Life's Ultimate Questions

Rating:
Summary: All philosophy is a footnote to Plato and Aristotle.
Review: I have had not only the pleasure to read this book but to also have had it as a textbook. On top of this, I had Ron Nash himself as a professor teaching out of it.
The positives of this book are that it is truly easy to grasp. Philosophy is never an easy subject and intro texts tend to be boring or stereotypical. Nash's text is quite exceptional. He brings complex ideas down to understandable terms.
The downfall of this book is the flip-side of its strength. Because of its easy understandability it also at times is overly simplistic. Also it does not deal with very many modern and post-modern problems in philosophy. But overall this is an excellent text. I personally prefer Ed. Miller's "Questions That Matter."

Rating:
Summary: All philosophy is a footnote to Plato and Aristotle.
Review: I have had not only the pleasure to read this book but to also have had it as a textbook. On top of this, I had Ron Nash himself as a professor teaching out of it.
The positives of this book are that it is truly easy to grasp. Philosophy is never an easy subject and intro texts tend to be boring or stereotypical. Nash's text is quite exceptional. He brings complex ideas down to understandable terms.
The downfall of this book is the flip-side of its strength. Because of its easy understandability it also at times is overly simplistic. Also it does not deal with very many modern and post-modern problems in philosophy. But overall this is an excellent text. I personally prefer Ed. Miller's "Questions That Matter."

Rating:
Summary: A simple intro to traditional philosophical questions
Review: Nash (presently a prof. at RTS) has used his great powers of simplification to make this book easily understandable to even the most casual reader. The questions dealt with (and most importantly the general approach) in the book is that of the old-fashioned logocentric sort.

Nash does have some good explanations of Plato's and Aristotle's philosophy that I found helpful. But, every subject is dealt with only very shortly. Perhaps Nash puts the most effort and time into logic and logically possible worlds. Though that is interesting, I find it somewhat disappointing, too. This book has basically nothing about 20'th century philosophy, except for a tiny bit about decontructionists. One of my main problems with this is that Nash is a Clarkian in his epistemology. Beware of that when you read it. For those of you who are used to reading more open-ended up-to-date stuff, this will definately strike you as ...-retentive.

But, I would recommend this to any Christian who is interested in a general introduction to Christian thought. And, Nash has a good, though brief, introduction to the latest in anti-evolutionary thought. I found this book helpful, though not necessarily "nice".

Rating:
Summary: A simple intro to traditional philosophical questions
Review: Nash (presently a prof. at RTS) has used his great powers of simplification to make this book easily understandable to even the most casual reader. The questions dealt with (and most importantly the general approach) in the book is that of the old-fashioned logocentric sort.

Nash does have some good explanations of Plato's and Aristotle's philosophy that I found helpful. But, every subject is dealt with only very shortly. Perhaps Nash puts the most effort and time into logic and logically possible worlds. Though that is interesting, I find it somewhat disappointing, too. This book has basically nothing about 20'th century philosophy, except for a tiny bit about decontructionists. One of my main problems with this is that Nash is a Clarkian in his epistemology. Beware of that when you read it. For those of you who are used to reading more open-ended up-to-date stuff, this will definately strike you as ...-retentive.

But, I would recommend this to any Christian who is interested in a general introduction to Christian thought. And, Nash has a good, though brief, introduction to the latest in anti-evolutionary thought. I found this book helpful, though not necessarily "nice".

Rating:
Summary: A Good Intro Text for Philosophy
Review: Nash has produced a pretty good intro text to the study of philosophy. The book itself contains two major sections and an introduction. One of the more positive features of the text is the fact that Nash stresses the importance of a worldview and worldview evaluation. This angle is missing in all other intro texts that I have read, and seems to work as a nice addition to this particular text. The first part of the text is aptly titled "Six Conceptual Systems." In this pat Nash covers Naturalism, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, and Aquinas. This section is simply an introduction into the thinking of these men and Naturalism (and their worldviews). Actually, Nash has a nice way of making all these philosophers easy to grasp. The second part consists of Problems in Philosophy. Here Nash covers logic, epistemology, metaphysics, God's existence, ethics, and human nature. In part two Nash covers Reformed epistemology (which he makes known that he is in favor of this system) and he also covers Open Theism (which he makes known that he is opposed to this type of theology). Nash is a moderate rationalist and this come out in the text. The redeeming qualities of this work are: 1) It's simplicity, 2) It's overall thematic style that is geared around worldviews and, 3) Nash's inclusion of medieval philosophers (especially Aquinas). I mention #3 since many if not most intro text do not include Aquinas which is a real pity since he was the greatest of the medieval philosophers. The one major vice, it seems of this text, is the fact that Nash comes across a little haughty and pugnacious at times. He asserts certain opinions in the text that might have been left out if all he is trying to do is simply give an exposition of the information. However, if Nash is attempting to serve an opinion in this work, then he has done so quite readily with Open Theism as well as postmodernism. That being the case, perhaps Nash meant this book to have some apologetic qualities about it. Nonetheless, if what he was aiming for was simply an intro to philosophy (which is what is declared on the back cover description) then these opinions might have been best saved for other works. However, this text is distinctly Christian, and perhaps Nash wanted to evaluate these systems for the purpose of the Christian reader. Overall, I would recommend this text to beginning students to help them gain a better understanding of the issues of philosophy.

Rating:
Summary: Understanding Philosophy
Review: Ronald Nash has completed a great introductory book on thE subject of philosophy. He begins by discussing world views and then writes about the six conceptual systems: Naturalism, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus,Augustine, ansd Aquinas. He writes about the Law of Non-contradiction and epistemology. The strength of the book are the chapters on God's existence and nature.

The book is very much highly prone to Christian Theism. However, he writes truthfully about the theories and peoples involoved throughout philosophy. Since he is writing a text book, you will not find any overt evangelism taking place here, which is a good thing, since this book is actually menat as a primer for college students.

The book is easy to read and Nash's strength is his ability to make complicated subjects easy to understand.