The History of Philosophy

Grayling (philosophy; New Coll. of the Humanities, London; Ideas That Matter) offers a remarkably comprehensive history of philosophy from ancient Greece to the present. He covers not only Western philosophy but Indian, Chinese, Arabic-Persian, and African philosophy as well, and his skill as an expositor is apparent. Grayling clearly explains difficult ideas, such as Hegel’s account of freedom and Bradley’s argument about relations, and is particularly strong on philosophical logic, one of his own specialties, as is evident in his discussions of Frege, Russell, Carnap, and Quine. Grayling is a master of the surprising anecdote, e.g., Jeremy Bentham corresponded with James Madison and Charles Darwin in The Descent of Man. He does not conceal his own favorable view of the Enlightenment and replies in a penetrating way to Horkheimer and Adorno’s famous critique in Dialectic of Enlightenment.