A History Of Philosophy Frederick Copleston Pdf
Mandy Geise
A History of Philosophy is a history of Western philosophy written by the English Jesuit priest Frederick Charles Copleston originally published in nine volumes between 1946 and 1975. As is noted by The Encyclopedia Britannica, the work became a "standard introductory philosophy text for thousands of university students, particularly in its U.S. paperback edition."[1] Since 2003 it has been marketed as an eleven volume work with two previously published other works by Copleston being added to the series.
Originally conceived as a three volume work covering ancient, medieval and modern philosophy, and written to serve as a textbook for use in Catholic ecclesiastical seminaries, the work grew into nine volumes published between 1946 and 1975 and to become a standard work of reference for philosophers and philosophy students that was noted for its objectivity.[2][3][4]
A tenth and eleventh volume were added to the series in 2003 (after Copleston's death in 1994) by Continuum (which later became an imprint of Bloomsbury).[5][6] The tenth volume Russian Philosophy had previously appeared as Philosophy in Russia in 1986.[7][8] The eleventh volume Logical Positivism and Existentialism had previously appeared as the revised 1972 edition of Contemporary Philosophy (an essay collection first published in 1956).[9][10]
As with others in the series, this volume would be made available by Image Books (Doubleday) in two parts, the first ending with Plato, the second beginning with Aristotle.[16][17] Gerard J. Hughes reports that in later years Copleston thought the first volume "deplorable" and wished that he had had the time to rewrite it.[11][2]
Copleston also produced a work on Medieval Philosophy (1952) which, revised and expanded, became A History of Medieval Philosophy (1972).[19][20] This work covered some of the same subjects as the second and third volumes of his History. Copleston would also write Aquinas (1955) expanding on his treatment of the thinker in volume 2.[21][22]
Included, from 2003, as Volume 11 in the Continuum edition, Logical Positivism and Existentialism is a collection of essays which (barring a first chapter rewritten for a 1972 republishing) had all been published in Copleston's Contemporary Philosophy (1956).[9][10] It covers Logical positivism and Existentialism.
Reviewing the first volume in 1947, George Boas remarked that: "None of [Copleston's Thomistic] interpretations will do much harm to the reader of this very scholarly book. Most of them are put in parentheses, as if they were inserted to warn the seminarists that they must not be taken in by the pagans. They could be removed, and a history of ancient philosophy ad usum infidelium[34] would result which would be head and shoulders above the usual histories. [...] He obviously knows the ancient literature well and, if he had not felt himself obliged to be a modern Eusebius, he had the knowledge to write a genuine history. On the other hand, he is too given to periodizing and generalizing. [...] One can have but the highest praise for Father Copleston's erudition; it is too bad that he could not have put it into writing a really original study of ancient philosophical ideas."[35]
Regarding the objectivity of the work, Martin Gardner, echoing remarks he had made previously, noted: "The Jesuit priest Frederick Copleston wrote a marvelous multi-volume history of philosophy. I have no inkling of what he believed about any Catholic doctrine."[36][37]
Reviewing 1986's Philosophy in Russia (sold, from 2003, as the tenth volume of the Continuum edition) Geoffrey A. Hosking noted that the author was "as fair to the atheist and socialist thinkers as he is to the religious ones, with whom, as a member of the Society of Jesus, he is presumably more in sympathy." And said that overall it was "a magisterially competent survey." But, he concluded: "I confess, though, to being slightly disappointed that Copleston's enormous experience did not generate a few more original insights, and in particular did not provoke him into examining the most important of all the practical questions that Russian philosophy poses."[8]
Philosopher and theologian Benedict M. Ashley compared A History of Philosophy to some of the most famous histories of philosophy as follows: "Some histories of philosophy, like the admirable one of Frederick Copleston, only attempt to give an accurate account of various philosophies in their general historical setting. Others, like Bertrand Russell in his absurd History of Western Philosophy or Etienne Gilson in his brilliant The Unity of Philosophical Experience proffer an argument for a particular philosophical position."[39]
In 1993,The Washington Post wrote: "Copleston's account of western philosophy has long been a standard reference, most familiar to students as a series of slender rack-sized paperbacks. Copleston writes with welcome clarity, but without the slight dumbing down of Will Durant's engaging Story of Philosophy or the biases of Bertrand Russell's provocative History of Western Philosophy. In other words, Copleston's volumes are still the place to start for anyone interested in following man's speculations about himself and his world."[40]
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Jesuits: "[A] monumental nine-volume [history][...] published between 1946 and 1974, for which [Copleston] would receive wide-spread acclaim. Described by The Times of London as 'the best all-round history of philosophical thinking from the pre-Socratics to Sartre' (April 2, 1994), Copleston's history became renowned for the erudition of its scholarship, the comprehensive scope of its content, and the relatively objective position from which it was written."[41]
As of September 1979, The Washington Post reported that: "[Image/Doubleday's] best-selling multi-volume work, Frederick Copleston's "[A] History of Philosophy" (nine parts, 17 volumes) has collectively sold 1.6 million copies."[44]
FREDERICK COPLESTON's life is largely the record of his publications and of the many academic honours which his prolific publications deserved and received as a result. His nine-volume History of Philosophy (1946-75), together with his single-volume writings on Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, his Darcy lectures, Philosophies and Cultures (1980), and his Gifford Lectures, Religion and the One (1982), are an impressive, still much-used and highly regarded account of the history of philosophy and philosophers from the Pre-Socratics to the present day. The esteem in which the learned world held Copleston was marked by his election as a Fellow of the British Academy in 1970, by his being made an Honorary Fellow of St John's College, Oxford (his old Alma Mater), in 1975, by a much-prized Honorary D Litt from St Andrews University and finally in 1993 by his appointment as CBE.
It might appear from all this - and also from the fact that he was the first Principal of Heythrop College, London University, from 1970 to 1974 - that Fr Copleston was a very public man. This was in fact the reverse of the truth. Though by no means shy, he was a very private person: a privacy which was not entirely masked by his unfailing courtesy, even in very trying circumstances, especially towards the end of his life.
He did not give himself away at all easily, and this was as true of his intellectual as of his religious attitudes. For example, his mammoth History is marked at all times, except perhaps in Volume One, by an enviable objectivity, and by his willingness to be fair and to let the facts speak for themselves. In this respect it is instructive to compare his History with the one-volume work of Bertrand Russell on the same theme. Copleston keeps his cards very close to his chest, with the result that it is exceedingly difficult to discover where his own judgements lay. If he ever expressed a personal preference for one philosopher over any other it was for the German Idealists of the beginning of the last century, above all Hegel. This self-imposed reticence made for great clarity and objectivity in his treatment of philosophers as diverse as Plotinus and Hume; but it was never altogether clear whether the reserve resulted from the desire not to let history become the victim of ideology, or because he had no point of view from which he wrote.
Copleston came of ancient Devon stock, of an Anglican family which could boast among his forebears the Provost of Oriel College at the time when Newman became a Fellow, and who later became Bishop of Llandaff and Dean of St Paul's. He numbered two Anglican bishops among his uncles, so it must have come as something of a surprise, if not a shock, to his family to find that while still a boy at Marlborough he had become a Catholic. From Marlborough he went to St John's College, Oxford, and not long after leaving Oxford he entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus in 1930, aged 23. Ordained seven years later, he began what was to be his life's work as Professor of the History of Philosophy in 1939.
At that time Heythrop was located in north Oxfordshire and the situation gave him plenty of time to avert what he once described as boredom by embarking on the series of volumes referred to above. On the migration of Heythrop to London in 1970 he became the first principal of the new venture, for the first four years of its life. His intellectual distinction, however, could not conceal from him or from others his distaste for the grind of administration and he must have been grateful when his period came to an end. The ensuing 20 years were spent partly in England partly in the US giving lectures and writing.
Freddie Copleston's academic reserve was matched by his religious modesty. His last years, after he had ceased to be Principal of Heythrop College, were divided largely between Campion Hall, Oxford, which he made his home in 1976, and Farm Street, in London, where he lived from 1985 till his death. These years were marked by the same courtesy as always but also by a deep and very unobtrusive piety. Never demonstrative, he still impressed those he lived with by regularity and devotion. He always rose early, said Mass at 6.30am and then enjoyed a brief (and silent) breakfast. His day was then his own, punctuated by meals and his own reading and devotion.
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