In the year 1946 Bertrand Russell wrote a one-volume History of Western Philosophy, which is still in demand. When it was suggested to me that I might write a modern equivalent, I was at first daunted by the challenge. Russell was one of the greatest philosophers of the century, and he won a Nobel Prize for Literature: how could anyone venture to compete? However, the book is not generally regarded as one of Russell's best, and he is notoriously unfair to some of the greatest philosophers of the past, such as Aristotle and Kant. Moreover, he operated with assumptions about the nature of philosophy and philosophical method which would be questioned by most philosophers at the present time. There does indeed seem to be room for a book which would offer a comprehensive overview of the history of the subject from a contemporary philosophical viewpoint.

Russell's book, however inaccurate in detail, is entertaining and stimulating and it has given many people their first taste of the excitement of philosophy. I aim in this book to reach the same audience as Russell: I write for the general educated reader, who has no special philosophical training, and who wishes to learn the contribution that philosophy has made to the culture we live in. I have tried to avoid using any philosophical terms without explaining them when they first appear. The dialogues of Plato offer a model here: Plato was able to make philosophical points without using any technical vocabulary, because none existed when he wrote. For this reason, among others, I have treated several of his dialogues at some length in the second and third chapters of the book.

The quality of Russell's writing which I have been at most pains to imitate is the clarity and vigour of his style. (He once wrote that his own models as prose writers were Baedeker and John Milton.) A reader new to philosophy is bound to find some parts of this book difficult to follow.

It is not possible to explain in advance what philosophy is about. The best way to learn philosophy is to read the works of great philosophers. This book is meant to show the reader what topics have interested philosophers and what methods they have used to address them. By themselves, summaries of philosophical doctrines are of little use: a reader is cheated if merely told a philosopher's conclusions without an indication of the methods by which they were reached. For this reason I do my best to present, and criticize, the reasoning used by philosophers in support of their theses. 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.

Philosophy is simultaneously the most exciting and the most frustrating of subjects. Philosophy is exciting because it is the broadest of all disciplines, exploring the basic concepts which run through all our talking and thinking on any topic whatever. Moreover, it can be undertaken without any special preliminary training or instruction. But philosophy is also frustrating, because, unlike scientific or historical disciplines, it gives no new information about nature or society. Philosophy aims to provide not knowledge, but understanding; and its history shows how difficult it has been, even for the very greatest minds, to develop a complete and coherent vision. It can be said without exaggeration that no human being has yet succeeded in reaching a complete and coherent understanding even of the language we use to think our simplest thoughts.

Philosophy is neither science nor religion, though historically it has been entwined with both. I have tried to bring out how in many areas philosophical thought grew out of religious reflection and grew into empirical science. Many issues which were treated by great past philosophers would nowadays no longer count as philosophical. Accordingly, I have concentrated on those areas of their endeavour which would still be regarded as philosophical today, such as ethics, metaphysics, and the philosophy of mind.

Like Russell I have made a personal choice of the philosophers to include in the history, and the length of time to be devoted to each. I have not, however, departed as much as Russell did from the proportions commonly accepted in the philosophical canon. Like him, I have included discussions of non-philosophers who have influenced philosophical thinking; that is why Darwin and Freud appear on my list of subjects. I have devoted considerable space to ancient and medieval philosophy, though not as much as Russell, who at the mid-point of his book had not got further than Alcuin and Charlemagne. I have ended the story at the time of the Second World War, and I have not attempted to cover twentieth-century continental philosophy.

Again like Russell, I have sketched in the social, historical, and religious background to the lives of the philosophers, at greater length when treating of remote periods and very briefly as we approach modern times.

My hope in publishing this book is that it may convey to those curious about philosophy something of the excitement of the subject, and point them towards the actual writings of the great thinkers of the past.

I am indebted to the editorial staff at Blackwells, and to Anthony Grahame, for assistance in the preparation of the book; and to three anonymous referees who made helpful suggestions for its improvement. I am particularly grateful to my wife, Nancy Kenny, who read the entire book in manuscript and struck out many passages as unintelligible to the non-philosopher. I am sure that my readers will share my gratitude to her for sparing them unprofitable toil.

January 1998

It is now twenty years since the first publication of this history. An illustrated edition came out in 2006. The present edition contains a new introduction, and three new chapters, two on twentieth-century continental philosophy and one on post-Wittgenstein analytic philosophy. The main text remains unchanged, but I have added a completely new set of suggestions for further reading, to reflect publications on the history of philosophy in recent years.

For help with this edition I am indebted to Marissa Koors and Giles Flitney.

May 2018