A new History

In 1926, Will Durant brought out “The Story of Philosophy,” an engagingly written account of what great thinkers from Plato to William James thought about life, the universe and everything. Its intended audience, said Durant, could be described by a line from Dostoevsky: “Those who don’t want millions, but an answer to their questions.” A generation later, in 1945, Bertrand Russell produced “A History of Western Philosophy: And Its Connection With Political and Social Circumstances From the Earliest Times to the Present Day.” That book’s slightly daunting subtitle belies its stellar virtues: clear exposition, sparkling prose and an author who was himself one of the leading philosophers of the 20th century. In his opening pages, Russell affirms that “To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it.”

Both these works became huge bestsellers. As late as the mid-1960s, a teenager in a small Ohio steel town could buy and then heavily underline the latest printing — the 16th — of a Washington Square paperback of the Durant. Even now, the Russell can be purchased in a sumptuous Folio Society edition. Is it surprising that these outlines of philosophical thought have been so popular? It shouldn’t be. Who among us, in the dark reaches of the night, hasn’t suffered from the terror of cosmic loneliness or wondered “What really matters”?

A.C. Grayling’s “The History of Philosophy” accurately offers itself as a successor to Russell’s classic survey — with some key differences. As well as touching briefly on the philosophical traditions of Asia and Africa, Grayling’s study devotes more than 200 pages to 20th-century thinkers, including Martin Heidegger, Karl Popper, Jean-Paul Sartre, W.V. Quine and Jacques Derrida. No other popular survey possesses this range. Anthony Gottlieb’s two linked volumes — “The Dream of Reason: A History of Western Philosophy From the Greeks to the Renaissance” and “The Dream of Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Philosophy” — progress no further than the mid-18th century, the era of Hume and Rousseau. Perhaps a third volume will follow someday... ('A new book for ‘those who don’t want millions, but an answer to their questions,’ continues)