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 An Illustrated Brief History of
WESTERN
PHILOSOPHY

AIBA01 1 22/03/2006, 10:04 AM

 for norman kretzmann

ii

AIBA01 2 22/03/2006, 10:04 AM

 An Illustrated Brief History of

WESTERN
PHILOSOPHY
Anthony Kenny

iii

AIBA01 3 22/03/2006, 10:04 AM

 © 1998, 2006 by Anthony Kenny

blackwell publishing
350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
550 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia

The right of Anthony Kenny to be identified as the Author of this Work has
been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs,
and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored

in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the
UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988, without the prior
permission of the publisher.

First published as A Brief History of Western Philosophy 1998 by

Blackwell Publishers Ltd
This edition first published 2006 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd

1 2006

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kenny, Anthony John Patrick.

An illustrated brief history of western philosophy / Anthony Kenny.—2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4051-4180-2
ISBN-10: 1-4051-4180-8
ISBN-13: 978-1-4051-4179-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-4051-4179-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Philosophy—History. I. Title.
B72.K44 2006
190—dc22
2006001708

A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Picture Researcher: Helen Nash

Set in 10/13pt Galliard

by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong
Printed and bound in India
by Replika Press Pvt Ltd, Kundli

The publisher’s policy is to use permanent paper from mills that operate a
sustainable forestry policy, and which has been manufactured from pulp
processed using acid-free and elementary chlorine-free practices. Furthermore,
the publisher ensures that the text paper and cover board used have met
acceptable environmental accreditation standards.

For further information on

Blackwell Publishing, visit our website:
www.blackwellpublishing.com
iv

AIBA01 4 27/03/2006, 09:54 AM

 CONTENTS

Preface x

List of Illustrations xiii

Acknowledgements xvi

I Philosophy in its Infancy 1

The Milesians 2
Xenophanes 5
Heraclitus 6
The School of Parmenides 9
Empedocles 14
The Atomists 17

II The Athens of Socrates 21

The Athenian Empire 21

Anaxagoras 23
The Sophists 24
Socrates 25
The Euthyphro 28
The Crito 31
The Phaedo 31

III The Philosophy of Plato 38

Life and Works 38

The Theory of Ideas 40
Plato’s Republic 44
The Theaetetus and the Sophist 54

AIBA01 5 22/03/2006, 10:05 AM

 contents
IV The System of Aristotle 61
Plato’s Pupil, Alexander’s Teacher 61
The Foundation of Logic 63
The Theory of Drama 67
Moral Philosophy: Virtue and Happiness 68
Moral Philosophy: Wisdom and Understanding 72
Politics 75
Science and Explanation 77
Words and Things 80
Motion and Change 81
Soul, Sense, and Intellect 83
Metaphysics 86

V Greek Philosophy after Aristotle 91

The Hellenistic Era 91
Epicureanism 93
Stoicism 95
Scepticism 97
Rome and its Empire 99
Jesus of Nazareth 100
Christianity and Gnosticism 102
Neo-Platonism 106

VI Early Christian Philosophy 109

Arianism and Orthodoxy 109
The Theology of Incarnation 112
The Life of Augustine 114
The City of God and the Mystery of Grace 117
Boethius and Philoponus 120

VII Early Medieval Philosophy 125

John the Scot 125
Alkindi and Avicenna 128
The Feudal System 130
Saint Anselm 131
Abelard and Héloïse 133
Abelard’s Logic 135
Abelard’s Ethics 137
Averroes 139
Maimonides 140

vi

AIBA01 6 22/03/2006, 10:05 AM

 contents
VIII Philosophy in the Thirteenth Century 144

An Age of Innovation 144

Saint Bonaventure 147
Thirteenth-Century Logic 149
Aquinas’ Life and Works 150
Aquinas’ Natural Theology 152
Matter, Form, Substance, and Accident 154
Aquinas on Essence and Existence 156
Aquinas’ Philosophy of Mind 157
Aquinas’ Moral Philosophy 159

IX Oxford Philosophers 164

The Fourteenth-Century University 164

Duns Scotus 165
Ockham’s Logic of Language 172
Ockham’s Political Theory 174
The Oxford Calculators 177
John Wyclif 178

X Renaissance Philosophy 182

The Renaissance 182

Free-will: Rome vs. Louvain 183
Renaissance Platonism 186
Machiavelli 188
More’s Utopia 190
The Reformation 193
Post-Reformation Philosophy 197
Bruno and Galileo 199
Francis Bacon 201

XI The Age of Descartes 206

The Wars of Religion 206

The Life of Descartes 207
The Doubt and the Cogito 210
The Essence of Mind 212
God, Mind, and Body 214
The Material World 217

vii

AIBA01 7 22/03/2006, 10:05 AM

 contents
XII English Philosophy in the Seventeenth
Century 221
The Empiricism of Thomas Hobbes 221
Hobbes’ Political Philosophy 223
The Political Theory of John Locke 226
Locke on Ideas and Qualities 228
Substances and Persons 232

XIII Continental Philosophy in the Age of

Louis XIV 237
Blaise Pascal 237
Spinoza and Malebranche 240
Leibniz 245

XIV British Philosophy in the Eighteenth

Century 251
Berkeley 251
Hume’s Philosophy of Mind 256
Hume on Causation 260
Reid and Common Sense 263

XV The Enlightenment 266

The Philosophes 266
Rousseau 267
Revolution and Romanticism 271

XVI The Critical Philosophy of Kant 275

Kant’s Copernican Revolution 275
The Transcendental Aesthetic 278
The Transcendental Analytic: The Deduction of the
Categories 280
The Transcendental Analytic: The System of Principles 283
The Transcendental Dialectic: The Paralogisms of Pure
Reason 286
The Transcendental Dialectic: The Antinomies of Pure
Reason 289
The Transcendental Dialectic: The Critique of Natural
Theology 291
Kant’s Moral Philosophy 295

viii

AIBA01 8 22/03/2006, 10:05 AM

 contents
XVII German Idealism and Materialism 298
Fichte 298
Hegel 299
Marx and the Young Hegelians 304
Capitalism and its Discontents 306

XVIII The Utilitarians 309

Jeremy Bentham 309
The Utilitarianism of J. S. Mill 314
Mill’s Logic 316

XIX Three Nineteenth-Century Philosophers 320

Schopenhauer 320
Kierkegaard 327
Nietzsche 329

XX Three Modern Masters 333

Charles Darwin 333
John Henry Newman 339
Sigmund Freud 343

XXI Logic and the Foundations of Mathematics 351

Frege’s Logic 351
Frege’s Logicism 353
Frege’s Philosophy of Logic 356
Russell’s Paradox 357
Russell’s Theory of Descriptions 359
Logical Analysis 362

XXII The Philosophy of Wittgenstein 365

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 365
Logical Positivism 368
Philosophical Investigations 370

Afterword 382

Suggestions for Further Reading 386

Index 392

ix

AIBA01 9 22/03/2006, 10:05 AM

 PREFACE

Fifty-two years ago Bertrand Russell wrote a one-volume History of Western Philo-
sophy, which is still in demand. When it was suggested to me that I might write a
modern equivalent, I was at first daunted by the challenge. Russell was one of the
greatest philosophers of the century, and he won a Nobel Prize for Literature: how
could anyone venture to compete? However, the book is not generally regarded
as one of Russell’s best, and he is notoriously unfair to some of the greatest
philosophers of the past, such as Aristotle and Kant. Moreover, he operated with
assumptions about the nature of philosophy and philosophical method which
would be questioned by most philosophers at the present time. There does indeed
seem to be room for a book which would offer a comprehensive overview of the
history of the subject from a contemporary philosophical viewpoint.
Russell’s book, however inaccurate in detail, is entertaining and stimulating
and it has given many people their first taste of the excitement of philosophy. I
aim in this book to reach the same audience as Russell: I write for the general
educated reader, who has no special philosophical training, and who wishes to
learn the contribution that philosophy has made to the culture we live in. I have
tried to avoid using any philosophical terms without explaining them when they
first appear. The dialogues of Plato offer a model here: Plato was able to make
philosophical points without using any technical vocabulary, because none existed
when he wrote. For this reason, among others, I have treated several of his
dialogues at some length in the second and third chapters of the book.
The quality of Russell’s writing which I have been at most pains to imitate is
the clarity and vigour of his style. (He once wrote that his own models as prose
writers were Baedeker and John Milton.) A reader new to philosophy is bound to
find some parts of this book difficult to follow. There is no shallow end in
philosophy, and every novice philosopher has to struggle to keep his head above
water. But I have done my best to ensure that the reader does not have to face
any difficulties in comprehension which are not intrinsic to the subject matter.
It is not possible to explain in advance what philosophy is about. The best way
to learn philosophy is to read the works of great philosophers. This book is meant

AIBA01 10 22/03/2006, 10:05 AM

 preface
to show the reader what topics have interested philosophers and what methods
they have used to address them. By themselves, summaries of philosophical doc-
trines are of little use: a reader is cheated if merely told a philosopher’s conclu-
sions without an indication of the methods by which they were reached. For this
reason I do my best to present, and criticize, the reasoning used by philosophers
in support of their theses. I mean no disrespect by engaging thus in argument with
the great minds of the past. That is the way to take a philosopher seriously: not to
parrot his text, but to battle with it, and learn from its strengths and weaknesses.
Philosophy is simultaneously the most exciting and the most frustrating of
subjects. Philosophy is exciting because it is the broadest of all disciplines, exploring
the basic concepts which run through all our talking and thinking on any topic
whatever. Moreover, it can be undertaken without any special preliminary training
or instruction; anyone can do philosophy who is willing to think hard and follow
a line of reasoning. But philosophy is also frustrating, because, unlike scientific or
historical disciplines, it gives no new information about nature or society. Philo-
sophy aims to provide not knowledge, but understanding; and its history shows how
difficult it has been, even for the very greatest minds, to develop a complete and
coherent vision. It can be said without exaggeration that no human being has yet
succeeded in reaching a complete and coherent understanding even of the language
we use to think our simplest thoughts. It is no accident that the man whom many
regard as the founder of philosophy as a self-conscious discipline, Socrates, claimed
that the only wisdom he possessed was his knowledge of his own ignorance.
Philosophy is neither science nor religion, though historically it has been en-
twined with both. I have tried to bring out how in many areas philosophical
thought grew out of religious reflection and grew into empirical science. Many
issues which were treated by great past philosophers would nowadays no longer
count as philosophical. Accordingly, I have concentrated on those areas of their
endeavour which would still be regarded as philosophical today, such as ethics,
metaphysics, and the philosophy of mind.
Like Russell I have made a personal choice of the philosophers to include in
the history, and the length of time to be devoted to each. I have not, however,
departed as much as Russell did from the proportions commonly accepted in the
philosophical canon. Like him, I have included discussions of non-philosophers
who have influenced philosophical thinking; that is why Darwin and Freud appear
on my list of subjects. I have devoted considerable space to ancient and medieval
philosophy, though not as much as Russell, who at the mid-point of his book had
not got further than Alcuin and Charlemagne. I have ended the story at the time
of the Second World War, and I have not attempted to cover twentieth-century
continental philosophy.
Again like Russell, I have sketched in the social, historical, and religious back-
ground to the lives of the philosophers, at greater length when treating of remote
periods and very briefly as we approach modern times.

xi

AIBA01 11 22/03/2006, 10:05 AM

 preface
I have not written for professional philosophers, though of course I hope that
they will find my presentation accurate, and will feel able to recommend my book
as background reading for their students. To those who are already familiar with
the subject my writing will bear the marks of my own philosophical training,
which was first in the scholastic philosophy which takes its inspiration from the
Middle Ages, and then in the school of linguistic analysis which has been domin-
ant for much of the present century in the English-speaking world.
My hope in publishing this book is that it may convey to those curious about
philosophy something of the excitement of the subject, and point them towards
the actual writings of the great thinkers of the past.
I am indebted to the editorial staff at Blackwells, and to Anthony Grahame, for
assistance in the preparation of the book; and to three anonymous referees who
made helpful suggestions for its improvement. I am particularly grateful to my
wife, Nancy Kenny, who read the entire book in manuscript and struck out many
passages as unintelligible to the non-philosopher. I am sure that my readers will
share my gratitude to her for sparing them unprofitable toil.
January 1998

I am grateful to Dr D. L. Owen of the University of Minnesota and Dr I. J. de

Kreiner of Buenos Aires who pointed out a number of small errors in the first
edition of this work.
January 2006

xii

AIBA01 12 22/03/2006, 10:05 AM

 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Plates
Between pages 208 and 209
1 Socrates drinking hemlock
2 Plato’s Academy
3 Aristotle presenting his works to Alexander
4 Temperance and Intemperance
5 The title page of a fifteenth-century manuscript translation of
Aristotle’s History of Animals
6 Lucretius’ De rerum natura
7 Saint Catherine of Alexandria disputing before the pagan
emperor Maxentius
8 Aristotle imparting instruction to Averroes
9 Saint Thomas Aquinas introducing Saints Francis and Dominic
to Dante
10 The intellectual soul being divinely infused into the human body
11 Aquinas triumphant over Plato
12 Machiavelli’s austere apartment
13 Philosophy as portrayed by Raphael on the ceiling of the
Stanza della Segnatura
14 Gillray’s cartoon of the radical Charles James Fox
15 Ford Madox Brown’s painting Work
16 A portrait of Wittgenstein by Joan Bevan

Figures
1 Pythagoras in Raphael’s School of Athens 3
2 Parmenides and Heraclitus as portrayed by Raphael in the
School of Athens 13
3 The temple of Concord in Agrigento 17
4 Aerial view of the Athenian Acropolis 23
5 A herm of Socrates bearing a quotation from the Crito 32

xiii

AIBA01 13 22/03/2006, 10:05 AM

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