Matthew
I found this to be an excellent, thorough, and well-balanced account of the history of philosophy. Evans works hard to put you into the shoes of each philosopher that he covers so that you can understand them on their own terms. At times he'll offer a little bit of his own commentary (from a Christian point of view), but he does it in a way that I found helpful rather than distracting. Highly recommended for anyone wanting to dig into the history of philosophy.
My only disappointment was that his covering of 20th-century philosophy (found in the conclusion chapter) was rather abbreviated (as Evans notes, this century is much too recent to cover with any kind of objectivity and could fill a book of its own). Though brief, his reflections on the history of western philosophy as a whole and on the direction of philosophy today were helpful and encouraging.
Now to go back and actually reflect on all of this...
I found this to be an excellent, thorough, and well-balanced account of the history of philosophy. Evans works hard to put you into the shoes of each philosopher that he covers so that you can understand them on their own terms. At times he'll offer a little bit of his own commentary (from a Christian point of view), but he does it in a way that I found helpful rather than distracting. Highly recommended for anyone wanting to dig into the history of philosophy.
My only disappointment was that his covering of 20th-century philosophy (found in the conclusion chapter) was rather abbreviated (as Evans notes, this century is much too recent to cover with any kind of objectivity and could fill a book of its own). Though brief, his reflections on the history of western philosophy as a whole and on the direction of philosophy today were helpful and encouraging.
Now to go back and actually reflect on all of this...