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Comment by wannabebarista | Hacker News Reader

Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy. It's a bit biased and is rough around the edges, but it's a fun journey each time. I read it first in undergrad and pick it up again every few years.

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Extremely biased. Only obvious when you know a philosopher well that he covers

Given that everything is biased at the very least by the nature of limited resources, in what ways would you say it’s biased? Does it present false information?

Here is basically the consensus take: "Almost all those who reviewed Russell's now famous History of Western Philosophy when it first appeared in 1945 were agreed about two things: first, that it is beautifully written, witty, clear, lucid and magisterial; and second, that it is not always accurate in its account of the thinkers it covers, nor always fair to them." [0]

The book is certainly worth reading but one should keep in mind its weak spots.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_History_of_Western_Philosoph...

To illustrate, this is one of my favorite (humorous) lines from it, in the introductory chapter: "In the Eastern Empire, Greek civilization, in a desiccated form, survived, as in a museum, till the fall of Constantinople in 1453, _but nothing of importance to the world came out of Constantinople except an artistic tradition and Justinian's Codes of Roman law._"

It's a pretty long read though. I wouldn't want to put myself through it again...

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