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This book is intended for students seeking to study the history of Western philosophy for the first time, as well as for general readers. The authors, who specialize in ancient, medieval, and modern Western philosophy, as well as that of contemporary German-, French-, and English-speaking regions of the world, wrote this book based on the following principles:

(1) The basic knowledge in this field will be presented as accurately and clearly as possible. Furthermore, the text will be organized and written in such a way that readers can grasp the flow of the entire history of Western philosophy seamlessly, rather than in a fragmented manner, with the assumption that they have little prior knowledge of its history.

(2) This is based on the assumption that the book will be used as a textbook or reference material in universities. The names and writings of important philosophers and thinkers, as well as influential concepts in the history of philosophy, will be taken up and discussed as much as possible. The book will be enhanced with chronological tables, maps, and an index that aid the readers’ understanding. In addition, other books available in Japanese will be introduced at the end of each chapter so that the readers can use this as a steppingstone to further deepening their understanding.

(3) The book will reflect new research trends as much as possible, although it is primarily intended as a standard textbook that provides an overview of the history of Western philosophy to aid readers’ understanding in a broad fashion. Some philosophers, theories, and concepts are now receiving increasing attention and becoming the focus of discussion even though they received relatively minor treatment in philosophy textbooks written in Japanese in the past. These philosophers, theories, and concepts will be introduced and discussed as much as possible.

This book was written and edited under the principles cited above. The readers will quickly notice that medieval philosophy occupies a larger portion of the book and that this subject is addressed more in depth compared with similar books written in Japanese. The medieval philosophy of the West inspired extremely interesting debates in and of itself. However, it also exerted a strong influence not only on early modern and modern philosophy, which critically continued that medieval tradition, but also on contemporary philosophy. This book provides a scaffold for a deeper understanding of modern and contemporary philosophy through an overview of the currents of thought in medieval philosophy. At the same time, the book is structured in such a way that it provides a bird’s-eye view of the continuity (even though this continuity had multiple tracks) that has been maintained throughout the history of Western philosophy from ancient times to the present. These are among the most salient features of this book.

In addition, efforts were made to introduce more specialized references that are available in Japanese. This is for the purpose of supplementing certain topics that could not be fully discussed because of space limitations and aiding the readers’ understanding regarding such matters. In the process, each author made an attempt to invite the readers to the classic works of the philosophers introduced in the book. It should be noted that “classic” does not necessarily mean “old,” instead referring to works that are widely discussed and debated as the representatives of philosophical thoughts that have been inherited critically or uncritically. In fact, some works released only a few decades ago are already establishing their status as classics. As one of the authors of the book, it is my hope that, in addition to helping readers gain a basic understanding of the history of Western philosophy, it will stimulate their interest in classics and encourage them to pick up and read such works.
 

(Written by NORITATE Yuki, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology / 2023)