I discovered a fantastic book a few weeks ago. I was browsing the library in the topic of history and found Will Durant’s, Story of Philosophy. I thought it might be boring but I would give it a try. I am glad I did.

The book has been entertaining, educating and a great glimpse into the minds of some interesting humans. I was surprised to find out, after I had listened to half of it, that the book was published in the year 1926. The Story of Philosophy became a best seller and then he and his wife then went on to write their huge work the Story of Civilization at nearly 10,000 pages. Sadly even at that length it was unfinished due them dieing of old age in the 1980’s. They only made it to the age of Napoleon. Turns out the author himself was a rather fascinating person. You should definitely checkout his wikipedia page

Anyways back to his book. It is a quick survey of people who have influenced and created philosophy. I loved the historical bits. In fact I think I enjoyed learning more about the philosophers lives then about the philosophers philosophies.

He started of course with Socrates. The man who was influencing a younger generation of people to ruin and was then condemned to death for his questions. He loved to answer questions with more questions.

Then his pupal Plato. This is the first time I have actually listened to Plato’s Republic. I had checked it out of the library years ago but never got past the introduction. I enjoyed listening to the ideas for a perfect society and a perfect rule of law. The idea of leaders who over decades had been weeded out from the masses down to the smartest and the best before they were given the chance to rule and decide the fate of a nation seems like a good one.

And then on to Aristotle. Apparently the man got a lot of things wrong. For example he held to the idea that women had less teeth and less ribs and that the planet was the center of the Universe even though Thales, Anaxagores and others had proposed that the Sun was at the center and the earth revolved around it. Aristotle spent a lot of time cataloging learning and helped the beginnings of science, or maybe he held back science for so long because people trusted him so much.

Francis Bacon, the politician philosopher. He spent his adult life furthering the rule of England and in his spare time creating and writing philosophies that would sound through the ages.

Then Spinoza, the excommunicated Jew who almost no one knew changed the foundation of philosophy until his work was published posthumously.

Voltaire, - Let me just say you should get and read or listen to the book just for this chapter. What an interesting person. I went to the library and got an entire book to read about him.

And the list goes on, Kant, SchopenHauer, Herbet Spencer, Nietzsche, European philosophers, American philosophers.

This is the first book on philosophy I think I am actually going to finish. 88 Years after he published it Mr Durant’s book is still introducing some philosophy to people like me.