Frederick Copleston's A History of Philosophy - good?

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lukasecho
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Frederick Copleston's A History of Philosophy - good?

Post by lukasecho »

I was thinking of dipping into some of Copleston's volumes to fill in some gaps - is it a reasonable substititute to fill in gaps without reading the primary texts? say for Malebranche or Leibniz? or the whole Scholastics period?
A History of Philosophy is an eleven-volume history of Western philosophy written by English Jesuit priest Frederick Charles Copleston
Impenitent
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Re: Frederick Copleston's A History of Philosophy - good?

Post by Impenitent »

you can be familiar with someone's summary of someone else's work, someone's translation of someone else's work or you can be familiar with the work itself...

-Imp
tbieter
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Re: Frederick Copleston's A History of Philosophy - good?

Post by tbieter »

Cop is good, but read the greats in primary. Cop's memoir is a bore.
Breath
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Re: Frederick Copleston's A History of Philosophy - good?

Post by Breath »

lukasecho wrote:I was thinking of dipping into some of Copleston's volumes to fill in some gaps - is it a reasonable substititute to fill in gaps without reading the primary texts? say for Malebranche or Leibniz? or the whole Scholastics period?
A History of Philosophy is an eleven-volume history of Western philosophy written by English Jesuit priest Frederick Charles Copleston
Copleston was a Jesuit, and that is readily apparent in his work. The title of his magnum opus is a bit of a misnomer, because as far as Freddie was concerned, only Western philosophy counts as philosophy. Nevertheless, his History of Philosophy is a great work, written by someone who clearly understands the development of "western" thinking.

Breath
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