An Introduction to Philosophy [Kindle Edition]

The Kindle version of this book has little formatting, no navigable table of contents, and not even chapter breaks. It is one huge text dump. This makes it almost useless for reference purposes. Sadly, this is typical of many public domain Kindle books on Amazon, due to the lack of any minimum formatting standards.

Imagine if you bought a regular paper text book, and it was one big unwieldy stream of text without even a paragraph break between chapters. How would you rate that book on Amazon? I gave this the benefit of the doubt for classic content, but if there were separate Kindle ratings, this would be a 2 star effort.

If this title interests you, try a different ebook version, or find a paper version.

The book was written in 1906, and I must say that it has an odd air about it. It has no title page and even the spine is without a title or the publisher? I suppose it's a public domain book; but on balance I'm glad that the publisher undertook the effort to re-issue it. Mr. Fullerton wrote this book at a time when psychology and philosophy were parting ways and as both a philosopher and psychologist he offers an interesting perspective from the period. He writes about philosophical ideas from his take on how these are understood by; 1) the plain man, 2) the scientist, and 3) the philosopher. He sees the plain man as informed by common sense. The scientist is more observant in his field and also builds on past knowledge. The philosopher engages in "reflection" of everything ignored or assumed by others.

I hesitate to recommend this book to the general reader interested in an introduction to philosophy. Usually an introductory philosophy book uses an historical approach or a study of topics relating to the systematic branches such as epistemology, ethics, etc. The author's treatment does touch on most topics, but seems to use them only as a vehicle to focus on the topic of "mind" and from his "realist" viewpoint. I personally found the entire discussion on the "mind" very insightful, but the author goes overboard to the neglect of discussion of systematic topics that would be beneficial to those not familiar with traditional philosophy. I also found his ideas on "space" and "time" quite interesting but his metaphysical discussions might be considered quaint by today's anti-metaphysical philosophers. I would also add that his religious background has obviously biased and somewhat clouded his discussion of the philosophy of religion.

Mr. Fullerton's focus on "mind" is not surprising because philosophers in general taken this subjective bypass in modern philosophy ever since Mr. Descartes figured out that he existed (or at least a thinking entity existed) and they have focused almost exclusively on what today is considered epistemology ever since. Much of what passes for philosophy today has an cryptic, amateur psychology ring about it in the realm and borderlands of metaphysics. Gone are the grand systems of thought presented by Aristotle, Kant, and others. Interestingly the author compares philosophy to poetry although he states as a maxim that standards of evidence for philosophy need to match those of science. Schools of thought such as "realist", "idealist", "monists', "dualists" and so forth are not to be thought of as the definitive eternal truth, but rather analogously as a "sect" or "political party" for a time and place, and furthermore to be agreed with only tentatively for good reason.

None of what I've said detracts from the fascinating words of wisdom imparted by Mr. Fullerton but too much space is devoted in an attempt to motivate the reader into realizing the worth of philosophy itself. Presumably anyone undertaking to read the book is already motivated to do so, although perhaps he might be addressing someone like a student coerced into it as a required reading (as one student reviewer states elsewhere). I must sympathize with her as she says that it's a good book to put you to sleep at night. It seems that what most of us would call a paragraph full of ideas, Mr. Fullerton considered a run-on sentence. Mr. Fullerton uses little technical jargon, but the incessant run-on sentences, occasional double negatives, as well as the use of phraseology of the early 1900's comes across as an awkward style to follow. The strange formatting of paragraphs appears to divide them into smaller and more visually absorbable units. Ironically he addresses the issue of philosophers writing in a difficult and prosaic style, but neglects to consider himself as being in that category.

As one with a Master's degree in philosophy and as one who has been away from the field for many, many years (destroying my brain teaching English in a large public school), I found this introduction to be well-written, concise, and comprehensive. An excellent re-introduction albeit perhaps a bit too fast to be of best use to one not already familiar with most of the material.