Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson
by Jennifer Michael Hecht
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jennifer Michael HechtEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2004-09-01
ISBN: 0060097957
Number of pages: 576
Publisher: HarperOne
Book Reviews of Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson
Book Review: Great Supplement to the History of Philosophy and Religion
Summary: 5 Stars
I have read several histories on philosophy and several others on religion, and though "Doubt: A History" covers much of the same ground, it still has its unique angle that makes it a great supplement to these two.
The book looks both at the Occident and the Orient, covering Buddhism, Greece, Rome, Zen, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Scientific Age, and the global world of today. In all of these, doubt played a significant part, but often in very different ways. For example, for the Christian, who is "saved by faith," doubt became a very different problem than for the Jew, who had always been much more defined by who he was and what he did than by what he believed. In the Far East, again, doubt had a different meaning, because people did not try to reach the shore of certainty but plunged into the depth of the ultimate dissolving of their individuality. Doubt as part of the scientific process once again took on a new meaning.
It should be stressed, however, that this is a HISTORY of doubt. Even though the book starts with with a quiz about one's own position to doubt and ends with modern applications of doubt, this is not the reason to buy the book. Its great strength lies in its wealth of a detailed and very entertaining history. There are more implicit applications for today throughout the history than in the more explicit part of the beginning and end of the book.
I thoroughly enjoyed it. Is this a good introduction to philosophy and religion? I doubt it. If the reader is not familiar with the history of either, he might want to first read up on that before taking this book to hand for something that brings both philosophy and religion together in the bond of doubt.
- Jacob Schriftman, Author of Job's Wager: An Alternative to Pascal's Wager and the Atheist's Wager (With Color Illustrations)
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Summary of Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson
" Hecht is right that doubt' s story deserves to be told ... and] she tells it in just the right spirit."General Books
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