The Philosophers: Introducing Great Western Thinkers
Reviewed by Ada Calhoun, Fri., June 9, 2000
The Philosophers
Introducing Great Western Thinkers
edited by Ted Honderich
Oxford University Press, 264 pp., $24
How refreshing to see a book so utterly unashamed of itself. According to editor Ted Honderich, a list of the most notable philosophers thus far in Western history begins with Socrates and ends with Sartre. This collection includes 28 philosophers of the dead, white, male persuasion and, peculiar for this day and age, does not even nod in the direction of tokenism (no Simone de Beauvoir paragraph in this text). The disregard for any politically correct apologetics dates this book only slightly less than does the antiquated advice in the introduction: Might it be, Honderich dramatically asks us with regard to the included philosophies, "That they should not really be taken as attempts to convey all of truth but as aiming at giving to us what are admittedly large things but still only sides of truth?" And the postmodern world replies a resounding, "Well, duh." There is a charming, musty, smoking-in-the-den aura about The Philosophers. The concise, consistent format makes the book easy to use as a reference. Each of the 28 chronological chapters begins with a full-page photo of the philosopher and includes a multi-page write-up by an academic expert. The illustrious scholar Peter Hacker, for example, provides an excellent eight-page synopsis of Wittgenstein. As a reference work, The Philosophers is no less stellar for its being slightly against the grain of modern fashion.