Philosopher
Will Durant
Overview
William James Durant (; November 5, 1885 – November 7, 1981) was an American historian and philosopher, best known for his eleven-volume work, The Story of Civilization, which contains and details the history of Eastern and Western civilizations. It was written in collaboration with his wife, Ariel Durant, and published between 1935 and 1975. He was earlier noted for The Story of Philosophy (1926), described as "a groundbreaking work that helped to popularize philosophy".
Durant conceived of philosophy as total perspective or seeing things sub specie totius (i.e., "from the perspective of the whole")—a phrase inspired by Spinoza's sub specie aeternitatis, roughly meaning "from the perspective of the eternal". He sought to unify and humanize the great body of historical knowledge, which had grown voluminous and become fragmented into esoteric specialties, and to vitalize it for contemporary application. As a result of their success, he and his wife were jointly awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1968 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Philosophers who discussed Will Durant
- Crito of Alopece
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Joseph Butler
- John Cowper Powys
- Voltaire
- Lewis White Beck
- Blaise Pascal
- Empedocles
Ideas Will Durant discusses
- Simon & Schuster
- Macmillan Publishers
- Western philosophy
- Atheism
- Mass communication
- Latin
- Progress
- Western culture
- Near East
- Judea
- Eternity
- Presidential Medal of Freedom
- Pulitzer Prize
- Revolution
- Socialism
- Thomas Mann
- Baruch Spinoza
- Yale University
- British Raj
- East India Company
- Proletariat
- Human history
- Babylonia
- The Story of Civilization
Place in the tradition
Part of Outline of philosophy.
Narrower topics:
- Judea
- Mass communication
- Presidential Medal of Freedom
- Tehran
- Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction
- Congressional Record
- Ariel Durant
- Jersey City, New Jersey
- Bette Davis
- The Story of Philosophy
- South Orange, New Jersey
- Books on Tape (company)
- Controlling behavior in relationships
- Grover Gardner
- Little Blue Book
- New York Journal-American
- Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary
- Arthur Brisbane
- Ellis E. Patterson
- Heroes of History
- Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel
- Saint Peter's University
- Sex and the law
- Declaration of Interdependence