Review of “Modern Philosophy. An Introduction and Survey” by Roger Scruton

This was quite a different presentation of philosophy than Bertrand Russell’s historical approach. The wide field of Western philosophy is covered by topic, with references to many philosophical systems and their relevance to each topic. Thus, philosophy is presented as a series of problems that fall between science and religion. No answers are given, but the reader is led to the cusp of the philosophical envelope in a very interesting style.

The overall scholarly writing style is interspersed with literary humor (some of these serious ideas are indeed bizarre). The sentences are too long (again), but well constructed.

The book is almost 500 pages, but most sections are the length of encyclopedia entries. In fact, he is structured very much like an encyclopedia. I plan to keep it on the shelf because you can’t do an internet search if you don’t know where to start.