MAN WAS BORN FREE,YET EVERYWHEREHE IS IN CHAINSTHE UNIVERSEHAS NOT ALWAYSEXISTEDWE ONLY THINK WHENWE ARE CONFRONTEDWITH PROBLEMSMAN IS THEMEASURE OFALL THINGSI THINKTHEREFOREI AMMAN IS AMACHINETO BE IS TO BEPERCEIVEDIMAGINATIONDECIDESEVERYTHINGMINDHAS NOGENDERMAN ISAN ANIMALTHAT MAKESBARGAINSTHERE ISNOTHINGOUTSIDE OFTHE TEXTLIFE WILL BE LIVEDALL THE BETTER IFIT HAS NO MEANINGACT AS IF WHATYOU DO MAKESA DIFFERENCEOVER HIS OWNBODY AND MIND,THE INDIVIDUALIS SOVEREIGNMAN IS ANINVENTION OFRECENT DATETHE END JUSTIFIESTHE MEANSHAPPY IS HE WHOHAS OVERCOMEHIS EGOTHEPHILOSOPHYBOOKBIG IDEAS SIMPLY EXPLAINED DK LONDONPROJECT ART EDITORAnna HallSENIOR EDITORSam AtkinsonEDITORSCecile Landau, Andrew Szudek,Sarah TomleyEDITORIAL ASSISTANTManisha MajithiaUS EDITORSLiza Kaplan, Rebecca WarrenMANAGING ART EDITORKaren SelfMANAGING EDITORCamilla HallinanART DIRECTORPhilip OrmerodASSOCIATE PUBLISHERLiz WheelerPUBLISHERJonathan MetcalfILLUSTRATIONSJames GrahamPICTURE RESEARCHRia Jones, Myriam MegharbiPRODUCTION EDITORLuca FrassinettiPRODUCTION CONTROLLERSophie ArgyrisDK DELHIPROJECT ART EDITORNeerja RawatART EDITORShriya ParameswaranASSISTANT ART EDITORSShowmik Chakraborty, Devan Das,Niyati Gosain, Neha SharmaMANAGING ART EDITORArunesh TalapatraPRODUCTION MANAGERPankaj SharmaDTP MANAGER/CTSBalwant SinghDTP DESIGNERSBimlesh Tiwary, Mohammad UsmanDTP OPERATORNeeraj Bhatiastyling bySTUDIO8 DESIGNDK books are available at specialdiscounts when purchased in bulkfor sales promotions, premiums,fund-raising, or educational use.For details, contact: DK PublishingSpecial Markets, 375 Hudson Street,New York, New York 10014 orSpecialSales@dk.com.First American Edition 2011Published in the United States byDK Publishing375 Hudson StreetNew York, New York 1001411 12 13 14 15 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1001–176426–Feb/2011Copyright © 2011Dorling Kindersley LimitedAll rights reservedWithout limiting the rights undercopyright reserved above, no partof this publication may be reproduced,stored in or introduced into a retrievalsystem, or transmitted, in any form, orby any means (electronic, mechanical,photocopying, recording, or otherwise),without the prior written permission ofboth the copyright owner and theabove publisher of this book.Published in Great Britain by DorlingKindersley Limited.A catalog record for this book isavailable from the Library of Congress.ISBN 978-0-7566-6861-7Printed and bound in Singaporeby Star StandardDiscover more atwww.dk.comLONDON, NEW YORK, MELBOURNE,MUNICH, AND DELHI WILL BUCKINGHAMA philosopher, novelist, and lecturer, Will Buckinghamis particularly interested in the interplay of philosophyand narrative. He currently teaches at De MontfortUniversity, Leicester, UK, and has written severalbooks, including Finding our Sea-Legs: Ethics,Experience and the Ocean of Stories.DOUGLAS BURNHAMA professor of philosophy at Staffordshire University,UK, Douglas Burnham is the author of many booksand articles on modern and European philosophy.CLIVE HILLA lecturer in political theory and British history,Clive Hill has a particular interest in the role ofthe intellectual in the modern world.PETER J. KINGA doctor of philosophy who lectures at PembrokeCollege, University of Oxford, UK, Peter J. King is theauthor of the recent book One Hundred Philosophers:A Guide to the World’s Greatest Thinkers.JOHN MARENBONA Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, UK,John Marenbon studies and writes on medievalphilosophy. His books include Early MedievalPhilosophy 480–1150: An Introduction.MARCUS WEEKSA writer and musician, Marcus Weeks studiedphilosophy and worked as a teacher before embarkingon a career as an author. He has contributed to manybooks on the arts and popular sciences.OTHER CONTRIBUTORSThe publishers would also like to thank RichardOsborne, lecturer of philosophy and critical theory atCamberwell College of Arts, UK, for his enthusiasmand assistance in planning this book, and StephanieChilman for her help putting the Directory together.CONTRIBUTORS 10 INTRODUCTIONTHE ANCIENTWORLD700 BCE–250 CE22 Everything is madeof waterThales of Miletus24 The Dao that can be toldis not the eternal DaoLaozi26 Number is the rulerof forms and ideasPythagoras30 Happy is he who hasovercome his egoSiddhartha Gautama34 Hold faithfulness andsincerity as first principlesConfucius40 Everything is fluxHeraclitus41 All is one Parmenides42 Man is the measure ofall things Protagoras44 When one throws to mea peach, I return to hima plum Mozi45 Nothing exists exceptatoms and empty spaceDemocritus and LeucippusTHE MEDIEVALWORLD250–150072 God is not the parentof evilsSt. Augustine of Hippo74 God foresees our freethoughts and actionsBoethius76 The soul is distinctfrom the body Avicenna80 Just by thinking about Godwe can know he existsSt. Anselm82 Philosophy and religionare not incompatibleAverroes84 God has no attributesMoses Maimonides86 Don’t grieve. Anythingyou lose comes round inanother formJalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi88 The universe has notalways existedThomas Aquinas96 God is the not-otherNikolaus von Kues97 To know nothing isthe happiest lifeDesiderius Erasmus46 The life which isunexamined is notworth livingSocrates50 Earthly knowledge isbut shadow Plato56 Truth resides in the worldaround us Aristotle64 Death is nothing to usEpicurus66 He has the most who ismost content with the leastDiogenes of Sinope67 The goal of life is livingin agreement with natureZeno of CitiumCONTENTS RENAISSANCEAND THE AGEOF REASON1500–1750102 The end justifies the meansNiccolò Machiavelli108 Fame and tranquillitycan never be bedfellowsMichel de Montaigne110 Knowledge is powerFrancis Bacon112 Man is a machineThomas Hobbes116 I think therefore I amRené Descartes124 Imagination decideseverything Blaise Pascal126 God is the cause of allthings, which are in himBenedictus Spinoza130 No man’s knowledgehere can go beyond hisexperience John Locke134 There are two kinds oftruths: truths of reasoningand truths of factGottfried Leibniz138 To be is to be perceivedGeorge BerkeleyTHE AGE OFREVOLUTION1750–1900146 Doubt is not a pleasantcondition, but certaintyis absurd Voltaire148 Custom is the great guideof human life David Hume154 Man was born free yeteverywhere he is in chainsJean-Jacques Rousseau160 Man is an animal thatmakes bargainsAdam Smith164 There are two worlds:our bodies and theexternal worldImmanuel Kant172 Society is indeed a contractEdmund Burke174 The greatest happinessfor the greatest numberJeremy Bentham175 Mind has no genderMary Wollstonecraft176 What sort of philosophyone chooses depends onwhat sort of person one isJohann Gottlieb Fichte177 About no subject is thereless philosophizing thanabout philosophyFriedrich Schlegel178 Reality is a historicalprocess Georg Hegel186 Every man takes the limitsof his own field of visionfor the limits of the worldArthur Schopenhauer189 Theology is anthropologyLudwig Andreas Feuerbach190 Over his own body andmind, the individualis sovereignJohn Stuart Mill194 Anxiety is the dizzinessof freedomSøren Kierkegaard196 The history of all hithertoexisting society is thehistory of class strugglesKarl Marx204 Must the citizen everresign his conscienceto the legislator?Henry David Thoreau205 Consider what effectsthings haveCharles Sanders Peirce206 Act as if what you domakes a differenceWilliam James THE MODERNWORLD1900–1950214 Man is something tobe surpassedFriedrich Nietzsche222 Men with self-confidencecome and see and conquerAhad Ha’am223 Every message is madeof signsFerdinand de Saussure224 Experience by itself isnot science Edmund Husserl226 Intuition goes in the verydirection of lifeHenri Bergson228 We only think when we areconfronted with problemsJohn Dewey232 Those who cannotremember the past arecondemned to repeat itGeorge Santayana233 It is only suffering thatmakes us personsMiguel de Unamuno234 Believe in lifeWilliam du Bois236 The road to happiness liesin an organized diminutionof work Bertrand Russell240 Love is a bridge frompoorer to richer knowledgeMax Scheler241 Only as an individual canman become a philosopherKarl Jaspers242 Life is a series of collisionswith the futureJosé Ortega y Gasset244 To philosophize, first onemust confessHajime Tanabe246 The limits of my languageare the limits of my worldLudwig Wittgenstein252 We are ourselves theentities to be analyzedMartin Heidegger256 The individual’s only truemoral choice is throughself-sacrifice for thecommunityTetsuro Watsuji257 Logic is the last scientificingredient of philosophyRudolf Carnap258 The only way of knowinga person is to love themwithout hopeWalter Benjamin259 That which is cannotbe true Herbert Marcuse260 History does not belongto us but we belong to itHans-Georg Gadamer262 In so far as a scientificstatement speaks aboutreality, it must befalsifiable Karl Popper266 Intelligence is a moralcategory Theodor Adorno268 Existence precedesessenceJean-Paul Sartre272 The banality of evilHannah Arendt273 Reason lives in languageEmmanuel Levinas274 In order to see the worldwe must break with ourfamiliar acceptance of itMaurice Merleau-Ponty276 Man is defined asa human being andwoman as a femaleSimone de Beauvoir278 Language is a social artWillard Van Orman Quine280 The fundamental sense offreedom is freedom fromchains Isaiah Berlin282 Think like a mountainArne Naess284 Life will be lived all thebetter if it has no meaningAlbert Camus CONTEMPORARYPHILOSOPHY1950–PRESENT290 Language is a skinRoland Barthes292 How would we managewithout a culture?Mary Midgley293 Normal science does notaim at novelties of factor theory Thomas Kuhn294 The principles of justiceare chosen behind a veilof ignoranceJohn Rawls296 Art is a form of lifeRichard Wollheim297 Anything goesPaul Feyerabend298 Knowledge is producedto be soldJean-François Lyotard300 For the black man, thereis only one destiny and itis white Frantz Fanon302 Man is an invention ofrecent dateMichel Foucault304 If we choose, we can livein a world of comfortingillusion Noam Chomsky306 Society is dependent upona criticism of its owntraditions Jürgen Habermas308 There is nothing outsideof the textJacques Derrida314 There is nothing deepdown inside us exceptwhat we have put thereourselves Richard Rorty320 Every desire has a relationto madness Luce Irigaray321 Every empire tells itselfand the world that it isunlike all other empiresEdward Said322 Thought has alwaysworked by oppositionHélène Cixous323 Who plays God in present-day feminism?Julia Kristeva324 Philosophy is not onlya written enterpriseHenry Odera Oruka325 In suffering, the animalsare our equalsPeter Singer326 All the best Marxistanalyses are alwaysanalyses of a failureSlavoj Žižek330 DIRECTORY340 GLOSSARY344 INDEX351 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 12Philosophy is not just thepreserve of brilliant buteccentric thinkers that it ispopularly supposed to be. It is whateveryone does when they’re notbusy dealing with their everydaybusiness and get a chance simplyto wonder what life and theuniverse are all about. We humanbeings are naturally inquisitivecreatures, and can’t help wonderingabout the world around us and ourplace in it. We’re also equipped witha powerful intellectual capability,which allows us to reason as wellas just wonder. Although we maynot realize it, whenever we reason,we’re thinking philosophically.Philosophy is not so much aboutcoming up with the answers tofundamental questions as it isabout the process of trying to findthese answers, using reasoningrather than accepting withoutquestion conventional views ortraditional authority. The very firstphilosophers, in ancient Greece andChina, were thinkers who were notsatisfied with the establishedexplanations provided by religionand custom, and sought answerswhich had rational justifications.And, just as we might share ourviews with friends and colleagues,they discussed their ideas withone another, and even set up“schools” to teach not just theconclusions they had come to, butthe way they had come to them.They encouraged their students todisagree and criticize ideas as ameans of refining them and comingup with new and different ones. Apopular misconception is that ofthe solitary philosopher arriving athis conclusions in isolation, but thisis actually seldom the case. Newideas emerge through discussionand the examination, analysis, andcriticism of other people’s ideas.Debate and dialogueThe archetypical philosopher inthis respect was Socrates. Hedidn’t leave any writings, or evenany big ideas as the conclusions ofhis thinking. Indeed, he pridedhimself on being the wisest of menbecause he knew he didn’t knowanything. His legacy lay in thetradition he established of debateand discussion, of questioning theassumptions of other people to gaindeeper understanding and elicitfundamental truths. The writingsof Socrates’ pupil, Plato, are almostinvariably in the form of dialogues,with Socrates as a major character.Many later philosophers alsoadopted the device of dialoguesto present their ideas, givingarguments and counterargumentsrather than a simple statement oftheir reasoning and conclusions.The philosopher who presentshis ideas to the world is liable tobe met with comments beginning“Yes, but ...” or “What if ...” ratherthan wholehearted acceptance.In fact, philosophers have fiercelydisagreed with one another aboutalmost every aspect of philosophy.Plato and his pupil Aristotle, forexample, held diametricallyopposed views on fundamentalphilosophical questions, and theirdifferent approaches have dividedopinions among philosophers eversince. This has, in turn, provokedmore discussion and prompted yetmore fresh ideas.INTRODUCTIONWonder is very much theaffection of a philosopher;for there is no otherbeginning of philosophythan this.Plato
