Product Description

This is the first complete introduction to Irish thought ever available. This volume will be of great value to anyone interested in Irish culture and its intellectual history.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #450808 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

Review
'Splendid... does something strikingly original and sorely needed... it is characterised throughout by an engagingly sound, illuminating intelligence, reflected in the crisp, lively, remarkably lucid style.' - Terry Eagleton, University of Oxford 'Admirable... a solid contribution to Irish studies and the history of ideas.' - David Berman, University of Dublin 'Comprehensive, challenging and clearly written, a model of clarity.' - John Newringer, Bath Spa University

Even academics who would retreat in horror from the idea of cracking an Irish joke suffer, Duddy argues, from a tendency to underestimate the Irish as thinkers. According to him, they assume that unlike, say, France, Germany, England or Japan, Ireland lacks the 'continuities of culture, institution, and civic life that are the prerequisite for a national, ethnically distinctive intellectual history'. This book aims to make them reconsider. To do this, Duddy provides an ambitious intellectual history, stretching from the seventh century to the 20th. Along the way, we meet the Irish Augustine, who attempted to explain all the miracles in the Bible as God operating within, rather than violating, the laws of the universe; John Scottus Eriugena, who thought that reality could be interpreted in five different, mutually exclusive ways; Robert Boyle, who is included on the grounds that he had large landholdings in Ireland; a few famous names like George Berkeley and Jonathan Swift; and modern Princeton philosopher Philip Pettit, who makes a relatively convincing argument for supporting what he calls republicanism over liberalism. As this is a history of thought, rather than of writing (Ireland's credentials in the poetry department always having been widely known to be top notch), Wilde and Yeats, although present, get short shrift; and Joyce does not appear at all. This is a lucid, if somewhat dry, work of intellectual history that presents a number of intriguing capsule descriptions of its various thinkers. It is possible that 'Irish Thought' is a meaningless category in the first place, and Duddy's defence of it is one of the weakest points in the book. Nevertheless, it's a well-written and interesting textbook which should be of use to students of philosophy and Irish history. (Kirkus UK)

Review
'Splendid ... does something strikingly original and sorely needed ... it is characterised throughout by an engagingly sound, illuminating intelligence, reflected in the crisp, lively, remarkably lucid style.' - Terry Eagleton, University of Oxford

'Admirable ... a solid contribution to Irish studies and the history of ideas.' - David Berman, University of Dublin

'Comprehensive, challenging and clearly written, a model of clarity.' - John Newringer, Bath Spa University

Synopsis
A History of Irish Thought is the first complete introduction to Irish thought ever published. It presents a wide-ranging and inclusive survey of the varieties of Irish thought and the history of Irish ideas against the backdrop of the political and social change. Thomas Duddy offers a clearly written, engaging and stimulating exploration of the philosophers, polemicists, ideologists, satarists, scientists, poets and political and social reformers who have come out of Ireland. Beginning with the thought of the anonymous seventh-century monk, the Irish Augustine, we encounter among others John Scottus Eriugena, Robert Boyle, George Bekeley, Jonathan Swift, Francis Hutcheson, Edmund Burke on the through to the twentieth century which includes W.B.Yeats and Iris Murdoch. A History of Irish Thought rediscovers the liveliest and most contested issues in the Irish past, and brings the history of Irish thought up to date. It will be of great value to anyone interested in Irish culture and its intellectual history.