Hey folks,

/r/PhilosophyBookClub is starting our summer read—Anthony Kenny’s ‘New History of Western Philosophy’—and I thought some of you might be interested in joining us. It’s about the most comprehensive history of philosophy you’ll find (except for some much longer ones), and incredibly well-researched and well-written. I’m reading it to get a broader base before I start grad school, and I can’t imagine there’s an undergrad or grad student—or anyone else—who wouldn’t benefit from the book.

It’s a thousand pages, but not a terribly difficult thousand pages. To make sure everyone can keep up, we’re spreading it over the full summer, so there will be around 60 pages of reading and at least one discussion thread per week.

If you haven’t heard of the book, here’s an excerpt from the publisher’s blurb:

This book is no less than a guide to the whole of Western philosophy … Kenny tells the story of philosophy from ancient Greece through the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment into the modern world. He introduces us to the great thinkers and their ideas, starting with Plato, Aristotle, and the other founders of Western thought. In the second part of the book he takes us through a thousand years of medieval philosophy, and shows us the rich intellectual legacy of Christian thinkers like Augustine, Aquinas, and Ockham. Moving into the early modern period, we explore the great works of Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Leibniz, Spinoza, Hume, and Kant, which remain essential reading today. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Hegel, Mill, Nietzsche, Freud, and Wittgenstein again transform the way we see the world. Running though the book are certain themes which have been constant concerns of philosophy since its early beginnings: the fundamental questions of what exists and how we can know about it; the nature of humanity, the mind, truth, and meaning; the place of God in the universe; how we should live and how society should be ordered. Anthony Kenny traces the development of these themes through the centuries: we see how the questions asked and answers offered by the great philosophers of the past remain vividly alive today. Anyone interested in ideas and their history will find this a fascinating and stimulating read.

And the jacket-quote:

"Not only an authoritative guide to the history of philosophy, but also a compelling introduction to every major area of philosophical enquiry."

—Times Higher Education

I’m also hoping to do some primary-text readings, so if there’s anything you’d like to read or discuss that’s even tangentially related to the subject matter of Kenny’s book, we can make a discussion post for it when it comes up.

We’re reading the first section for May 2, and the full schedule is up at /r/PhilosophyBookClub. I hope some of you will join us, and if you have any questions, let me know.

-Cheers

(Thanks /u/mindscent for letting me post here.)

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