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25 MP3s, transferred from cassette. Read by Geoffrey Sherman.From Amazon:First published in 1946, History of Western Philosophy went on to become the best-selling philosophy book of the twentieth century. A dazzlingly ambitious project, it remains unchallenged to this day as the ultimate introduction to Western philosophy. Providing a sophisticated overview of the ideas that have perplexed people from time immemorial, Russell’s History of Western Philosophy offered a cogent précis of its subject. Of course this cannot be the only reason it ended up the best selling philosophy book of the twentieth century. Russell’s book was ‘long on wit, intelligence and curmudgeonly scepticism’, as the New York Times noted, and it is this, coupled with the sheer brilliance of its scholarship, that has made Russell’s History of Western Philosophy one of the most important philosophical works of all time. From chapter 4: “In studying a philosopher, the right attitude is neither reverence nor contempt, but first, a kind of hypothetical sympathy, until it is possible to know what it feels like to bleieve in his theories, and only then a revival of the critical attitude… Two things are to be remembered: that a man whose opinions and theories are worth studying may be presumed to have had some intellegence, but that no man is likely to have arrived at complete and final truth on any subject whatever.” From Barnes and Noble site: SynopsisSince its first publication in 1945? Lord Russell’s A History of Western Philosophy has been universally acclaimed as the outstanding one-volume work on the subject — unparalleled in its comprehensiveness, its clarity, its erudition, its grace and wit. In seventy-six chapters he traces philosophy from the rise of Greek civilization to the emergence of logical analysis in the twentieth century. Among the philosophers considered are: Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, the Atomists, Protagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Cynics, the Sceptics, the Epicureans, the Stoics, Plotinus, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Benedict, Gregory the Great, John the Scot, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, William of Occam, Machiavelli, Erasmus, More, Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, the Utilitarians, Marx, Bergson, James, Dewey, and lastly the philosophers with whom Lord Russell himself is most closely associated — Cantor, Frege, and Whitehead, co-author with Russell of the monumental Principia Mathematica.Table of Contents Preface by Author ix Introduction xiiiBook 1 Ancient Philosophy Part I The Pre-Socratics 3Chapter I The Rise of Greek Civilization 3Chapter II The Milesian School 24Chapter III Pythagoras 29Chapter IV Heraclitus 38Chapter V Parmenides 48Chapter VI Empedocles 53Chapter VII Athens in Relation to Culture 58Chapter VIII Anaxagoras 61Chapter IX The Atomists 64Chapter X Protagoras 73Part II Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle 82Chapter XI Socrates 82Chapter XII The Influence of Sparta 94Chapter XIII The Sources of Plato’s Opinions 104Chapter XIV Plato’s Utopia 108Chapter XV The Theory of Ideas 119Chapter XVI Plato’s Theory of Immortality 132Chapter XVII Plato’s Cosmogony 143Chapter XVIII Knowledge and Perception in Plato 149Chapter XIX Aristotle’s metaphysics 159Chapter XX Aristotle’s Ethics 172Chapter XXI Aristotle’s Politics 184Chapter XXII Aristotle’s Logic 195Chapter XXIII Aristotle’s Physics 203Chapter XXIV Early Greek Mathematics and Astronomy 208Part III Ancient Philosophy after Aristotle 218Chapter XXV The Hellenistic World 218Chapter XXVI Cynics and Sceptics 228Chapter XXVII The Epicureans 240Chapter XXVIII Stoicism 252Chapter XXIX The Roman Empire in Relation to Culture 270Chapter XXX Plotinus 284Book 2 Catholic Philosophy Introduction 301Part I The Fathers 308Chapter I The Religious Development of the Jews 308Chapter II Christianity During the First Four Centuries 324Chapter III Three Doctors of the Church 334Chapter IV Saint Augustine’s Philosophy and Theology 352Chapter V The Fifth and Sixth Centuries 366Chapter VI Saint Benedict and Gregory the Great 375Part II The Schoolmen 388Chapter VII The Papacy in the Dark Ages 388Chapter VIII John the Scot 400Chapter IX Ecclesiastical Reform in the Eleventh Century 407Chapter X Mohammedan Culture and Philosophy 419Chapter XI The Twelfth Century 428Chapter XII The Thirteenth Century 441Chapter XIII Saint Thomas Aquinas 452Chapter XIV Franciscan Schoolmen 463Chapter XV The Eclipse of the Papacy 476Book 3 Modern Philosophy Part I From the Renaissance to Hume 491Chapter I General Characteristics 491Chapter II The Italian Renaissance 495Chapter III Machiavelli 504Chapter IV Erasmus and More 512Chapter V The Reformation and Counter-Reformation 522Chapter VI The Rise of Science 525Chapter VII Francis Bacon 541Chapter VIII Hobbes’s Leviathan 546Chapter IX Descartes 557Chapter X Spinoza 569Chapter XI Leibniz 581Chapter XII Philosophical Liberalism 596Chapter XIII Locke’s Theory of Knowledge 604Chapter XIV Locke’s Political Philosophy 617Chapter XV Locke’s Influence 641Chapter XVI Berkeley 647Chapter XVII Hume 659Part II From Rousseau to the Present Day 675Chapter XVIII The Romantic Movement 675Chapter XIX Rousseau 684Chapter XX Kant 701Chapter XXI Currents of Thought in the Nineteenth Century 719Chapter XXII Hegel 730Chapter XXIII Byron 746Chapter XXIV Schopenhauer 753Chapter XXV Nietzsche 760Chapter XXVI The Utilitarians 773Chapter XXVII Karl Marx 782Chapter XXVIII Bergson 791Chapter XXIX William James 811Chapter XXX John Dewey 819Chapter XXXI The Philosophy of Logical Analysis 828 Index 837