A Brief History of Thought: A Philosophical Guide to Living by Luc Ferry.
tl;dr
My Takeaways
- Philosophy = phileo + sophia (love of wisdom). The study of philosophy should inflame our passions as we seek to understand ourselves, our world, and truth itself.
- All of the decisions and values we have in our cultural marketplace were hammered out years ago by people far less distracted than us. We are influenced by their philosophical thinking whether we know it or not.
- Understanding philosophy allows us to think more clearly and freely about our choices.
Should you read it?
Maybe?? After reading it, I have a better understanding of the major philosophical movements throughout Western history and feel better equipped to work through more advanced philosophical works. However, I think it dives too deeply into particular individuals to be useful for a broad overview of the history of philosophy. The author also makes some glaring factual and academic mistakes, which makes me distrust his characterization of philosophies that aren’t his own.
Review
Summary of an Abridged Summary
The author goes through five main (Western) philosophies, and introduces you to one or two of the main thinkers in each: Greek Stoicism, Christianity, Humanism, Postmodernism, and Contemporary Philosophy. There are thousands of books written about each one of these–I certainly admire the author’s audacity in boiling it all down into a single short work! But, I was hoping to get a broad overview of all of Western thought, not a synopsis of a single representative of each movement. I have a better understanding of Plato’s and Nietzsche’s personal philosophies and have a good collection of quotes from each of them, but I can’t say I know anything about Stoicism or Postmodernism as a whole. I would have preferred a broader synopsis of each philosophical movement with some sense of the variation and voices within it rather than a deeper synopsis of a representative.
Here’s my super-short summary of his summary of each philosophical movement:
- Stoicism: The universe is well-ordered, perfect, and divine. The ultimate aim of life is to find your place in this cosmic order and learn to be content with it. Die well by detaching yourself from material things.
- Christianity: A personal God has created a well-ordered and perfect universe. Your ultimate aim should be to love others with God’s love. Die well by…not actually dying and beating death through resurrection. (Although he claims philosophy and religion are inherently at odds, he reluctantly includes a chapter on Christianity since it had such a big impact on medieval thinking and beyond)
- Humanism: The universe is not well-ordered, but it is rational. Your ultimate aim should be to improve yourself, overcome your selfish natural instincts, and care for the common good. Die well by not being narrow-minded.
- Postmodernism: “well-ordered” isn’t even a meaningful thing to say since there is no vantage point to define that, and no transcendent ideals. Life itself is the ultimate. Die well by living with an intense vigor and strength.
- Contemporary Philosophy/Secular Humanism: We find transcendence in relationships, self-reflection, and meditation on the unknown. Die well by putting your affairs in order.
Why I don’t trust him
I struggled writing the last bullet point because I found his chapter on Contemporary Philosophy to be incoherent. He covers one small piece of contemporary philosophy–the school that his friend pioneered and that he holds to. He doesn’t subject it to nearly the same sort of rigor or analysis as the other philosophies he covered. This is one of the reasons why I distrust his summaries of the others–he is clearly biased towards his own philosophy and doesn’t deal with it even-handedly.
My biggest issue with the book is with his chapter on Christian philosophy (which makes sense, because I actually know something about that!)
I appreciate that he doesn’t fall into the error that many historians do and assume that the time between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance was intellectually and culturally stagnant. He correctly notes that Christianity’s ideas of the equality of all humanity paved the way for democracy and for human rights in general. (see Tom Holland’s Dominion for a fascinating secular perspective on this)
However, his characterizations of what Christianity actually is is suspect. For him, the reason why Christianity captured Western thought for over a millennium was because it gave people hope that they would see their loved ones after they died. The Christianity of the ancient world was not centered around seeing loved ones after death–it was centered around Christ and his kingdom (also, given the explosive growth of Christianity in the first and second centuries, it’s likely that the loved ones of the early generations of Christians wouldn’t have been Christians themselves…which means no reuniting in heaven).
Resurrection is a key part of Christianity, but the specific idea of reuniting with loved ones in eternity is (in my view) an incredibly minor and unessential point in the scheme of historical theology. The author is supposed to be giving a high-level synopsis of philosophical thought and this is the essential bit he chooses about Christianity? Can I trust his other summaries of philosophies I know nothing about? Can I be assured that the stuff I learned about Nietzsche and Socrates from this book is the essential aspect of Nietzsche and Socrates? I suspect I can trust him in these areas because, as he says in the intro, he is most definitely a philosopher and not a theologian. So, his analysis of Nietzsche and Socrates is probably correct, but before I tell others any fact I learned from this book, I’m going to check it just in case.
Unfortunately, I have even more reason to distrust him. At one point, he uses a passage from the Bible to demonstrate what Jesus was preaching…except that it’s not actually from the Bible. He puts it in quotes and even indents it, claiming that Jesus said it. But it’s all made up. Jesus never said that or anything like that (I double-checked!). I don’t care if you love Christianity, hate it, or are completely ambivalent: making up quotes from sources is bad and disingenuous scholarship.
I don’t expect him to agree with Christian ideas. In fact, I went into this book anticipating he would be violently against them–I was looking forward to his honest criticisms of my faith. Unfortunately, he has no honest criticisms of Christianity–just a strawman and an incredibly shallow understanding of Christianity as a religion or philosophical system.
When analyzing Nietzsche (whom he also disagrees with), he says he wants to cast him fairly in the “best light, without seeking to criticize”. Maybe he does paint Nietzsche and everyone else in the book in the best light–I don’t know. But given his errors, I don’t trust his ability to cast anyone other than himself in an accurate light.