I found Philip Stokes' Philosophy: 100 Essential Thinkers to be a real gem—the writing is clear, the content substantial, and the organization precise. Serving as a brief overview of Western philosophy, Stokes' work captures meaningful snapshots of a 100 different philosophers in 382 pages—designating about three pages to each thinker. Divided into 22 sections, Philosophy: 100 Essential Thinkers categorizes each philosopher by camps (the Presocratics, the Eleatics, the Academics, the Atomists, the Cynics, the Stoics, the Sceptics, the Neoplatonists, the Christians, the Scholastics, the Age of Science, the Rationalists, the Empiricists, the Idealists, the Liberals, the Evolutionists, the Pragmatists, the Materialists, the Existentialists, the Linguistic Turn, the Postmodernists, and the New Scientists). Since a three page presentation can only serve as an introduction to a person's work, Stoke's makes every sentence count. He introduces and explains their major ideas, along with the context they lived in, who they were influenced by, and in turn who they later influenced.
An important reason I chose this book is "the Linguistic Turn". In this section, capturing philosophers from the 20th century, Stokes describes thirteen philosophers—by for more than any other category. "The Linguistic Turn" describes present day, mainstream academic philosophy in America—an area of philosophy I am unfamiliar with for several reason, mostly because I have full-heartedly followed a lineage of philosophy, which we can call "Integral" or "Holistic", that has rarely entered mainstream academics. I find leaving out this lineage of integral philosophy—including thinkers such de Chardin, Grof, Wilber, Laszlo, Sheldrake, etc— to be a short-coming of the book; after Hegel, it doesn't include any of these thinkers, except for the surprising inclusions of both Bergson and Whitehead. All these integral thinkers embraced a panpsychist perspective, a major element in my life, but not following this path is precisely why I chose this book, because, like the mainstream, it ended up following a different philosophical lineage than myself—one grounded in materialism and disembodied rationality.
I felt angry while reading "the Linguistic Turn", and becoming aware of the state of modern day philosophy. Up until the 20th century, what I saw reading the book was the unfolding of Western philosophy, moving from thinker to thinker—a beautiful story taken in about 80 different snapshots, each person bringing in the richness of different ideas—until we get to the logic and linguistics after Existentialism—then it all gets stale. Before this point, whether or not I agreed with each thinker of the more than 2,500 year movement, each passionately made metaphysical and social statements and authentically tried to understand themselves, the universe, and humanity—many making deeply meaningful contribution to knowledge and society. In comparison, 20th century philosophy—reduced to nothing more than meaning in language—seems like a massive detour; and arguably made no significant contribution to our culture. I had an impression of the absurdity philosophy has been reduced to in higher education, but now I know; I feel thoroughly disappointed. I am shocked what Western society has done to what I consider the most beautiful human discipline—we need to resuscitate what once was the greatest container for human knowledge and wisdom.
That being said, by summarizing different pivotal thinkers that have influenced much of what we know, this book has much to offer. I believe this book is a must read for every philosopher—not because it brings an over-arching philosophical perspective like Passion of the Western Mind, or other books presenting a story of philosophy, but because it serves as a great companion to such books—since the writer delivers no philosophical perspective of his own, but simply gives a Wikipedia like description of each thinker. I have come to see that Western philosophy, as a discipline, carries a story—and includes its own myths, like that of Socrates and Galileo—and this book serves to deepen one's understanding of the characters in the play. For a long time I have wanted greater familiarity with the players we see in philosophical works, and reading a book on each person takes too long; Philosophy: 100 Essential Thinkers helps fill in some of the cracks. The only off-putting quality of the book is its large 14 size font; it makes the book seem less serious—though I am sure it was done to make the book look user friendly and accessible to the lay person. Still, the book definitely does not lack in content. Overall, it is an enjoyable read and serves as a great introduction to 100 lives—including biographical content, great works, and original ideas—that made major intellectual contributions in the evolution of Western society.
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