The Cave and the Light: Examining the Philosophical Battle Between Plato and Aristotle and Its Impact on Western Civilization

Marvhe1: Really enjoying this eye-opening book!

United States on Oct 19, 2023

C Nicholl-Shelley: 900 pages will be daunting but considering each individual discussed could be an academic book in itself, marvellous achievement.

Looses a star because of the American right leaning framing at the end and use of very selective quoting, I'd say the same if it was left wing bias, it's just bad history to frame things in such an emotional way- book funding comes through a political 'think-tank' so authour would have had no choice. BUT I can't stress this enough an INCREDIBLE and accessible summary of 2500 years if you have the patience to stick with it- the man deserves an award!

United Kingdom on Apr 20, 2022

Dennis B. Mulcare: As a habitual eclectic reader, I rarely read a book as lengthy as this one; but its subject matter and treatment elicit/sustain the requisite attentiveness. The necessarily higher-level treatment of its panoramic content, moreover, has prompted me to order copies of a number of the book’s cited references - an indication of the range of the book’s vital content. These references are more specialized titles that I otherwise would likely have remained unaware of - an indication of the salience of the book’s disparate content.

Most importantly, this book is an artful/insightful exposition of the enduring and ever-evolving historical impact of the respective legacies of Plato and Aristotle. In particular, it recounts the recurring interplay of subsequent appropriations of their ideas as well as their relative prominence during various historical periods. This interplay is grounded in the fundamentally opposed world views of Plato and Aristotle. The book centers on this interplay as evidenced in the various adaptations/extensions by subsequent influential thinkers. And in turn, these derivative ideas are explored in terms of their deployment by political movements,...

United States on Jan 09, 2021

Mark Stewart: This was one of the best investments of time I have made. A journey through our philosophical thought a period of tension between those following from Plato and those of Aristotle. A journey which has Socrates at its source and takes one into the 2oth century a tour de force. The reading is accessible. The author should have received a Pulitzer at a minimum. For those looking for a philosophical adventure that captures the various nuances subtleties and tension of why we think the way we do Arthur Herman has given us a book to be truely celebrated.

United Kingdom on Dec 30, 2020

M. Zimmermann: I will first discuss what I believe is of merit when it comes to the book, and then elaborate on its great shortcomings. As a whole the book gives a decent overview account of Western history beginning with Socrates and ending with the financial crisis. The book does an excellent job of condensing hundreds of years of history into a digestible narrative that is well researched, fun, and easy to read.

The author’s bias is obvious at times, though by the end, he does a good job of demonstrating the fallacies around being too “Platonic” or too “Aristotelian.” The final chapter does a good job of showing how hyper rationalizing and a supreme faith in reason and logic can lead to its own kind of barbarism, though it would have been better if such a balanced critique suffused the entire work.

In any case, the narrative remains entirely too reductionist. It is unfair and intellectually irresponsible to portray many of the West’s greatest thinkers with a couple pages and a few quotes as if such attention given represents the final word on the thinker and their thought. It’s as if one were to ask me what the ocean is, and I replied “It’s a large body of...

United States on Dec 26, 2018

GazzaGazza: The Cave and the Light by Arthur Herman is a very good read. I bought it because it seemed like a good philosophical read, something perhaps on the lines of Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy. It may not have lived up to stature of Russell’s great work but it was certainly an interesting read with lots of learning and knowledge spread throughout its pages.

The book is also written remarkably well. It is clear throughout and easy to follow, especially for an average type of person like myself. I even found myself highlighting quotes and passages that I liked. I would certainly recommend this book to anyone interested in history, literature and philosophy.

I hope you find my review helpful.

United Kingdom on Jan 30, 2018

med: Herman’s thesis is that the history of Western Society has been a long tussle between the opposing philosophies of Plato (427-347BC) and Plato’s pupil Aristotle (384-322BC). “Everything we do has been shaped in one way or another by… Plato and Aristotle.”

Plato
Plato believed that the world of our experience is but a shadow of what is really real. What is really real according to Plato is the ‘World of Forms’ in which important concepts such as “justice”, “love”, “beauty”, “equality” ,”good” etc exist in their perfect form. The examples of these things which we experience are imperfect copies of the perfect forms. If we take the concept “equality” then two stones may appear “equal” in some respects but not others. On the other hand the concept “equal” cannot be the same as the concept “unequal”. The deficiency is thus in the stones, not in the concepts.

The world we experience through our senses is thus not the real world. But we cannot have knowledge of something we have never experienced, so we must have experienced “equal” in its perfect form. “Equal” is not visible in anything in this world so we must...

United Kingdom on Mar 02, 2015

Paul Marks: No book is perfect - at least not one that seeks to cover two and a half thousand years of intellectual and cultural history, as this one does.

For example F.A. Hayek is mentioned, but Ludwig Von Mises (a more important figure) is not. And nor are the Oxford realists (really a continuation of the Common Sense school) of the early 20th century - Harold Prichard and Sir William David Ross.

However, Arthur Herman has managed an astonishing achievement. He has managed to show how both Plato and Aristotle produced living traditions - that have massively influenced our civilisation (and other civilisations) over thousands of years, in virtually every way possible. Intellectually, religiously, culturally, technologically, politically - everything. Even those thinkers who set our to utterly reject both Plato and Aristotle have been influenced by the problems Plato and Aristotle gave them to solve.

Nor is it just a case of "Plato bad, Aristotle good" - it is much more complicated and subtle than that, as Arthur Herman makes clear.

United Kingdom on Jan 03, 2015