Review

The History of Philosophy by Leonard Peikoff

Part I: FOUNDERS OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY: Thales to Hume

I. The first problem: are there any absolutes?
The Father of Philosophy: Thales of Miletus. The philosophy of flux: Heraclitus - "You cannot step into the same river twice", - change as the only absolute. The paradoxes of Zeno. The mind-body opposition begins: the mathematical mysticism of the Pythagoreans.

2. The triumph of the metaphysics of two worlds
The birth of determinism: the materialism of Democritus. The birth of "It seems to me...": the skepticism of the Sophists - "Might makes right." The teachings of Socrates. The first full philosophy: Plato's. Plato's metaphysical dualism.

3. The results in this world
Plato's epistemology - the myth of the cave. Plato's ethics and politics: man as a being torn by the conflict. of reason and emotion - Platonic love – the Philosopher-King - Communism as the political ideal.

4-5. A revolution: the birth of reason
Aristotle. Epistemology: sensory evidence as the base of knowledge-the laws of logic - the nature of truth. Ethics/politics: happiness as the moral goal- the place of reason in the good life - the Great-Souled Man - the ideal society.

6. Philosophy loses confidence
The philosophy of pleasure: the hedonism of Epicurus. The philosophy of duty: Stoicism. The new Skepticism: Pyrrho of Elis. Neo-Platonism: Plotinus.

7-8. Philosophy becomes religious-and recovers
The rejection of reason and happiness: the developmrnt of Christianity. The first major Christian philosopher: Augustine. Faith as the basis of reason - the ethics of self-sacrificial love. Man as a corrupt creature. The Dark Ages. The rediscovery of Aristotle. Thomas Aquinas: the union of Aristotelianism and Christianity - the absolutism of reason and the new role of faith. The aftermath of Thomism: the Church loses its power -the Renaissance

9. The new breach between the mind and reality
Materialism and determinism in the name of science, dictatorship in the name of harmony: Thomas Hobbes. The father of modern philosophy and the first famous Continental Rationalist: René Descartes - The method of universal doubt- "I think, therefore I am" - the theory of innate ideas.

10. The breach deepens. ..
The second famous Rationalist: Spinoza. Pantheism - determinism. The third famous Rationalist: Leibnitz - tthe unreality matter - the "window less monads" - "All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds." British empiricism: John Locke.

11. ...and the attempt collapses
Empiricism becomes subjectivist: Bishop Berkeley ,,"To be js to be perceived." Empiricism becomes bankrupt: the skepticism of David Hume - the attack on the external world, on the law of casality and on the self - the breach between logic and fact.

12. Conclusion
The Objectivist answer to a number of key problems posed by Ancient and Modern Philosophy.

Audio (24-tape set; 33 hrs.)

Part II – MODERN PHILOSOPHY: Kant to the Present

1. The historical background A summary of those issues of Ancient and early Modern Philosophy essential for an understanding of recent philosophic trends.

2-3. Aristotelian logic is banished from philosophy The Father of Contemporary Philosophy: lmmanuel Kant. The Karitian Revolution in philosophy – the analytic-synthetic dichotomy – Kant’s famous argument: the "deduction of the categories" – reality as unknowable "things-in-themselves" – the phenomenal and noumena1 worlds. Kant's ethics: the morality of duty – the attack on happiness – the Categorical lmperative – the right to have faith "God, freedom and immortality."

4.A new "logic" leads to an old politics… The philosophy of Hegel. Reality as a dialectic process - the Absolute – the coherence theory of truth – Hegel's philosophy of history – Hegel's concept of freedom – the absolutist state.

5. ...and to an epidemic of irrationalism Nineteerith-century German romanticism: Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Marx. Schopenhauer: the metaphysics of the Will – the irrationality of the universe. Nietzsche: the philosophy of Power – "Beyond Good and Evil." Marx: the philosophy of Communism – romanticism unites with materialism: dialectical materialism – the economic interpretation of history – the advocacy of world-revolution.

6.. The virus reaches defenders of science Comte: the philosophy of Positivism – the origin of the term "altruism. " Mill.: Utilitarianism, "the greatest happiness of the greatest number" – a collectivist defense of capitalism. Spencer: reality as unknowable – Social Darwinism.

7-8. Truth. Logic, and values are formally divorced from reality The phiosophy of Pragmatism. The Pragmatic theory of meaning: C..S..Peirce – the Pragmatic theory of truth: William. Jumes – Pragmatism fully developed: John Dewey's instrumentalism.. Logical Positivism.. The.Linguistic theory of logic – the attack on conceptual.knowledge: the verifiability theory of meaning – knowledge as mere probability – the rejection of metaphysics.

9. Language is formally divorced from reality The Analysts. Philosophy as the analysis of propositions. G. E. Moore – Bertrand Russell – Ordinary Language Analysis: the later Wittgenstein and his followers – the emotive theory of ethics and its heirs.

10..Nausea becomes a metaphysical emotion Existcentialism: Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre. Thec rejection of reason – the absurdity of the universe – Death and Nothingness, fear, trembling and dread. Zen Buddhism.

11.Man finds his defender: the philosophy of Objectivism Objectivism in relation to the history of Western philosophy. The primacy of existence vs. the primacy of consciousness – the distinction between the subjective, the intrinsic and the objective – the Objcectivist theory of concept-formation – the derivation of the Objectivist ethics and politics from its metaphysics and epistemology.

Audio (24-tape set; 33 hrs.)

Books

History of Philosophy by Leonard Peikoff. Audio. A little expensive relative to books, but easily the best essentialized lectures on the history of philosophy. In two volumes, these recorded lectures trace the essentials of philosophy's development from its rise in ancient Greece, through Christianity, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, its decline after Kant and its rebirth after Rand.
Founders of Western Philosophy, Thales to Hume by Leonard Peikoff.
Modern Philosophy: Kant to the Present by Leonard Peikoff.