The History of Philosophy by A.C. Grayling is a book about authors – to be sure, they are virtually all dead, white men (Grayling offers all of 13 pages out of the 585 in this volume on feminist or African philosophers) . What stands out about these men is not that they thought deeply but that they expressed their thoughts memorably and in original ways. The Vedic texts that date back to 1500 BCE contain complete philosophical systems asking the three great questions, “What can be known?”, “What is known?” and “How do I respond to this knowledge?”. Or put more technically, epistemology, metaphysics and ethics. I presume that humans have always pondered these questions but only in certain cases do authors write their answers down. Once written, the words must be curated and cared for by generations of followers that think them significant. Indeed, we are fortunate to know as much as we do about Aristotle’s thoughts, since in many cases we only have his lecture notes.
Grayling defines philosophy as “the enterprise of trying to make sense of ourselves and our world in a way which asks what should we think about and why”. Considered broadly, this includes all knowledge. One of the themes of this book is that philosophy branches off into the natural and social sciences and indeed into all branches of the arts as well as theology. Grayling is careful to exclude theology from this history. This decision makes sense, as ideas taken on faith are of a different kind than those spread through reason and persuasion. Still, he makes exceptions for Hegel’s “Geist” or Great Spirit and also Spinoza’s God , who is one with Nature.
One of the main distinctions that the author makes about these philosophers is whether their idea of knowledge is primarily gained through observing the world or simply by thinking about it. He calls these two groups Empiricists and Rationalists. Plato was an early Rationalist, focusing on his ideal Forms. His student, Aristotle, was not. Figure 1 shows the pattern of inward and outward focus of philosophers over time. The Aristotelian world view held sway for 1800 years, until Rene Descartes- he of “I think, therefore I am” fame – brought the attention back to Rationalism. Philosophers remain split over this focus until the present day, with many of the Empiricists coming from the United Kingdom. Kant and Schopenhauer achieved a merger of these two perspectives – both thought and observation are important for understanding the world – but 20th century philosophy saw a lot of antagonism between the two groups.
Of the waves of artistic, religious, and scientific revival that rocked Europe between the 15th and 18th centuries, Grayling points out the religious Reformation of the 16th century as being the most important. Not because of the embrace of new thought by protestant reformers but because of their lack of authority to constrain it. Many of the names in Figure 1 from the 16th to 18th century are from protestant countries. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church was quite content with the world view of Thomas Aquinas. In fact, the Church still is. Nonetheless, it’s authority to restrict free thought declined, certainly after the French Revolution.
The role of philosophy in the modern world is profound. Hegel, in particular, inspired the political thinking behind the early 20th century’s world wars. Though recent philosophers have not acquired the mass appeal of a religion, they do provide a humanist alternative to declaring oneself a follower of one of the world religions. Though ethics has declined as a discipline, Enlightenment and contemporary philosophers still provide guidance to many people of all religions and influence the aspirations of our politicians. We continue to try to make sense of ourselves and of our world.