The prospects Ol- Industrial civilization bertrand russell history of western philosophy

RODUCTION TO MATHEMATICAL PHILOSOPHY

THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXTERNAL WORLD

AN OUTLINE OP PHILOSOPHY

THE PHILOSOPHY OF LEIBNIZ

AN INQUIRY INTO MEANING AND TRUTH

POWER

IN PRAISE OF IDLENESS

THE CONQUEST OF HAPPINESS

SCEPTICAL ESSAYS

THE SCIENTIFIC OUTLOOK

MYSTICISM AND LOGIC

MARRIAGE AND MORALS

EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL OKDLK

ON EDUCATION

FREEDOM AND ORGANIZATION, l8l4~I<M4

PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION

ROADS TO FREEDOM

JUSTICE IN WAR-FIMi:

FREE THOUGHT AND OFFICIAL PROPAGANDA

THE PROBLEM OF CHINA

With Scott NcarinK

BOLSHEVISM AND THE Wt*T

With Dora Russell

THE PROSPECTS Ol- INDUSTRIAL CIVILIZATION

BERTRAND RUSSELL

HISTORY OF

WESTERN

PHILOSOPHY

and its Connection with Political

and Social Circumstances from

the Earliest Times to

the Present Dav

GEORGE ALLEN AND UNWIN LTD

FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1446

SFCOND IMPRESSION 1947

All rights resented

1'RINTI.D IV URI-AT BKMAIS

iff n-/'</tnf Imprint Type

\\\ UN WIN bHOJHfcHS J, M m U

PREFACE

A FEW words of apology and explanation are called for if

this book is to escape even more severe censure than it

doubtless deserves.

Apology is due to the specialists on various schools and indi-

vidual philosophers. With the possible exception of Leibniz,

every philosopher of whom I treat is better known to some others

than to me. If, however, books covering a Wide field are to be

written at all, it is inevitable, since we are not immortal, that those

who write such books should spend less time on any one part

than can be spent by a man who concentrates on a single author

or a brief period. Some, whose scholarly austerity is unbending,

will conclude that books covering a wide field should not be

written at all, or, if written, should consist of monographs by a

multitude of authors. There is, however, something lost when

many authors co-operate. If there is any unity in the movement

of history, if there is any intimate relation between what goes

before and what comes later, it is necessary, for setting this forth,

that earlier and later periods should be synthesized in a single

mind. The student of Rousseau may have difficulty in doing

justice to his connection with the Sparta of Plato

...