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Title: The Story Of Philosophy: From Plato To Voltaire And The French Enlightenment
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Manufacturer: BBC Audiobooks America
List Price: $34.95
Our Price: $18.52
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| The Story Of Philosophy: From Plato To Voltaire And The French Enlightenment by BBC Audiobooks America Philosophy 101 | This Audio CD is the first half of Durant's 1947 revised edition of "The Story of Philosophy" a book originally published in 1927. Not only has the text aged well, the narrator reads it well. Durant waxes a trifle poetical at times, but he delivers the goods.
The book works chronologically through the history of philosophy, summarizing much, but stopping to give the biographies (and synopses of the thought) of all whom Durant considers major philosophers. Along the way the auditor learns some interesting tidbits: E.g. Darwin wasn't the first to conceive of evolution by natural selection. That honor belongs to the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Empedocles.
The philosophers whom Durant profiles are a who's who in the pantheon of thinkers:
Chapter I: Plato
Chapter II: Aristotle
Chapter III: Bacon
Chapter IV: Spinoza
Chapter V: Voltaire
Chapters VI-X are set forth in Volume II of this audiobook, "The Story of Philosophy: From Kant to William James and the American Pragmatists." If you have a CD with MP3 capacity, you might rather buy the entire book in that format.
Durant later, in "The Lessons of History," lamented the fact that he overlooked the scholastics, and his omission of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas constitutes the greatest weakness of the work. Durant atoned for slighting Aquinas in "The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time" by ranking him as one of history's 10 most influential thinkers.
| | The Story Of Philosophy: From Plato To Voltaire And The French Enlightenment by BBC Audiobooks America Book Description | | The first volume of this engaging survey covers Plato, Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Spinoza, Voltaire, and Rousseau. As well as offering historical context and a cogent explanation for each school of thought, Durant provides biographical information, a gentle reminder that philosophers are people as well as thinkers. |
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