A Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Science (OPUS S.)

Rating:
Summary: over-simplified to the point of uselessness
Review: I was interested in this book because its pretty rare to find historical treatments of problems in anglo-saxon or analytic philosophy beyond as a historical curiosity. First of all this book is over-simplified to the point of uselessness for any meaningful understanding beyond even maybe high-school levels at times. The historical orientation here seems to mean chronological- that you start with Aristotle and come down to Mill or Kuhn both without getting anything beyond magazine level information nor some (relevant and important) sense of historical connectedness, which would require a more extensive treatment of each philosopher at any rate.. So the historical thrust fails for the reason that the level of the book is too low to seriously carry it out, and maybe the author's knowledge on past philosophers is not deep enough - as is common in English language philosophy. I want to believe the first reason is truer, but in any case i think this book's level of treatment will be boringly low for most interested adult (over twenty let's say) readers, and its wiser to try a non-historical introduction to the topic.

Rating:
Summary: A nice little volume
Review: Losse starts with the Pythagoreans, the atomists, and Aristotle. He ends up discussing Popper, Hempel, Kuhn, Feyerband, Lakatos, and a variety of contemporary philosophers. It's densely packed, and for novices to philosophy or logic it might take some effort, but for those with a little background it is easy and, at least for me, fun.

Rating:
Summary: As the title says
Review: this is an introduction to the history of philosophical thinking throughout history, not an indepth treatment of ethics throughout history as one reviewer criticised it for not being (something it never stated it was).

It is thorough without being overwhelming for someone interested in an introduction to philosopphy, and it is interesting not dry and boring or hard to follow as many philosophy books can prove to be.

It is exactly what it says it is and does a good job at it.