No royal road to knowledge.... As a practical matter, I'd suggest collecting the prefaces to major philosophical works, such as have them. Of course, in the case of Hegel, even the preface is a problem.

But it's not clear to me you even know what you're asking. If you want a few sentences on thought and thinking through the ages, per thinker, try your library or Amazon for dictionaries of philosophy, or Stanford.edu . It's all there for the asking, which causes me to think that what you're asking for is not what you want.

But it's not clear to me you even know what you're asking. — tim wood

It's all there for the asking, which causes me to think that what you're asking for is not what you want. — tim wood

I'm asking for a development in philosophy seen through the eyes of a dialectical philosopher. If you have any in mind, or think that it is possible to describe the entirety of the thought of previous philosophers through a dialectical method, please let me know.

Will Durant, Fred Coplestone, others. Perhaps not what you mean by "dialectical." No doubt it can be done; perhaps you're the man to do it!

Will Durant, Fred Coplestone, others. Perhaps not what you mean by "dialectical." No doubt it can be done; perhaps you're the man to do it! — tim wood

Just bought Copelsone's volumes 4-9 of historical philosophy. I'll be occupied for a while. Ouch, my wallet!

Can’t offer you any particular book. But I well remember reading a history of Greek philosophy and realising how the standard story was told dialectically. If Heraclitus said all was,flux, Parmenides said all was stasis. And yet that very telling brushed over the way the individual philosophers were themselves making dialectical cases. Heraclitus for instance was opposing flux and logos.

So it is very useful, when telling a history, to be able to pose one historical figure against their “other”. But most of those figures turn out to be arguing in dialectical fashion themselves.

This then goes to what I would see as philosophy’s deep problem. Dialectics points the way out of the simplicities of monisms. But on the whole, few continue the journey to arrive at an explicitly triadic or hierarchical method of reasoning.

A history of these systems thinkers - Anaximander, Aristotle, Hegel, Kant to a degree, Peirce - might be a good book.

I suppose forming a meta-narrative for philosophy is an individual effort. I bought what I was looking for though so thanks for the info.

The Unity of Philosophical Experience, Etienne Gilson

Philosophy as a way of life, Pierre Hadot

Central Philosophy of Buddhism, T R V Murti (although this title concentrates on Buddhism, also contains an excellent exposition of the role of dialectic and extensive comparisons with the European tradition.)

The Unity of Philosophical Experience, Etienne Gilson — Wayfarer

Thanks, will look into that one.

The Unity of Philosophical Experience, Etienne Gilson
— Wayfarer — Posty McPostface

Looks excellent - Wayfarer strikes again!