World Philosophies: A Historical Introduction
Cooper is an imaginative philosopher?the author of Metaphor (Blackwell, 1986), the best book on its subject. He has written one of the few histories of philosophy that gives nearly equal time to non-Western thought, and he has traced the main ideas without getting bogged down in detail or lapsing into vapid generalizations. Ultimately, Cooper's task is impossible. Concentration on canonical thinkers who seem to appear miraculously, the major sin of historians of philosophy, is inevitable. But he does put them into contexts that make sense, and he does try to provide some continuity. Inevitably, too, some figures are slighted. McTaggart does not even appear in the bibliography. Descartes still figures as the mad dualist attacked by British philosophers of the 1950s. But Cooper's treatment is generally sound, and his account of Eastern philosophies is particularly heartening because it recognizes recent Indian and Chinese philosophy and avoids the orientalist antiquarianism that mars so much good writing on these subjects. This is a good book for ordinary readers who want to get the drift of philosophy.?Leslie Armour, Univ. of OttawaCopyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.