《西方的智慧英文彩绘本套装全2册》:"A BIG BOOK," said Callimachus the
Alexandrianpoet, "is a big evil!" On the whole I feel inclined
toshare this view. If, therefore, I venture to put thepresent
volume before the reader, it is because, asevils go, this book is a
minor one. Nevertheless, it calls for a specialexplanation; for I
have some time ago written a book on the samesubject. Wisdom of the
West is an entirely new work; though, ofcourse, it would never have
appeared had not my "History of WesternPhilos
Bertrand Russell(1872-1970),was a British philosopher,
logician,mathematician, historian, religious skeptic,social
reformer, socialist and pacifist. Althoughhe spent the majority of
his life in England, hewas born in Wales, where he also
died.Russell led the British "revolt againstidealism" in the early
1900s and is consideredone of the founders of analytic
philosophyalong with his protege Wittgenstein and hiselder Frege.
He was a prominent anti-waractivist, championing free trade between
nationsand anti-imperialism.Russell was imprisonedfor his pacifist
activism during World War I,campaigned against Adolf Hitler, for
nucleardisarmament, criticised Soviet totalitarianismand the United
States of America''s involvementin the Vietnam War. In 1950, Russell
wasawarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "inrecognition of his
varied and significantwritings in which he champions
humanitarianideals and freedom of thought."
目錄:
FOREWORD
PROLOGUE
BEFORE SOCRATES
ATHENS
HELLENISM
EARLY CHRISTIANITY
SCHOLASTICISM
RISE OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY
BRITISH EMPIRICISM
ENLIGHTENMENT AND ROMANTICISM
UTILITARIANISM AND SINCE
CONTEMPORARY
EPILOGUE
內容試閱:
Greece proper is rugged in aspect as well as in climate. The
countryis divided by barren mountain ranges. Passage by land from
valley tovalley is difficult. Separate communities grew up in the
fertile plains,and when the land no longer could carry their
numbers, some would setout across the sea to found colonies. From
the middle of the eighth tothe middle of the sixth century B.C. the
shores of Sicilv Southern Italy,and the Black Sea became dotted
with Greek cities. With the rise ofcolonies trade developed, and
the Greeks came into renewed contactwith the East.
Politicall-D post-Dorian Greece underwent a regular sequence
ofchanges beginning with kingship. Gradually power came into the
handsof the aristocracy, which in turn was followed by a period
ofnon-hereditary monarchs or tyrants. In the end, political power
fell tothe citizens, which is the literal meaning of ''democracy''.
Tyranny anddemocracy henceforth alternate. Pure democracy may work
so long asall the citizens can be gathered into the market place.
In our time itsurvives only in a few of the smaller cantons of
Switzerland. The earliest and greatest literary monument of the
.Greek world isthe work of Homer. About the man we know nothing
definite. Someeven think there was a line of poets later called by
this name. At allevents, the two great Homeric poems, the Iliad and
the Odyssev seemto have been completed by about 8oo B.C. The Trojan
War, aroundwhich the poems turn, took place shortly after Jzoo B.C.
We thus havea post-Dorian account ofa pre-Dorian event, and hence a
certain amountof inconsistencv, In their present form, the poems go
back to therecession of Peisistratus, the Athenian tyrant of the
sixth century B.C.Much of the brutality of the earlier period has
been softened in Homer,though traces of it survive. The poems
indeed reflect the rationalattitudes of an emancipated ruling
class. Bodies are cremated, not buriedas we know they were in
Mycenaean times.