A Short History of Modern Philosophy: From Descartes to Wittgenstein

by Roger Scruton

  Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, German text with translation by D.F.Pears and B.F.McGuiness, London, 1961; Philosophical Investigations, tr. G.E.M.Anscombe, Oxford, 1953; Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, tr. G.E.M.Anscombe, Oxford, 1956.

  Commentaries: On atomism and positivism generally see J.O.Urmson, Philosophical Analysis, Oxford, 1956, a lucid but dated book, written from the standpoint of Oxford linguistic philosophy. See also D.F.Pears, Bertrand Russell, London, 1967. On Wittgenstein see Anthony Kenny, Wittgenstein, London, Penguin, 1973, which is perhaps the least misleading among the short commentaries on the later work. Among more advanced commentaries, the following deserve mention: Saul Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Oxford, 1982, and David Pears, The False Prison, 2 vols, Oxford, 1987.

  Table of Contents

  Contents

  Preface to the First Edition

  Preface to the Second Edition

  Introduction

  1 - HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY AND HISTORY OF IDEAS

  2 - THE RISE OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY

  Part One - Rationalism

  3 - DESCARTES

  4 - THE CARTESIAN REVOLUTION

  5 - SPINOZA

  6 - LEIBNIZ

  Part Two - Empiricism

  7 - LOCKE AND BERKELEY

  8 - THE IDEA OF A MORAL SCIENCE

  9 - HUME

  Part Three - Kant and idealism

  10 - KANT I: THE CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON

  11 - KANT II: ETHICS AND AESTHETICS

  12 - HEGEL

  13 - REACTIONS: SCHOPENHAUER, KIERKEGAARD AND NIETZSCHE

  Part Four - The political transformation

  14 - POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY FROM HOBBES TO HEGEL

  15 - MARX

  16 - UTILITARIANISM AND AFTER

  Part Five - Recent Philosophy

  17 - FREGE

  18 - PHENOMENOLOGY AND EXISTENTIALISM

  19 - WITTGENSTEIN

  Bibliography