The nuts and bolts, from Plato to yoga
Trying to look up one term in this philosophy dictionary, you’ll almost certainly end up flipping through a dozen different stimulating pieces you never intended. If browsing is a telling fascination indicator, this volume surely gets top marks. Theodosis Pelegrinis, a professor of philosophy at the University of Athens, has produced an impressive piece of work. In over 1,500 pages, his «Dictionary of Philosophy» (published in Greek by Ellinika Grammata, 2004) covers everything from Plato to yoga. In between, one will find a clear and carefully researched, if a bit dry, exposition of the different figures, ideas and schools of thought. The dictionary is well-researched and meticulously cross-referenced. Here are all the themes one would expect to find in a standard volume: logic, ethics, aesthetics, idealism, epistemology, metaphysics and quite a bit of religion. So are the intriguing and, at times, baffling concepts: the barber paradox, the liar paradox, Pascal’s wager, the Chinese room scenario, Buridan’s ass. Less typical, on the other hand, is Pelegrinis’s inclusion of non-Western and non-European theorists and concepts as well as his reference to relatively new fields such as cloning and bio-ethics. Apart from the A-to-Z reference guide, the one-volume book includes an index of the terms in Latin, English, German, French and Italian, as well as biographies of the most important philosophers – even though Nietzsche would be rather upset for getting less than a page when some Guilelmus de Ockham gets more than two, and Kant about seven. Still, this is an excellent reference resource for philosophers and non-philosophers alike. Highly recommended.
