The Story of Philosophy. Will Durant.

The Story of Philosophy
Will Durant
New York: Pocket Books, 1953 (1976) 28th Printing.

Why read it? The best expression of the importance of this synthesis of philosophical ideas has been given by the author in the introduction to his book: “Human knowledge had become unmanageably vast:…the telescope revealed stars and systems beyond the mind of man to number or to name; geology spoke in terms of millions of years, where men before had thought in terms of thousands; physics found a universe in the atom, and biology found a microcosm in the cell; physiology discovered inexhaustible mystery in every organ, and psychology in every dream; anthropology reconstructed the unsuspected antiquity of man; archeology unearthed buried cities and forgotten states; history proved all history false….theology crumbled….”

“Human knowledge had become too great for the human mind. ‘Facts’ replaced understanding; and knowledge, split into a thousand isolated fragments, no longer generated wisdom. Every science and every branch of philosophy developed a technical terminology intelligible only to its exclusive devotees; as men learned more about the world, they found themselves ever less capable of expressing to their educated fellow men what it was they had learned.”

Therefore, Durant saw himself as a professional teacher whose role was to mediate between the specialist and the nation. The purpose of this book was to make intelligible to the common person the ideas of philosophy. Durant defined science as analysis and philosophy as synthesis: “Science is analytical description, philosophy is synthetic interpretation. For a fact…is not complete except in relation to a purpose and a whole. Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.”

A brief summary of the ideas of some of the world’s great philosophers. Plato: ideas, society, morality. Aristotle: logic, art, ideal man and state. Francis Bacon: the ancients vs. science. Spinoza: ethics. Voltaire: the uses of skepticism. Kant: the uses of the intellect, conscience and feeling. Hegel: thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Schopenhauer: the apotheosis of will. Herbert Spencer: evolution applied to the rise and fall of everything in life. Nietzsche: the morality of strength. Henri Bergson: evolution—the completion of creation. Benedetto Croce: the beauty of the inner image. Bertrand Russell: challenging assumptions and axioms. Contemporary American philosophy: the two cultures. George Santayana: the dilemmas of the modern world. William James: pragmatism. John Dewey: democratic education. Conclusion: two temperaments—American: individualistic and acquisitive vs. European: meditative and artistic.

Some specific ideas: We may accept without quarrel Plato’s contention that statesmen should be as specifically and thoroughly trained as physicians. Aristotle: How many a debate would have been deflated into a paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms. Francis Bacon: Alchemy was transmuted to chemistry; out of astrology men groped their way to astronomy; and out of the fables of speaking animals came the science of zoology. Spinoza: To hate is to acknowledge our inferiority and our fear; we do not hate a foe whom we are confident we can overcome. Voltaire: God created woman only to tame mankind. Kant: Now the most astounding reality in all our experience is precisely our moral sense, our inescapable feeling, in the face of temptation that this or that is wrong…the categorical imperative in us, the unconditional command of our conscience.

Hegel: Every idea and every situation in the world leads irresistibly to its opposite, and then unites with it to form a higher or more complex whole. Schopenhauer: The leading conception of the world as will and therefore strife, and therefore misery. Will is the essence of man. Herbert Spencer: …coined the phrases “struggle for existence” and “the survival of the fittest.” The theory of evolution might be applied in every science as well as biology; it could explain not only species and genera but planet and strata, social and political history, moral and esthetic conception. Nietzsche: If life is a struggle for existence in which the fittest survive, then strength is the ultimate virtue and weakness the only fault. Henri Bergson: Before Bergson, we were cogs and wheels in a vast and dead machine; now, if we wish it, we can help write our own parts in the drama of creation. Benedetto Croce: Beauty is the mental formation of an image (or a series of images) that catches the essence of the things perceived.

Bertrand Russell: Hatred and wars come largely from fixed ideas or from dogmatic faith. George Santayana: Reforms have ambivalent results because they form new institutions and the new institutions breed new abuses. William James: The test of ideas is their consequences. John Dewey: In industrial society the school should be a miniature workshop and a miniature community; should teach through practice and through trial and error. Education must be re-conceived, not as merely a preparation for maturity but as a continuous growth of the mind and a continuous illumination of life.

Quote: “There are two cultures in America: the Eastern states’ culture which looks to Europe and, especially, Great Britain, and the culture of the Midwest, the culture of the young."

Quote. Santayana: “America is not simply a young country with an old mentality; it is a country with two mentalities, one a survival of the beliefs and standards of the fathers, the other an expression of the instincts, practices and discoveries of the younger generation. The American will inhabits the skyscraper, the American intellect inhabits the Colonial mansion."