/lit/ - Literature

What can you say about Bertrand Russell "History of Western Philosophy"?

I half way in, just finished catholic part. First my book of such kind, never had interest in philosophy before, but I liked it.


Only thing I'd disliked for now - is the statement "nothing of importance to the world came out of Constantinople except an artistic tradition and Justininian's Codes of Roman Law" before catholic part. Sound like typical view from wester historian with classical education in 19-20 century. Complete neglation of matter (and where thy spirit of science?). At least Russell did not said anything like "vile despotia with orthodox obscurantism" - becase shitshow of powerstuggle, corrupt popes and catholic theology that he discribed later seems no different desu.

Is Russel's A History of Western Philosophy a good general look into philosphy? This is coming from someone who overall agrees with Russel's ideas. I'm a great admirer of him.
Therefore, i'd like to know if the book is very biased. So i can know if i'll be reading something objective or just a confirmation of Russel's(and my own) bias.

>almost all Hegel’s doctrines are false
Based Bert btfo thousands of paged of Hegel in literally 10 pages.

>>18221736
Based.

Why does Bert make trannies seethe every time his name is mentioned?

>Thus Spoke Zarathustra is pseudoprophetic
>The misery of a whole nation, he says, is of less importance than the
suffering of a great individual: "The misfortunes of all these small folk do not together
constitute a sum-total, except in the feelings of mighty men."
>"he says in Beyond Good and Evil, where he adds
that we should think of women as property, as Orientals do. The whole of his abuse of women is
offered as self-evident truth; it is not backed up by evidence from history or from his own
experience, which, so far as women were concerned, was almost confined to his sister."

You guys love to hate him, but Russell's description of Nietzsche is actually pretty good. A true incel idol for sure

>>17500910
RENT
FREE

pic related

>I cannot do with anymore education Jeeves! I was full up years ago!

This world is hell.

Smoking isn't antithetical to virtue. It can make one more meditative and studious. There is an old saying Ratzinger is rumored to had - take away my tobacco and you've taken away my celibacy.

>>15208245
>We are the only creatures on the planet that have free will

>tfw you haven't talked to a woman in 5 years

Who are your favorite thinkers? For me:

>Bertrand Russell
>Noam Chomsky
>Harold Bloom

In no particular order.

For a long time, going all the way back, soon after my first concept of universal questions, I was annoyed with religion, and at times infuriated with the stupidity of believers. I've tried to gain a tolerance, and when I say tolerance perhaps I mean a resignation that humans will be humans, and even an aesthetic appreciation for religion - I like Bosch, Bergman, I can even appreciate Dante. But the old fundamental problem still stares me in the face, as I'm reminded by Nietzsche, and the logic textbook I am reading in college, which is people projecting their own world view, what they want to believe, onto the world they live in.

The intellectual dishonesty, the pomposity, the in group mentality of it has always disgusted me, and at certain times in my life infuriated me to the point of a burning anger inside my head, that I am at the mercy of these imbecilic, hypocritical liars, mixed with a shame that I am judged inescapably by their standards. We're taught when we are young to act according to reason and good sense, but then when one grows even the smallest budding flower of mental reason and faculty, that good sense turns out to be a front put on by people who have constructed their own biases in their world view.

The fact of moral relativity, that people have a personal, emotional preference, and try to act like it's objectively true, even projecting their own made up versions of reality onto the the idea of nature itself, one which conveniently resembles themselves because that is all the imbecilic believer can imagine, is one which inescapably permeates this world of very low level life forms known as human beings which I am forced to live among in this hell called people. Nietzsche may be telling me things I've thought for a long time, but hearing them in so obvious a way as to write it off as mundane immediately, reminds me of how jaded I've become.

>>12436870
This one or Russell

>>12418506
"All the same," Nietzsche replies, "your world would be insipid. You should study Heraclitus, whose works survive complete in the celestial library. Your love is compassion, which is elicited by pain; your truth, if you are honest, is unpleasant, and only to be known through suffering; and as to beauty, what is more beautiful than the tiger, who owes his splendour to his fierceness? No, if the Lord should decide for your world, I fear we would all die of boredom." "You might," Buddha replies, "because you love pain, and your love of life is a sham. But those who really love life would be happy as no one can be happy in the world as it is."

For my part, I agree with Buddha as I have imagined him. But I do not know how to prove that he is right by any argument such as can be used in a mathematical or a scientific question. I dislike him Nietzsche because he likes the contemplation of pain, because he erects conceit into a duty, because the men whom he most admires are conquerors, whose glory is cleverness in causing men to die. But I think the ultimate argument against his philosophy, as against any unpleasant but internally self-consistent ethic, lies not in an appeal to facts, but in an appeal to emotions. Nietzsche despises universal love; I feel it the motive power to all that I desire as regards the world. His followers have had their innings, but we may hope that it is coming rapidly to an end.

*hits pipe*

Fuck Plato

Did I make a mistake when I bought his "History of Western Philosophy"?

/thread