was in the 10th standard. In the intervening years, I read it only in bits. It's a personal embarrassment that I had a gem of a book lying on my shelf unfinished.
When Will Durant picks up a philosopher, he becomes the indistinguishable voice of the philosopher. So completely does he identify himself with the philosophy that you don't realize where the original thought ends and where the commentary begins. His paraphrasing embellishes the argument, supplying words the philosopher missed in the first telling. He offers a brighter lumen. Within each chapter, the last section is devoted to critical appreciation of each philosophy. Here, Will Durant detaches himself completely, exposing the loose ends of a taut system and the fault lines in a close-knit argument. The dissent is as impressive as the assent. When this happens chapter after chapter, you become conscious of your appreciation for subsequent philosophers. I tried to play the dissenting Durant myself but failed miserably. The merit in the philosopher's argument was too enormous for my puny intellect to poke any holes. So, I chose to be swept away by the philosopher and be rescued by Durant.
How easily one is assailed when words strike with the force of rationale! Your intellectual objections are a feeble whimper before their intellectual roar. Monarchs and dictators might have shaped history, but it's philosophers who set it on its course. They are the wind in the sails of change. Even their half-confidence is equal to the conviction of an entire generation. Without Will Durant, you are a puppet in the hands of these philosophers. Even literature sits at the feet of philosophy to imbibe some of its solemnity and meaning.
The chapter on Voltaire is so readable; you fall in love with Voltaire! One philosopher who did not convince me is Nietzsche. He runs wild with his ideas. He wants everything mediocre and banal destroyed, eager for the superman to have a free play. He could be a philosopher of a moment, but not a philosopher of life.
A major part of the book's success is the subject it deals with. The biographical titbits provide a breather when the subject gets a little dense. Even in the strictly philosophical passages, either only the simpler aspects of a particular philosophy are delineated or they are dumbed down just short of causing mental perspiration. I say this because I have peeped into some of the original works by these philosophers and came away deeply doubting my intellectual abilities. Not sure whether one can straightaway approach the original works after reading this book. In addition, some philosophers are definitely not good communicators. Bertrand Russell, one of my favourites, writes with great clarity. However, I found his The Problems of Philosophy a tough read after the initial chapters. Will Durant consoled me when he conceded that the book 'is difficult, and unnecessarily epistemological'.
Will Durant gives ample suggestions on how to approach a philosopher, which work to be read first, which work best represents the philosopher's ideas. For instance, in the chapter on Spinoza, he devotes a long footnote on how to derive the most from reading Spinoza, whose Ethics feels like a book of geometry with axioms, propositions, corollary, and demonstration. Well, the actual title of the book is Ethics Demonstrated in Geometrical Order!
Indeed, there are many striking resemblances between European and Indian philosophy. Indian thought is certainly more mature and thorough-going when compared to European philosophy. The monism of Spinoza, the categorical imperative of Kant, the Absolute of Hegel, the Will of Schopenhauer find parallels in the Indian thought and even the recent philosophical movements are already adumbrated or anticipated in traditional Indian philosophy.
All in all, a beautiful book for anyone interested in learning what the best thinkers put their minds to. Those philosophers did not not limit their enterprise to just metaphysics or logic. They brought every human aspect of life —God, religion, social life, ethics, art, politics—before their penetrating gaze. Even to this day, such broad basing is a mark of a true philosopher.
P.S: In geometry, we assume a point to be a dimensionless entity. These dimensionless entities come together to form a line with length (but no breadth)! Despite the contradiction, geometry is still used to build bridges and place satellites in the orbit. What does that tell us? No necessary congruence exists between the first principles and their real-world applications. When such is the case with something as elementary as geometry, what credibility can be assigned to Plato's Idea and to any hypothetical generalization that has no connect with concrete reality. One-idea-that-explains-all is the philosopher's stone of the intellectual world and equally elusive.
A major part of the book's success is the subject it deals with. The biographical titbits provide a breather when the subject gets a little dense. Even in the strictly philosophical passages, either only the simpler aspects of a particular philosophy are delineated or they are dumbed down just short of causing mental perspiration. I say this because I have peeped into some of the original works by these philosophers and came away deeply doubting my intellectual abilities. Not sure whether one can straightaway approach the original works after reading this book. In addition, some philosophers are definitely not good communicators. Bertrand Russell, one of my favourites, writes with great clarity. However, I found his The Problems of Philosophy a tough read after the initial chapters. Will Durant consoled me when he conceded that the book 'is difficult, and unnecessarily epistemological'.
Will Durant gives ample suggestions on how to approach a philosopher, which work to be read first, which work best represents the philosopher's ideas. For instance, in the chapter on Spinoza, he devotes a long footnote on how to derive the most from reading Spinoza, whose Ethics feels like a book of geometry with axioms, propositions, corollary, and demonstration. Well, the actual title of the book is Ethics Demonstrated in Geometrical Order!
Indeed, there are many striking resemblances between European and Indian philosophy. Indian thought is certainly more mature and thorough-going when compared to European philosophy. The monism of Spinoza, the categorical imperative of Kant, the Absolute of Hegel, the Will of Schopenhauer find parallels in the Indian thought and even the recent philosophical movements are already adumbrated or anticipated in traditional Indian philosophy.
All in all, a beautiful book for anyone interested in learning what the best thinkers put their minds to. Those philosophers did not not limit their enterprise to just metaphysics or logic. They brought every human aspect of life —God, religion, social life, ethics, art, politics—before their penetrating gaze. Even to this day, such broad basing is a mark of a true philosopher.
P.S: In geometry, we assume a point to be a dimensionless entity. These dimensionless entities come together to form a line with length (but no breadth)! Despite the contradiction, geometry is still used to build bridges and place satellites in the orbit. What does that tell us? No necessary congruence exists between the first principles and their real-world applications. When such is the case with something as elementary as geometry, what credibility can be assigned to Plato's Idea and to any hypothetical generalization that has no connect with concrete reality. One-idea-that-explains-all is the philosopher's stone of the intellectual world and equally elusive.
Comments