About the Book
For introductory philosophy courses. This popular introductory text/reader on modern philosophy intersperses primary sources with commentary to keep students interested and critically engaged in what they are reading. Each chapter deals with a fundamental question about human existence, exploring the subject through representative readings by classic, modern, and contemporary philosophers-with at least two contrasting perspectives for each main position.
Table of Contents:
1. What Is Philosophy?
The Examined Life, Socrates.
2. Am I a Body and a Mind?
I Am a Mind (Rex Cogitans) and a Body (Res Extensa), René Descartes. Descartes Was Confused, Gilbert Ryle. The Identity Theory, J.J.C. Smart. Functionalism as a Critique of Identity Theory and Logical Behaviorism, Jerry Fodor. Can Machines Think?, A.M. Turing. Computers Cannot Think, John Searle. Searle Is Mistaken, Paul and Patricia Churchland.
3. Am I Free or Determined?
I Am Determined, Baron D'Holbach. I Am Free, Jean-Paul Sartre. I Am Determined and Free, Walter T. Space. Psychology Shows We Are Not Free, John Hospers. A Defense of Compatibilism, John W. Bender. An Argument for Indeterminism, Karl Popper.
4. What Grounds Do I Have for Belief in God?
Belief Leads to Understanding, St. Anselm. Belief Supported by Proofs, Thomas Aquinas. Belief without Proofs, Blaise Pascal. Doubts about Natural Theology, David Hume. A Finite God, John Stuart Mill. Agnosticism—The Only Legitimate Response, Thomas Henry Huxley. Legitimate Belief in Spite of Agnosticism, William James. Falsification and Verification, Antony Flew and John Hick.
5. On What Principle Do I Judge Things Right or Wrong?
The Will the God, William Paley. The Categorical Imperative, Immanuel Kant. The Maximization of Happiness, John Stuart Mill. The Relativity of Morality, Friedrich Nietzsche. Emotivism Affirmed, A.J. Ayer. Emotivism Refined, C. L. Stevenson. Emotivism Critiqued, Brand Blanshard. Morality, Bernard Gert. The Moral Prism, Dorothy Emmet.
6. Why Should I Obey the Law?
The Case for the Legislative Life, Thomas Hobbes. The Case for Resistance, John Locke. The Case for the Common Cold, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The Case for Revolution, Karl Marx. The Case for Liberty and Law, John Stuart Mill. The Case for Civil Disobedience with Religious Warrant, Martin Luther King. The Case for Anarchy, Robert Paul Wolff. The Case for Civil Disobedience with Secular Warrant, John Rawls.
7. What Things Shall I Call Art?
The Aesthetic Hypothesis, Clive Bell. Anything Viewed Might Be Art?, Paul Ziff. Art as Representation of Reality, H. Gene Blocker. Art as Communication of Emotion, Leo Tolstoy. Critique of Expressionism, John Hospers. Is Aesthetics Founded on a Mistake?, Morris Weitz. Against Interpretation, Susan Sontag.
8. When Can I Say “I Know?”
An Appeal to Experience, David Hume. A Critique of Reason in Experience, Immanuel Kant. A Logical Positivist Critique, A.J. Ayer. The Presuppositions of Knowledge, R.G. Collingwood. The Elements of Epistemology, Alvin Goldman. The Analysis of Knowledge, Keith Lehrer.
9. What Is Science? Positivism to Postmodernism.
The Positivist View of Science, Herbert Feigl. Problems with the Positivistic Interpretations of Science, Thomas Kuhn. Relativism, Even in Science, Is the Only Conclusion, Paul Feyerabend. Kuhn Has Misread Science and Its History, Larry Laudan. Science Is Neither Objective nor Unemotional, Alison Jaggar. Can There Be a Feminist Science?, Helen Longino. Relativism Means the End of Philosophy, Richard Rorty. An Explanation of Postmodernism, H. Gene Blocker.
Epilogue I: Applied Ethics.
Medical Ethics: Euthanasia, Timothy E. Quill. Business Ethics: Making Profits, Milton Friedman. Environmental Ethics: Inescapable Speciesism, Arthur Zucker.
Epilogue II: Making Sense out of Life.
The Will to Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl. The Story of the God Who Acts, The Biblical Tradition. The Story of Transcending Suffering, The Buddhist Tradition. The Story of Pursuing the Moral Ideal, The African Tradition. The Story of Combatting Suffering, Albert Camus. Is the Story to Be Continued?, Peter Geach.
Glossary.
