BOOKS
Published
Read Time
3 min read
Share This Review
The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant Review: A Timeless Gateway to Western Thought
Will Durant's The Story of Philosophy, first published in 1926 and revised in 1933, remains one of the most celebrated introductions to Western philosophy ever written — profiling fifteen major thinkers from Plato to John Dewey, tracing the living chain of ideas that connects them, and doing so in prose that critical coverage called "a delight." The edition listed here is a Kindle release published by Grapevine in October 2023, co-credited to the Original Thinkers Institute, making this landmark work newly accessible in digital form. Its greatest strength is Durant's ambition to show how each philosopher's life, environment, and personality shaped the ideas that followed — but readers seeking non-Western traditions or rigorous academic apparatus will need to look elsewhere.
LuvemBooks Verdict
Best for
General readers who want an accessible, narrative-driven entry point into Western philosophical thought — particularly those curious about how the great thinkers from Plato through Dewey shaped and challenged one another's ideas.
Worth it if
You want a single, readable volume that traces the arc of Western philosophy through biographical and historical context, showing how each thinker's system grew out of those before it — without requiring prior academic grounding.
Skip if
Skip it if your interest in philosophy extends meaningfully beyond Europe and North America, or if you're looking for rigorous engagement with primary texts rather than an introductory popular survey — the book's Western-only scope and accessible register are structural, not incidental.
What readers & critics say
Wikipedia's article on the work documents the book's landmark status as a popular intellectual history, noting it originated as worker-education pamphlets before Simon & Schuster published it in hardcover in 1926, with a revised edition in 1933. The Simon & Schuster edition's promotional copy, retrieved from simonandschuster.com, describes it as "a delight" and "one of the most important books of our time," while book blogger Douglas Douma at douglasdouma.com, though writing from a critical Christian perspective, acknowledged the colour and readability Durant brings to the lives of the philosophers he profiles.
Sources: Wikipedia – The Story of Philosophy, Simon & Schuster, Douglas Douma4.2from 107 Amazon ratings— reader ratings, not a LuvemBooks score
In This Review
- What Works & What Doesn't
- What the Book Actually Is and Contains
- Durant's Central Argument and Method
- Significance and Reception
- A Genuine Limitation: The Western Canon's Borders
- Who This Edition Is For
What Works & What Doesn't
What Works
- Covers fifteen major Western philosophers in a single volume, from Plato and Socrates through Dewey and Russell, with a clear chronological through-line
- Durant's method of situating each thinker within their biographical and historical context gives the ideas genuine narrative momentum
- A landmark of popular intellectual writing, described by critical coverage as 'a delight' and long regarded as one of the most important introductions to philosophy for a general audience
- The Grapevine Kindle edition includes enhanced typesetting and Word Wise support, making the digital reading experience accessible
- Traces the interconnections between philosophical systems — showing how each thinker's work grew from and responded to those before — rather than presenting ideas in isolation
What Doesn't
- Covers only Western philosophy; Durant himself acknowledged in the 1933 second edition's foreword that major non-Western thinkers — including Confucius, the Buddha, and Adi Shankara — are entirely absent
- The introductory and popular register that makes the book so accessible also means it is not a substitute for rigorous academic engagement with primary philosophical texts
- The Grapevine/Original Thinkers Institute edition's relationship to the authoritative Simon & Schuster text is not detailed in the verified product listing, which may give careful buyers pause
A work of popular intellectual history nearly a century in the making, this edition of The Story of Philosophy delivers one of the most enduring single-volume surveys of Western philosophical thought to a new generation of digital readers.
What the Book Actually Is and Contains
The Story of Philosophy: Lives, Ideas and Impact of History’s Greatest Philosophers (Grapevine Edition) by Will Durant, Original Thinkers Institute front cover
The Story of Philosophy is a work of popular intellectual history, not a textbook or an academic treatise. Will Durant organises the book into eleven chapters: nine each devoted to a single major philosopher, followed by two chapters offering briefer profiles of early twentieth-century thinkers. The nine central figures are Plato (with a section on Socrates), Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Baruch Spinoza (with a section on Descartes), Voltaire (with a section on Rousseau), Immanuel Kant (with a section on Hegel), Arthur Schopenhauer, Herbert Spencer, and Friedrich Nietzsche. The tenth chapter covers Henri Bergson, Benedetto Croce, and Bertrand Russell; the eleventh turns to George Santayana, William James, and John Dewey. Throughout, Durant traces a chronological arc — from the dialogues of ancient Athens through the upheaval of World War I and into the pragmatist tradition of twentieth-century America — showing how each figure's ideas grew out of and reacted against what came before.
Durant's Central Argument and Method
The book's governing thesis, as Wikipedia's article on the work records, is that the ideas of history's great philosophers are deeply interconnected — that each thinker's system is, in part, a response to those who preceded them. Durant also places philosophy firmly in its social and biographical context: as the Simon & Schuster edition's description puts it, he "chronicles the ideas of the great thinkers, the economic and intellectual environments which influenced them, and the personal traits and adventures out of which each philosophy grew." The closing sections illustrate this method well: Durant shows Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer arguing opposing positions on the relationship between society and science, then charts how Nietzsche's radical challenge to the very purpose of philosophy disrupted that debate, before turning to Bertrand Russell and John Dewey as philosophers who attempted to rebuild meaningful inquiry in philosophy's aftermath.
Significance and Reception
Originally assembled from a series of inexpensive worker-education pamphlets in the Little Blue Books series, the book proved so popular that Simon & Schuster published it in hardcover in 1926, with a revised second edition following in 1933. Its reach across a general readership — not just academics — established it as a landmark of public intellectual writing. The Simon & Schuster edition's promotional copy describes it as "one of the most important books of our time," and the passage cited there records that critics called it "a delight." It is also the unwitting source of one of the most widely circulated misquotations in popular culture: the phrase "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit" — commonly attributed to Aristotle — was in fact coined by Durant himself when summarising Aristotle's ethics, as Wikipedia's article on the book documents.
A Genuine Limitation: The Western Canon's Borders
Durant himself acknowledged, in a foreword to the 1933 second edition, the most substantive criticism the book had attracted: its exclusive focus on Western philosophy. Confucius, the Buddha, and Adi Shankara are entirely absent, as are Islamic and African philosophical traditions. For readers whose interest in philosophy extends beyond Europe and North America, this is a real and structural gap — one Durant was aware of but did not correct in his revision. The book's title, The Story of Philosophy, promises universality that the contents do not deliver. This is not a flaw of execution but of scope, and readers should enter with that understanding.
Who This Edition Is For
The Grapevine Kindle edition, published in October 2023 and co-credited to the Original Thinkers Institute, brings Durant's text to readers who prefer digital formats. With enhanced typesetting and Word Wise enabled, the edition is designed to support a comfortable reading experience on Kindle devices and apps. The book is best suited to general readers who want an accessible, narrative-driven entry point into Western philosophical thought — those curious about how Kant responded to Hume, how Spinoza's rationalism differs from Bacon's empiricism, or how Nietzsche's provocations unsettled the philosophies that preceded him. Academic readers or those already versed in primary philosophical texts will find Durant's approach introductory by design rather than by deficiency; the book was always written to bring ideas to a wide audience, and that remains its enduring purpose.
Frequently Asked Questions
is The Story of Philosophy: Lives, Ideas by Will Durant, Original Thinkers Institute worth reading for someone new to philosophy?
Yes, if you want an accessible, narrative-driven entry point into Western philosophical thought — the review describes Durant's prose as "a delight" and notes the book was always written to bring ideas to a wide audience. It's ideal if you're curious about questions like how Kant responded to Hume or how Spinoza's rationalism differs from Bacon's empiricism, but academic readers already versed in primary texts will find it introductory by design rather than by deficiency.
what philosophers are actually covered in The Story of Philosophy: Lives, Ideas by Will Durant, Original Thinkers Institute?
The book profiles fifteen major thinkers across eleven chapters: the nine central figures are Plato (with a section on Socrates), Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Baruch Spinoza (with a section on Descartes), Voltaire (with a section on Rousseau), Immanuel Kant (with a section on Hegel), Arthur Schopenhauer, Herbert Spencer, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Later chapters add briefer profiles of Henri Bergson, Benedetto Croce, Bertrand Russell, George Santayana, William James, and John Dewey. Notably, the coverage is entirely Western — Confucius, the Buddha, and Adi Shankara are entirely absent.
does The Story of Philosophy: Lives, Ideas by Will Durant, Original Thinkers Institute cover non-western philosophy?
No — and this is called out as the book's most substantive structural limitation. Durant himself acknowledged in his foreword to the 1933 second edition that Confucius, the Buddha, Adi Shankara, and Islamic and African philosophical traditions are entirely absent, yet he did not correct this in his revision. The review is direct: the title promises universality that the contents do not deliver, so readers whose interest extends beyond Europe and North America need to look elsewhere.
is The Story of Philosophy: Lives, Ideas by Will Durant, Original Thinkers Institute hard to read or too dry?
Not at all dry — the review notes that critics called Durant's prose "a delight," and the book originated as inexpensive worker-education pamphlets designed for a general, non-academic audience. Durant frames each philosopher's ideas through their life, personality, and historical environment, which keeps the narrative engaging rather than purely abstract.
what's the deal with the famous aristotle quote in The Story of Philosophy: Lives, Ideas by Will Durant, Original Thinkers Institute?
The review flags this as a notable piece of trivia: the widely circulated quote "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit" — commonly attributed to Aristotle — was actually coined by Durant himself when summarising Aristotle's ethics. It's one of the most widely circulated misquotations in popular culture, and the book is its unwitting source.
is the kindle edition of The Story of Philosophy: Lives, Ideas by Will Durant, Original Thinkers Institute any good?
The Grapevine Kindle edition, published in October 2023 and co-credited to the Original Thinkers Institute, is noted to feature enhanced typesetting and Word Wise enabled, designed to support a comfortable reading experience on Kindle devices and apps. At $0.49, it makes a nearly century-old landmark of public intellectual writing newly accessible in digital form — a strong value for curious general readers.
what makes The Story of Philosophy: Lives, Ideas by Will Durant, Original Thinkers Institute different from a regular philosophy textbook?
The review is clear that this is a work of popular intellectual history, not a textbook or academic treatise — Durant's governing approach is to show how each philosopher's life, environment, and personality shaped their ideas, rather than analysing texts in isolation. The closing sections demonstrate this well, showing Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer debating society and science, Nietzsche disrupting that debate, and then Bertrand Russell and John Dewey attempting to rebuild meaningful inquiry in philosophy's aftermath — all told as a living, connected story.
Sources & Further Reading
The key facts and claims in this review are grounded in the retrieved, verified sources listed below.
- Cited in this review
- 1
en.wikipedia.org
- Further reading
- 2
- 3
douglasdouma.com
- 4
fourminutebooks.com
- 5
Related Reviews
Reviews of books we picked for readers who enjoyed The Story of Philosophy.
Reader Comments
No comments yet
Be the first to share your thoughts!