Cover of A History of Philosophy, Vol. 3: Late Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy, Okham, Francis Bacon, and the Beginning of the Modern World

A History of Philosophy, Vol. 3: Late Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy, Okham, Francis Bacon, and the Beginning of the Modern World

A History of Philosophy seriesNext:A History of Philosophy, Vol. 4: Modern Philosophy, from Descartes to Leibnitz(1953) →

Conceived originally as a serious presentation of the development of philosophy for Catholic seminary students, Frederick Copleston's nine-volume A History Of Philosophyhas journeyed far beyond the modest purpose of its author to universal acclaim as the best history of philosophy in English.

Read more

Copleston, an Oxford Jesuit of immense erudition who once tangled with A. J. Ayer in a fabled debate about the existence of God and the possibility of metaphysics, knew that seminary students were fed a woefully inadequate diet of theses and proofs, and that their familiarity with most of history's great thinkers was reduced to simplistic caricatures. Copleston set out to redress the wrong by writing a complete history of Western philosophy, one crackling with incident and intellectual excitement — and one that gives full place to each thinker, presenting his thought in a beautifully rounded manner and showing his links to those who went before and to those who came after him.

The result of Copleston's prodigious labors is a history of philosophy that is unlikely ever to be surpassed. Thoughtmagazine summed up the general agreement among scholars and students alike when it reviewed Copleston's A History of Philosophyas "broad-minded and objective, comprehensive and scholarly, unified and well proportioned... We cannot recommend [it] too highly."

Audience
adult
Length
long · 496 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked A History of Philosophy, Vol. 3: Late Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy, Okham, Francis Bacon, and the Beginning of the Modern World? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked A History of Philosophy, Vol. 3: Late Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy, Okham, Francis Bacon, and the Beginning of the Modern World. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy Shares philosophy, nonfiction, history
  2. A New History of Western Philosophy Shares philosophy, history, history of philosophy
  3. Medieval Philosophy Shares philosophy, history of philosophy, nonfiction
  4. Man and Crisis Shares philosophy, nonfiction, history

“People who read A History of Philosophy, Vol. 3: Late Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy, Okham, Francis Bacon, and the Beginning of the Modern World tend to reach for these next.”

  1. History of Philosophy
  2. Free onlineFree The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
  3. A Short History Of Ethics: A History Of Moral Philosophy From The Homeric Age To The Twentieth Century
  4. Selected Writings

“If you want more of the same (philosophy), start with these.”

  1. Wisdom of the West
  2. Plato For Beginners
  3. The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein
  4. The Republic of Plato

“If it was the history that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. A Brief History of Western Philosophy
  2. The Great Philosophers
  3. A History of Greek Philosophy 3: The Fifth Century Enlightenment, Part 2, Socrates
  4. A History of Western Philosophy, Volume 2: The Medieval Mind

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide
  2. The Rise of Modern Philosophy
  3. Nietzsche, Volumes One and Two
  4. God: A Guide for the Perplexed