Sir Anthony Kenny has been President of the British Academy, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford. It is the first volume in a magisterial new series, which brings the history of philosophy alive to anyone who wants to understand the roots of Western civilization. The fruit of a lifetime’s scholarship and insight, Ancient Philosophy sets the philosophers and their ideas in historical context, and explains the signiWcance and impact of each wave of new ideas. At the centre of the narrative are the two great Wgures of Plato and Aristotle, who between them set the agenda for philosophy for the next two millenia, and whose influence is as profound today as ever. Sir Anthony Kenny’s stimulating account begins with Pythagoras and Thales, and ends with St Augustine, who handed on the torch of philosophy to the Christian age. Vividly written, but serious and deep enough to offer a genuine understanding of the great philosophers, Kenny's lucid and stimulating history will become the definitive work for anyone interested in the people and ideas that shaped the course of Western thought.Īncient Philosophy This is the remarkable story of the birth of philosophy, its flourishing in the ancient Mediterranean world, and the development of ideas which have shaped the course of Western thought and society. He examines the development of logic and reason, ancient ideas about physics ("how things happen"), metaphysics and ethics, and the earliest thinking about the soul and god. Kenny offers an illuminating account of the various schools of thought, from the Pre-Socratics to the Epicureans. Thus we do not simply get an overview of Aristotle, for example, but a penetrating and insightful critique of his thought. Instead of an uncritical, straightforward recitation of known facts-Plato and his cave of shadows, Aristotle's ethics, Augustine's City of God-we see the major philosophers through the eyes of a man who has spent a lifetime contemplating their work.
The book's great virtue is that it is written by one of the world's leading authorities on the subject. Ancient Philosophy spans over a thousand years and brings to life the great minds of the past, from Thales, Pythagoras, and Parmenides, to Socrates, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Augustine.
This is the initial volume of a four-book set in which Kenny will unfold a magisterial new history of Western philosophy, the first major single-author history of philosophy to appear in decades. Sir Anthony Kenny here tells the fascinating story of the birth of philosophy and its remarkable flourishing in the ancient Mediterranean world.
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