A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell

It is not a pleasant fact, but the churches compel one to mention facts that are not pleasant. You may think that I am going too far when I say that that is still so. I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. In the so-called ages of faith, when men really did believe the Christian religion in all its completeness, there was the Inquisition, with all its tortures there were millions of unfortunate women burned as witches and there was every kind of cruelty practiced upon all sorts of people in the name of religion. You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been the religion of any period and the more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs. It seems to me that the people who have held to it have been for the most part extremely wicked. The History of Western Philosophy is a definitive must-have title that deserves a revered place on every bookshelf.“That is the idea - that we should all be wicked if we did not hold to the Christian religion. Sumptuous fine art paintings such as Dufresnoy’s Death of Socrates and Raphael’s School of Athens depict the importance and influence of philosophy, and the centrality of the western philosophical tradition throughout the ages.

He studied Philosophy at Cambridge University and is the author of The Dream of Reason – A History of Philosophy from The Greeks to The Renaissance a brand new foreword by Anthony Gottlieb, who is Executive Editor of The Economist, a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University, and a regular contributor to the New York Times Book Review.This special collector’s edition features: Written by a man who changed the history of philosophy himself, this is an account that has never been rivalled since its first publication over 60 years ago. Considered to be one of the most important philosophical works of all time, the History of Western Philosophy is a dazzlingly unique exploration of the ideologies of significant philosophers throughout the ages – from Plato and Aristotle through to Spinoza, Kant and the twentieth century.

A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell