Book Review: "The Dream of Reason" by Anthony Gottlieb

Sometimes I like to read philosophy books and especially if they are cheap. This is one of the first books read and finished in 2026 (does it count because I started it a few days before in 2025?). Well, you're probably surprised that I'm reading this at all. In 2025, one of the better philosophy books I read was The Philosophy of Andy Warhol where you can also read about all the strange stuff I found in the book. Sometimes though, these philosophy books can get a bit heavy and so, it takes me a bit longer to read. This one was one of them...

I get it, the Pre-Socratic school is known for their proximity of being before Socrates and yet, they are just as important. Pythagoras though, ran a cult and you can't convince me otherwise. The whole chapter on Pythagoras tends to tip-toe around the problem that this guy was basically an ancient mix between a millennial vegan and Alaister Crowley - but it does address the fact that there was definitely a fascination with spiritualism as well as mathematics amongst those who followed Pythagoras. But even though it does make that point, it doesn't actually address the evidence regarding the idea that Pythagoras may not have existed at all, though it does make a mention of the Orphic ideas that may have lent its hand rather than the actual hand of Pythagoras (of whom we have no writings). It's a difficult chapter in which I may have pulled a face more than once. I get the fact that the writer was basically saying 'no, he's not really being realistic here' but he is deeply engaged in the idea that Pythagoras was the first of his kind and very much, a real person.

There is a whole section on Socrates (and some of it is about how ugly he was physically which is strange but I'm glad to read he had a sense of humour about it). We get a bit of a look at the court system and how it relies on the best speaker rather than the most evidence. However, when it comes to Socrates, he is also not a great speaker either. In Athens it was pretty much against the law to corrupt the youth and go against the democratic ideas of the city. This, it reads, it what Socrates was doing and so, when he was in court - he seems to have mocked the person accusing him rather than presenting a good argument. Then again, he states that he doesn't really know anything (yes, that famed 'I know that I know nothing') and so could not have taught and corrupted anyone. When Plato wrote about it, there are long and convoluted arguments presented by Socrates whilst when you look at them closely, there really isn't any argument at all. Socrates was of course, sentenced to die. Though I found this chapter to be more about swings and roundabouts, parroting ideas presented (better in my opinion) in the works of Plato and just overly long with lots of filler - it was still quite interesting to read how this writer has portrayed the trial.

The book moves through a lot of things that I had already known before picking up the text. We get philosophers all the way up to the Renaissance. The one issue I have with this is that the book seems to cover more of the philosophers' lives themselves and how they were in their communities and social stature than the actual philosophies. It's weighted one way more than the other. I guess that this is probably due to the fact that this book would have more of an audience with the folks who had actually read most of the books of philosophy mentioned within the text. But, I would like to recommend an alongside reading of sections of the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism for those of you who wish to read The Dream of Reason but probably don't have time to read every single book mentioned within this text.

The chapter Voyages of Rediscovery has parts on the neoclassical aspects of the Renaissance, ones which hearkened back to people like Aristotle (who rightly so, gets his own chapter - he's great unless you look up his opinions on women and foreigners. Then he's not so great). But there's so much Aristotelian stuff in Shakespeare's and Marlowe's works and so, I don't mind going over it again.

Even though this book is a bit on the bulky side in terms of its narrative, I can honestly say that I'm glad I read it. It is probably one of the better books on how Western Philosophy evolved in its first half.