The Pleasures of Philosophy: Reflections on Will Durant's "The Story of Philosophy"

Will Durant’s The Story of Philosophy is one of the most successful and beloved popular introductions to philosophy ever written, the book that, for countless readers across nearly a century, opened the door to the great thinkers and made philosophy feel not forbidding but thrilling, human, and alive. Durant’s gift was to present philosophy not as a dry catalogue of abstract systems but as a story, the story of philosophy told through the lives, characters, and ideas of its great practitioners, from Plato and Aristotle through Bacon, Spinoza, Voltaire, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and beyond. Written with warmth, wit, and a genuine love of his subject, the book treats ideas as the living concerns of vivid human beings, and conveys, above all, the sheer pleasure of philosophy. It feels a fitting book to arrive at after so long a journey of reading, a companionable look back over much of the terrain.

Here is what The Story of Philosophy taught me about ideas as human stories, about the pleasures of philosophy, and about why we read the great thinkers at all.

Key takeaways

• Philosophy is told as a story, through the lives and characters of its thinkers.
• Ideas come alive when connected to the human beings who lived them.
• Philosophy is a pleasure, not a chore, when approached with love.
• The great questions connect thinkers across the centuries in one long conversation.
• We read philosophy to live more wisely and more fully.

Ideas as human stories

Durant’s central insight, and the source of his book’s enduring appeal, is that philosophy comes alive when it is presented as a human story rather than an abstract system. Rather than laying out doctrines in dry isolation, Durant tells us about the philosophers themselves, their lives, their times, their personalities, their struggles and passions, and shows how their ideas grew out of their humanity and their circumstances. We meet Spinoza grinding lenses in quiet, excommunicated integrity; Voltaire blazing with wit against injustice; Schopenhauer in his pessimism; Nietzsche in his lonely intensity. By connecting ideas to the living human beings who thought them, Durant makes philosophy vivid, memorable, and deeply human. This reflects a truth I have come to feel strongly over my own years of reading: that ideas are never wholly abstract, that they arise from human lives and speak to human concerns, and that to understand a philosophy fully is partly to understand the human being who lived and shaped it. Durant’s storytelling approach makes the great thinkers our companions rather than our examiners, and their ideas the natural fruit of lives wrestling, as we all do, with the problems of existence.

The pleasures of philosophy

What shines through every page of Durant’s book is his genuine love of philosophy and his conviction that it is, above all, a pleasure, one of the great delights and enrichments of a human life. He writes not as a dry academic discharging a duty but as an enthusiast eager to share something he loves, and his enthusiasm is contagious. For Durant, engaging with the great thinkers is a joy: the pleasure of encountering profound and beautiful ideas, of having one’s mind stretched and illuminated, of joining the long human conversation about the deepest questions, of seeing the world more clearly and richly. He wanted to rescue philosophy from the impression that it is forbidding, technical, and dull, and to show that it is in fact endlessly fascinating, exciting, and humanly enriching, that to think alongside Plato or Spinoza or Nietzsche is a privilege and a delight. This captures so much of what I have found in my own reading: that the life of the mind is one of the great pleasures available to us, that there is deep joy in understanding, in wonder, in the company of great minds, and that philosophy, far from being a chore, is among the richest enjoyments a person can have.

Why we read the great thinkers

Reading Durant’s grand survey, which connects so many of the thinkers I have spent these years getting to know, brings home why we read the great thinkers at all. Across the centuries, Durant shows, philosophers are engaged in one long, continuing conversation about the same enduring questions: what is real, what can we know, how should we live, what is good and just, what gives life meaning, how should we face suffering and death. Each thinker takes up these questions from his own time and temperament, building on, arguing with, and answering those who came before, so that philosophy is revealed as a vast, centuries-long dialogue of which we, as readers, become a part. And the purpose of joining that conversation, Durant believed, is finally practical and human: not merely to accumulate knowledge, but to live more wisely, more thoughtfully, and more fully, to gather wisdom for our own lives. This is the conviction, echoing Hadot’s recovery of philosophy as a way of life, that has animated my own long reading. We read the great thinkers not to win arguments or display learning, but because they help us see more clearly, live more deeply, and meet our own lives with greater wisdom, courage, and understanding. They are companions on the universal human journey of trying to understand, and to live well.

What I’m taking with me

The Story of Philosophy is a warm, joyful, and enduring book, and it makes a fitting place to pause and look back over a long road of reading. What I am taking from Durant is his gift for telling philosophy as a human story, making ideas live through the people who thought them; his infectious conviction that philosophy is one of the great pleasures of life, to be loved and enjoyed rather than endured; and his vision of the great thinkers as participants in one long human conversation about the questions that matter most, a conversation we read in order to live more wisely. More than any single doctrine, what these years of reading have given me is what Durant celebrates: the pleasures of philosophy, the companionship of great minds, and the slow, joyful gathering of wisdom for the one task that unites every thinker and every reader, the task of learning how to live, and to live well.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Story of Philosophy about?

It is Will Durant’s popular history of Western philosophy, told through the lives, characters, and ideas of its great thinkers from Plato to the modern age, written to make philosophy vivid, human, and enjoyable for general readers.

Is The Story of Philosophy good for beginners?

Yes. It is one of the most beloved popular introductions to philosophy, prized for its warmth, wit, and storytelling, which bring the great thinkers to life and make their ideas accessible and engaging for newcomers.

Why does Durant tell philosophy through the philosophers’ lives?

Because he believed ideas come alive when connected to the human beings who thought them. Presenting philosophy as a human story, rather than a set of abstract systems, makes it vivid, memorable, and deeply human.

References & further reading

1. Durant, Will. The Story of Philosophy. Simon & Schuster, 1926.
2. Durant, Will and Ariel Durant. The Story of Civilization. Simon & Schuster, 1935–1975.
3. Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy. Simon & Schuster, 1945.