History of Western Philosophy

Russell’s History of Western Philosophy
A Digest of Berlin’s Review in Mind
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Russell’s History of Western Philosophy
‘Digest’ of Berlin’s review of Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philoso-

phy [Mind 56 no. 222 (April 1947), 151–66], British Book News 1947 (London,
1949), 534–5
L O RD R U S S E LL is one of the most eminent of living

philosophers. Indeed, it may be said that no man has had a greater
influence in changing the course of modern philosophy. His
disciples in the field of mathematical logic and the logic of the
sciences, the theory of knowledge, ethics and politics have carried
1
RUSSELL’S HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY
his doctrines to many lands, and applied them to many different

spheres of activity with fruitful and sometimes revolutionary
results. Consequently, this history of philosophy is an important
event, since in it for the first time he gives his views in a systematic
manner of most of the great European thinkers of the past.
The book is divided into three parts. The first deals with ancient
philosophers and, since one of its avowed aims is to relate the
social and intellectual background of each period to the work of its
technical philosophers, it deals with Greek civilisation as well as
with the doctrines of the pre-Socratics, Plato and Aristotle; the
Hellenistic world as well as the Stoics and Epicureans. His remarks
on the progress of science and mathematics, throughout the
enormous period which the book covers, and his discussion, from
the standpoint of deeply liberal and rationalist convictions, of such
topics as the influence of Sparta and of the Roman outlook on the
ancient and modern world, are particularly illuminating.
Book II deals with Catholic philosophy from the early Fathers
to the Renaissance. The author provides a vigorous historical
survey of the part played in the history of ideas by the early Fathers
of the Roman Church, the Schoolmen, the great Popes, the more
important princes and Emperors, and of the influence of the
barbarian invasion and of Mohammedan culture and philosophy;
his account is full of imagination and colour in that it attempts to
recapture the mental climate in which these events and ideas had a
crucial importance, very different from the mechanical catalogue
of dates and doctrines of which too many histories of philosophies
consist.
The third book is devoted to modern philosophy and, after a
lively sketch of the Renaissance and a particularly penetrating
account of the rise of science and the beginning of modern political
ideas in Machiavelli and Hobbes, it gives what is perhaps the best
account of the rationalist thinkers, and particularly of Spinoza and
[535] Leibniz, in any modern history of philosophy. This is
followed by an account of the rise of philosophical liberalism, to
which the roots of the author’s own thought may be traced. The
story is carried on from Locke and Berkeley and Hume to the
2
RUSSELL’S HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY
Romantic Movement and to the present day. With considerable

originality, Rousseau, Byron, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche are
given more space than the more academic philosophers of the
nineteenth century, because their influence, even upon
professional philosophers, let alone the literature, arts and thought
of civilised humanity in general, is, in the author’s view, far more
profound and lasting than that of the contemporary professors of
philosophy. Karl Marx, Bergson, William James and John Dewey
are next treated, and the work ends with a brief survey of the
philosophy of logical analysis to which Russell himself belongs,
and of which indeed he may claim to be the father, if not by now
the grandfather.
The book differs from the more orthodox histories of
philosophy because it does not profess to cover every thinker and
idea as and when it occurs, but prefers to concentrate on those
aspects of Western thought which appear to Lord Russell either to
be of the first importance in themselves or else to have had a
cardinal influence upon posterity. It is without doubt, if only as a
piece of literature, the best written and the most arresting history
of philosophy since the now obsolete and forgotten history of
philosophy by Hegel, and covers a wider span and possesses more
originality than any other book of similar scope in the English
language.
Copyright Isaiah Berlin 1947

Posted in Isaiah Berlin Online 5 March 2022

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Russell’s History of Western Philosophy

A Digest of Berlin’s Review in Mind

This PDF is one of a series designed to assist scholars in their

The series will make digitally available both selected published

The red page number in square brackets in this online text

The PDF is posted by the Isaiah Berlin Legacy Fellow at Wolfson

All enquiries, including those concerning rights, should be

‘Digest’ of Berlin’s review of Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philoso-

L O RD R U S S E LL is one of the most eminent of living

his doctrines to many lands, and applied them to many different

Romantic Movement and to the present day. With considerable

Copyright Isaiah Berlin 1947

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