A History of Western Philosophy: And Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (A Touchstone book)

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The worship of Bacchus in its original form was savage, and in many ways repulsive. It was not in this form that it influenced the philosophers, but in the spiritualized form attributed to Orpheus, which was ascetic, and substituted mental for physical intoxication. I am not familiar with Keeble, but his accent is pleasing - despite some rather interestingly pronounced words. The Orphics were an ascetic sect; wine, to them, was only a symbol, as, later, in the Christian sacrament. The intoxication that they sought was that of "enthusiasm," of union with the god. They believed themselves, in this way, to acquire mystic knowledge not obtainable by ordinary means. This mystical element entered into Greek philosophy with Pythagoras, who was a reformer of Orphism, as Orpheus was a reformer of the religion of Bacchus. From Pythagoras Orphic elements entered into the philosophy of Plato, and from Plato into most later philosophy that was in any degree religious.

The well-spring of which the soul is not to drink is Lethe, which brings forgetfulness; the other well-spring is Mnemosyne, remembrance. The soul in the next world, if it is to achieve salvation, is not to forget, but, on the contrary, to acquire a memory surpassing what is natural.Subjects (A1957), “The Existence and Nature of God” (1939), “Is There a God?” (1952) and What I Believe (A2013). 7. Russell’s Social and Political Philosophy

I don't mean strictly birds' eye, there are areas where Betrand Russel goes in quite the detail and offers you insight into the mind of many philosophers throughout the ages. I especially like it when he describes the thoughts of the ancients and medieval scholars and philosophers. From Rousseau to the Present Day (including Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Byron, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, the Utilitarians, Marx, Bergson, William James and John Dewey) Having listened to all this, I have to say I am going to recommend it to anyone who wants to get a birds' eye view of philosophy from antiquity to the modern times, up ww2. Since its first publication in 1945, Lord Russell’s A History of Western Philosophy is still unparalleled in its comprehensiveness, its clarity, its erudition, its grace, and its wit. In seventy-six chapters he traces philosophy from the rise of Greek civilization to the emergence of logical analysis in the twentieth century. Ray Monk (2000). Bertrand Russell: The Ghost of Madness. London. ISBN 9780743212151. {{ cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher ( link)Babylonian religion, unlike that of Egypt, was more concerned with prosperity in this world than with happiness in the next. Magic, divination, and astrology, though not peculiar to Babylonia, were more developed there than elsewhere, and it was chiefly through Babylon that they acquired their hold on later antiquity. From Babylon come some things that belong to science: the division of the day into twenty-four hours, and of the circle into 360 degrees; also the discovery of a cycle in eclipses, which enabled lunar eclipses to be predicted with certainty, and solar eclipses with some probability. This Babylonian knowledge, as we shall see, was acquired by Thales. An almost incredible amount of knowledge in so many fields accumulated in a single book but there certainly are flaws.. I enjoyed this a bit too much. The History of Western Philosophy is exactly my kind of book, and so this review will be biased. A History of Western Philosophy And Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, Bertrand Russell