A Brief History of Western Philosophy.

Taliaferro, Charles

KENNY, Anthony. A Brief History of Western Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998. xiii + 365 pp. Cloth, $54.95; paper, $24.95--A Brief History of Western Philosophy is a stimulating, impressive work by one of Britain's leading philosophers. It is valuable both as an introduction to the history of ideas as well as a record of a distinguished philosopher's mature reflections. In the Preface, Anthony Kenny aligns his book with Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy for, like Russell, he seeks to reach "the general educated reader, who has no special training, and who wishes to learn the contribution that philosophy has made to the culture we live in" (p. x). He succeeds admirably and improves on many of the maladies of Russell's entertaining but notoriously partisan, sometimes eccentric masterpiece. In part, Kenny's book may surpass Russell's because of the fifty years of scholarship that separate them, but more specifically it may do so because of Kenny's own first-rate contributions to the study of the history of philosophy. To put matters quite simply, Kenny is a better historian than Russell. From the standpoint of studies in the history of philosophy, I would not trade Kenny's Aquinas, Descartes, or Wycliff for Russell's Leibniz.

Kenny begins his narrative with the Presocratics and ends with Wittgenstein. He breaks with Russell and some other historians by giving substantial, serious attention to the medieval period, one of Kenny's areas of specialization. Given the enormous scope of this brief history, the book has an unavoidable encyclopedic tenor. Readers are introduced to distinct, freestanding chapters, as opposed to a unified narrative as in Arthur Lovejoy's magisterial The Great Chain of Being in which a single theme is the focus throughout, or the more recent, superb The Mind of God and the Works of Man, in which Edward Craig traces the tension between two philosophical projects. Yet Kenny is also less confined than either Lovejoy or Craig. He takes on a wider array of themes and explores the role of philosophy in the history of politics, economics, and religion.

In the Preface, Kenny commends an argumentative, critical engagement with the history of philosophy. "I mean no disrespect by engaging thus in argument with the great minds of the past. That is the way to take a philosopher seriously: not to parrot his text, but to battle with it, and learn from its strengths and weaknesses" (p. xi). Throughout the history, Kenny's battle with various texts is very much in evidence. Here is a sampling from Chapter 14: "Where Locke really goes astray is in thinking ..."; "Berkeley was correct, against Locke in thinking ..."; "Hylas should have replied ..."; "Hume is right that ..."; "Hume is wrong to say...." The picture that comes into focus is that philosophy can be a pretty combative, sometimes hostile business. Wittgenstein was "hostile" about such and such philosophies (p. 343), and he was hostile toward a specific branch of philosophy (p. 345). Wittgenstein made a "frontal attack" on such and such (p. 344). Before him, Hume had "hostility" about X (p. 241), whereas Descartes was "contemptuous" about something else (p. 308). "Philosophy of mind has often been a battlefield between" X and Y (p. 343). At points this brief history is akin to Carlyle's Great Man theory of history, though instead of Good Queen Elizabeth and Bad King John, we have Good Wittgenstein and Bad Descartes. Kenny's views are often well articulated, insightful, and nuanced; even Descartes receives some support from Kenny against Antoine Arnauld (p. 198). Yet there are also occasions when Kenny's history seems in danger of the charge that John Wisdom leveled against Russell's history: it contains some "provocative dogmatism." Kenny writes that dualism has been "decisively refuted in the twentieth century by Wittgenstein" (p. 201). Challenged, yes, and maybe even shown to be profoundly implausible, but decisively refuted? This is far from obvious. Unfortunately or fortunately, it is difficult for philosophers to claim absolute, uncompromising victory in such debate. There are, after all, credible dualist replies to the private language argument. Dualism, Berkeleyan idealism, the ontological argument and others, each have extraordinary resilience in the history of our field and each has formidable, skillful, contemporary advocates.

Kenny gives prominence to historical debates about free will and the compatibility of free will and divine omniscience. He gives special attention to the development of logic. "The most important event in the history of philosophy in the nineteenth century was the invention of mathematical logic" (p. 319). Perhaps to underscore the primacy of logic, Kenny concludes his discussion of Socrates by noting that the most frequent reference to Socrates by philosophers is simply as a "dummy name" in the logical syllogism: All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; Therefore Socrates is mortal (p. 34). Grammar and conceptual analysis are highlighted in his history. "To explain what ontology is, and what Parmenides' poem is about, it is necessary to go into detail about points of grammar and translation. The reader's patience with this pedantry will be rewarded, for between Parmenides and the present-day, ontology was to have a vast and luxuriant growth, and only a sure grasp of what Parmenides meant, and what he failed to mean, enables one to see one's way clear over the centuries through the ontological jungle" (p. 8).

There are some peculiarities in this brief history. In his depiction of Christianity in the section titled "Jesus of Nazareth" there is no mention that Christians believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ (pp. 91-4). Obviously this conviction has been central to the religious tradition and it has been the focus of extensive philosophical reflection. Perhaps Kenny assumes that most readers are familiar with this central claim and its role in philosophical theology, but regrettably Biblical literacy is not very strong in the current English-speaking world. Later, Kenny refers to St. Paul's doctrine of the resurrection of the body (p. 96) but this reference will seem enigmatic to someone who is not theologically literate. An offhand allusion to "Christian hell" will also seem strange to readers who have no theological background (p. 2). Like Russell in his history, Kenny is not an enthusiastic Hegelian. "Hegel's writings are extremely difficult to read. They also make a great immediate impression of profundity." Yet "[o]n closer examination, some readers find that impression enhanced, others find that it evaporates" (p. 274). Kenny is more or less among the latter group of readers. Also, like Russell, Kenny is no friend of Nietzsche. "It would be unphilosophical to regard Nietzsche's final insanity as a reason for discounting his philosophy; but on the other hand, it is not easy to feel much pity for one who regarded pity as the most despicable of all emotions" (p. 303). Fans of Hegel and Nietzsche, along with dualists, may pine for a more sympathetic hearing.

A Brief History of Western Philosophy is a richly detailed, critical look at philosophy, displaying both Kenny's love for philosophical engagement and for good history. The book is polemical; it is certainly not a bland treatise on the pacific nature of philosophy. Kenny's style is unpretentious, effective, and at times wonderfully informal and amiable. "If you wanted to put Descartes's main ideas on the back of a postcard you would need just two sentences: man is a thinking mind; matter is extension in motion" (p. 191). In all, one would do well "not to parrot [the] text, but to battle with it, and learn from its strengths and weaknesses" (p. xi).

--Charles Taliaferro, St. Olaf College.