| Home Page | Beauty | Logic | Love | Morality | Politics | Reality | Religion | Science | Truth | Seeking Wisdom? | Contact |
Home Page Chronology Aristotle - Ethics Aristotle - Politics Augustine - Confessions Ayer - Language, Truth and Logic Bacon - Advancement of Learning Bentham - Morals and Legislation Berkeley - Principles of Human Knowledge Boethius - Consolations of Philosophy Burke - Revolution in France Cicero - Friendship and Old Age Clausewitz - On War Comte - Positive Philosophy Confucius - The Analects Copernicus - The Revolutions Darwin - The Origin of Species Descartes - Discourse on Method Descartes - Meditations Einstein's Relativity Emerson - Nature Epicurus - Sovran Maxims Erasmus - Praise of Folly Euclid - Elements Freud - Psychoanalysis Hegel - Philosophy of History Hegel - Philosophy of Religion Hobbes - Leviathan Hume - Human Understanding James - Varieties of Religious Experience Kant - Critiques of Reason Kant - Metaphysics of Morals Kierkegaard - Either Or Leibniz - Monadology Locke - Human Understanding Machiavelli - The Prince Marcus Aurelius - Meditations Marx - The Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels - German Ideology Mill - On Liberty Mill - System of Logic More - Utopia Newton - Principia Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil Paine - Rights of Man Pascal - Thoughts Plato - The Apology Plato - The Republic Plato - The Symposium Popper - Scientific Discovery Rand - Selfishness Rousseau - Social Contract Sade - Philosophy in the Boudoir Sartre - Existentialism is a Humanism Schopenhauer - World as Will and Idea Smith - Wealth of Nations Spinoza - Ethics The Ancient Greeks The Aphorisms of the Philosophers Thoreau - Walden Tocqueville - America Turing - Computing Machinery Wittgenstein - Tractatus Wollstonecraft - Rights of Woman |
 Welcome to The Squashed Philosophers ...the big books, the ones which defined the way The West thinks now, in their original words, neatly abridged down into little afternoons reads. For more than a decade Squashed Philosophers has been here to provide a way of making some sort of sense of the writings of The Western Philosophers. It lets you get to grips with a great idea in an hour or so, whether that's to prepare yourself for something bigger, or just for the joy of discovery. These versions are not complete and they're not perfect, but they do let you do something the originals can't - get for yourself a sort of grand overview of the whole universe of ideas, without having to just take other people's word for it. You'll love them. 
Philosophy, at least in the Western Way, is something to do with arguing about definitions, so, of course, philosophers have never managed to agree on a definition of Philosophy itself. It seems to be about finding ways of making the world comprehensible, the science of making sense, if you like. It works like this; once a Philosopher manages to find a little bit of comprehensibility, the search is over, that bit stops being called 'Philosophy' and it becomes a new subject with a new name all of its own. Over the past twenty-five centuries or so that is how Philosophy, the 'Queen of Sciences', has given birth to astronomy, biology, chemistry, physics and all the natural science, as well as psychology, sociology, linguistics and the rest, it is why the greatest experts, no matter what their field, are still called Doctors of Philosophy, and it is why quite a lot of the Old Philosophies here on the Squashed pages, aren't usually called 'Philosophy' any more. 
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Free texts from Gutenberg 
Copyright is waived so that anyone anywhere (who hasn't been told not to) may reproduce these pages for any non-commercial purpose, subject to their acknowledging the source as 'Squashed Philosophers'. There is no need to ask for permission. Take care when quoting from texts in the SqP pages - these are deep abridgements, the originals may be significantly different. 
To get included, books have to be significant, famous, and asked-for. If they don't get asked for, they don't get in. Modern works are mostly excluded because their authors aren't sufficiently dead to be out of copyright. Their estates want money, and I've already had to pay Ludwig Wittgenstein £80. And, yes, several of the books here are dangerous or rubbish. Or both. But I'm with John Stuart on this one; best to have them out in the open (and easy to read) so everyone can see how bad they actually are. 
Squashed Philosophers is entirely my fault - Glyn Hughes of Lancashire in England. Contact me at glynhughes@btinternet.com. Complaints are especially welcome. 
Thank you very much for asking, but I don't know whether death is inevitable, or how God is able to think, or how many counterfactuals you need to make a pile. And I'm not going to write your essays for you. I do keep getting asked if, having spent so long dissecting all those wise tomes in such detail, I haven't stumbled upon some magnificent all-embracing solution to the Problems of Philosophy and the World. Well, if I ever do, I promise I'll let you know. 
The SqP Website has repeatedly been subject to serious, targeted, cyber attack. Are mad fundamentalists or wicked States attempting to destroy this grand disseminator of truth and enquiry? Or just geeks with too much spare time. Know anythin'? Drop me a line |
|||||||||||||||
| Sitemap Copyright © 2012 Glyn Hughes | ||||||||||||||||