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geeky comments on Please recommend some audiobooks - Less Wrong
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Religion and Science by Bertrand Russell was interesting and informative. As a bonus, it's not that long.
A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell.
(To speed through books, I use VLC player, and then adjust the speed to 1.2X)
Wonderful recommendation. I am listening to 'A History of western philosophy' at the moment and I enjoy every single minute of it. Its my clean and cook book. Not only is it a literary masterpiece, it is a well researched account of exactly what the name says. As a bonus you get the whole story commented by one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century.
I have heard it claimed by people who know more about the history of philosophy than I do that it's less than perfectly reliable, and in particular that if Russell's account makes someone look silly then you should consider seriously the possibility that they were distinctly less silly than Russell makes them look.
(But I agree that it's a lovely book, and I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading it.)
I guess the bottom line is that, when it comes to fields like philosophy and history, the literature will be heavily biased by the authors, and if one really wants to reduce this bias the one must consult multiple sources.
Yes. There's another single-volume history of philosophy, by Anthony Kenny, that's alleged to be good. I would expect Kenny to have a quite different set of biases from Russell's (and for what it's worth less like my own than Russell's). I have it on my shelves but it's one of the hundreds I haven't read yet so I can't endorse it (or the reverse) independently. I've no idea whether there's an audiobook of it.