Just Finished Reading: Classical Thought – A History of Western Philosophy (1) by Terence Irwin

I haven’t read any philosophy for quite some time so thought that I’d ease back into things with a history of one of my favourite philosophical periods. I was, unfortunately, a little disappointed with this volume.

Things certainly started well with an interesting chapter on the lasting effects of the works of Homer and how they prompted the early Greek moral philosophers to challenge some of the ethical implications of his work. This led, after some meanderings through the debate about the physical world, to Socrates and onto Plato. Actually as Socrates apparently left no written texts of his own the main source of Socratic philosophy is Plato – so it is rather difficult to separate the two and whole careers have no doubt been made on drawing the line between where the real Socrates ends and where Plato uses him to sell his ideas to a larger audience. I’m actually not a huge fan of Plato – especially in regard to the eternal perfect Forms he postulated. This, in my opinion, was a huge error and a serious dead end (and helped to underpin early Christianity into the bargain). Much more to my liking is Aristotle whose works on Ethics and Politics – and much else besides – have become deserved classics in their own right. After studying him a few years ago I developed quite a fondness for the way his mind thinks. I also liked his telling criticisms of Plato which are outlined in this book. Post Aristotle things became rather fragmented with various new and breakaway schools of thought vying for the attention of the rich and powerful (and with the rest of the thinking public – men that is) amongst these where Epicureanism and the Stoics (one of my favourites). Arguments raged between these groups about the reliability of the senses, the nature of reality, virtue and free-will. Finally the author ended with the ideas of Plotinus – who reworked and commented on Plato – and discussed his impact on Christianity’s early days.

I’m not entirely sure why but I did find this book rather dull and more of a slog than I expected it to be. Maybe it was because most of the text wasn’t exactly new to me because I don’t think it was particularly badly written. Actually some parts of this book I found to be very interesting indeed. Maybe I should have just pushed the boat out into new areas rather than covering old ground again. I’ll try to be less lazy next time I pick up any philosophy. Useful I think if you’re new to the subject.