A Short History of Modern Philosophy: From Descartes to Wittgenstein

Scruton here provides a “synthetic vision of the history of modern philosophy, from an analytical perspective”.. – For me, the book didn’t really take off until Scruton moved on to Leibniz, and then Locke. With these philosophers, the writing got a lot more interesting, and from there on it only got better. I thought he gave an excellent summary of Spinoza’s philosophy however. I also very much appreciated his chapters on both Kant and Hegel, which I thought were lucidly written. His chapters on political philosophy are well integrated with the rest of the book. (Again) I especially liked Scruton's take on Hegel, but also Hobbes, Locke and then Marx, as well as the utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill, are all duly covered here. show more His final chapters on recent philosophy (from Frege to Wittgenstein), though necessarily a bit brief, provides a great summary. Overall I’m impressed not only about how much information he is able to convey in a minimum of pages, but also with the way he manages to tie it all together. show less