Publication Date:April 1998 Shipping:Eligible for Super Saver Shipping Availability:Usually ships in 24 hours
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Amazon again misleads customersFebruary 23, 2008 0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is another case of Amazon false calims I ordered three copies for dear freinds . all had gross errors in that 20-50 pages of critcal text were blank. I have been unable to find out how to get Amazon to compensate to rectify the situation . Uless you wish to pay premium prices to Amazon for scores of blank pages that replaces critcal text do not order new copy. The help department is useless
Frank Dabreo
Book covers full range of world philosophyFebruary 3, 2000 12 out of 18 found this review helpful
This is a truly excellent work, and I want to defend it againstthe charge of leaving out African philosophy. One can truthfully say,without any disservice to the impressive achievements of African culture, that there is no distinctively African tradition in philosophy, just as there is no distinctively African tradition in chemistry. Philosophy is an art that developed in certain cultures and not others: the Chinese but not the Japanese; the Indians but not the Persians; the Greeks but not the Africans, the Romans, the Germans, or the Celts -- though those cultures that did not develop philosophy made other achievements in other areas. Even if the contention of _Black Athena_ were correct that "western civilization has its roots in Africa" (and that book has been pretty much discredited -- see _Black Athena Revisited_, though I think that book overstates its case in the opposite direction), it would not follow that Africans were responsible for philosophy any more than they were responsible for chemistry. The _Comparative History of World Philosophy_ focuses its attention where it belongs: on the three, and only three, cultures that developed philosophy. Every culture has world views, a wisdom tradition, etc., but philosophy is more than that; it is a specific art of argumentation that emerged in specific places in history. END
An insightful and rich account, beautifully writtenJuly 18, 1999 15 out of 15 found this review helpful
This is a truly remarkable presentation of an unusual perspective of the history of philosophy, one that most writers are so conveniently ignorant of. Scharfstein proceeds under the premise that the accepted Western paradigm of reading the history of philosophy within the boundaries of a single tradition can simply be replaced by a comparative tripartite paradigm with an equal claim for authenticity. The effect is strikingly similar to changing lenses in a camera, from zoom to wide-angle: some features are inevitably lost, but so much more can now be seen. Contrary to what we usually find in the bulk of contemporary works in the history of philosophy, Scharfstein is ultimately concerned with understanding the all-too-human activity of philosophizing. As he so beautifully puts it, the philosopher can-or perhaps, should-be seen as an artist, whose medium is abstract thought. Here the historian and the philosopher converge, but in a way very different from the cases of Hegel or Heidegger, for example. Scharfstein shows how to engage in the history of philosophy without being parasitic on philosophy, on the one hand, but also without being overly manipulative, on the other. The book hovers, so to speak, over its subject-matter, posing historical and philosophical questions, and then trying to answer them in the author's own voice, with a kind of mixture of sympathetic attention and mature intellectual detachedness that is commonly reserved only to the expert anthropologist. This is clearly one of the most remarkable characteristics, and perhaps one of the greatest achievements of this book. Scharfstein's discussion is expansive yet rich, clear-headed, insightful and fully aware of the historian's responsibility for accuracy while never losing sight of the philosopher's quest for truth or of the artist's quest for creation. It is also written in the kind of beautiful prose that has become so rare in contemporary scholarly writing. I strongly believe that many instructors would find this book very useful in intro classes in philosophy as well as in the humanities in general. The neat and elegant summaries that Scharfstein produced for each philosopher he discusses are inevitably incomplete and cannot replace-nor were they ever meant to replace-a careful reading of the philosophical texts. But to the best of my knowledge, none of the available historical texts can do that particular trick. Those of you who are willing to overcome the academically entrenched philosophical xenophobia, and to admit Chuang-tzu, Nagarjuna, and Vasubandhu, among others, in their classes alongside with stalwart texts of the European tradition, would find that Scharfstein's history enhances and enriches any reading of these texts with a rewardingly broad philosophical and cultural context that may prompt fruitful discussions of that great human adventure called philosophy.
The text is good but not fully representative of world phiFebruary 12, 1999 2 out of 17 found this review helpful
A Comparative History of world philosophy is a tour de force in the presentation of world philosophy. The text goes beyond the usual depiction of Western philosophy as the main and only available philosophy in the world. However, A Comparative History of World Philosophy, in its attempt to overcome the marginalizing exposition of the West, erases or African philosophy from world philosophy. I do not want to raise the bete noire of philosophical discussion here, that is, the authenticity of African philosophy. If there is any philosophy at all, there must be African philosophy; and if there is a text on world philosophy, that text must contain a section on African Philosophy. As the author may very well know (see Black Athena), western civilization has its roots in Africa. I have made this remarks that the author may reconsider his exposition in the next edition of the text because he/she will actually help professors who want to teach world philosophy with a more global bent than the Eastern and Western.
