About the Book
Tracing the exchange of ideas among history's key philosophers, The Great Conversation: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy, Eighth Edition, provides a generous selection of excerpts from major philosophical works and makes them more easily understandable to students with lucid and engaging explanations. Extensive cross-referencing shows students how philosophers respond appreciatively or critically to the thoughts of other
philosophers.The Great Conversation, Eighth Edition, is also available in two separate volumes to suit your course needs:The Great Conversation: Volume I: Pre-Socratics through Descartes, Eighth
EditionThe Great Conversation: Volume II: Descartes through Derrida and Quine, Eighth Edition
Table of Contents:
*=New to this Edition
A Word to Instructors:
A Word to Students:
Acknowledgments:
1. Before Philosophy: Myth in Hesiod and Homer
Hesiod: War among the Gods
Homer: Heroes, Gods, and Excellence
2. Philosophy before Socrates
Thales: The One as Water
Anaximander: The One as the Boundless
Xenophanes: The Gods as Fictions
Sketch: Pythagoras
Heraclitus: Oneness in the Logos
Parmenides: Only the One
Zeno: The Paradoxes of Common Sense
Atomism: The One and the Many Reconciled
The Key: An Ambiguity:
The World:
The Soul:
How to Live:
* 3. Appearance and Reality in Ancient India
* The Vedas and the Upanisads
* The Buddha
* The Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Noble Path:
* Right View:
* Non-Self and Nagasena
* The Brahmanical Schools
* Vaisesika:
* Nyaya:
* The Great Conversation in India
4. The Sophists: Rhetoric and Relativism in Athens
Democracy
The Persian Wars
The Sophists
Rhetoric:
Relativism:
Physis and Nomos:
Athens and Sparta at War
Aristophanes and Reaction
* 5. Reason and Relativism in China
* A Brief History of Ancient China
* Mozi
* The School of Names
* The Later Mohists
* Zhuangzi
* Sketch: Laozi
6. Socrates: To Know Oneself
Character
Is Socrates a Sophist?
What Socrates "Knows"
We Ought to Search for Truth:
Human Excellence Is Knowledge:
All Wrongdoing Is Due to Ignorance:
The Most Important Thing of All is to Care for Your Soul:
7. The Trial and Death of Socrates
Euthyphro:
Translator's Introduction
The Dialogue
Commentary and Questions
Apology:
Translator's Introduction
The Dialogue
Commentary and Questions
Crito:
Translator's Introduction
The Dialogue
Commentary and Questions
Phaedo (Death Scene)
Translator's Introduction
The Dialogue (Selection)
Commentary and Questions
8. Plato: Knowing the Real and the Good
Knowledge and Opinion
Making the Distinction:
We Do Know Certain Truths:
The Objects of Knowledge:
The Reality of the Forms:
The World and the Forms
How Forms Are Related to the World:
Lower and Higher Forms:
The Form of the Good:
The Love of Wisdom
What Wisdom Is:
Love and Wisdom:
The Soul
The Immortality of the Soul:
The Structure of the Soul:
Morality
The State
Problems with the Forms
9. Aristotle: The Reality of the World
Aristotle and Plato
Logic and Knowledge
Terms and Statements:
Truth:
Reasons Why: The Syllogism:
Knowing First Principles:
The World
Nature:
The Four "Becauses":
Is There Purpose in Nature?:
Teleology:
First Philosophy
Not Plato's Forms:
What of Mathematics?:
Substance and Form:
Pure Actualities:
God:
The Soul
Levels of Soul:
Soul and Body:
Nous:
The Good Life
Happiness:
Virtue or Excellence (Areté):
The Role of Reason:
Responsibility:
The Highest Good:
* 10. Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi: Virtue in Ancient China
* Confucius
* The Way of Confucius:
* Ritual Propriety:
* Good Government:
* Mencius
* Differentiated Love:
* Human Nature Is Good:
* Xunzi:
* The Confucians' Legacy:
11. Epicureans, Stoics, and Skeptics: Happiness for the Many
The Epicureans
The Stoics
Profile: Marcus Aurelius
The Skeptics
12. Jews and Christians: Sin, Salvation, and Love
Background
Jesus
The Meaning of Jesus
13. Augustine: God and the Soul
Wisdom, Happiness, and God
God and the World
The Great Chain of Being:
* Sketch: Hypatia of Alexandria
Evil:
Time:
Human Nature and Its Corruption
Human Nature and Its Restoration
Augustine on Relativism
The Two Cities
Augustine and the Philosophers
Reason and Authority:
Intellect and Will:
Epicureans and Stoics:
* 14. Philosophy in the Islamic World: The Great Conversation Spreads Out
* A Sea Change in the Mediterranean Basin
* Al-Kindi, the "Philosopher of the Arabs"
* Al-Farabi, the "Second Master"
* Religion as Subordinate to Philosophy:
* Emanation and the Active Intellect:
* Sketch: The Celestial Spheres
* Certitude, Absolute Certitude, and Opinion:
* Avicenna, the "Preeminent Master"
* Existence and Essence:
* The Necessary Existent, God:
* The Soul and Its Faculties:
* Al-Ghazali
Sketch: Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon)
* The Great Conversation in the Islamic World
15. Anselm and Aquinas: Existence and Essence in God and the World
Anselm: On That, Than Which No Greater Can Be Conceived
The Transfer of Learning
Thomas Aquinas: Rethinking Aristotle
Sketch: Averro:es, the Commentator
Philosophy and Theology:
From Creation to God:
The Nature of God:
Humans: Their Souls:
Humans: Their Knowledge:
Humans: Their Good:
Ockham and Skeptical Doubts--Again
16. From Medieval to Modern Europe
The World God Made for Us
Reforming the Church
Revolutions
Humanism:
Skeptical Thoughts Revived:
Copernicus to Kepler to Galileo: The Great Triple Play:
The Counter-Reformation
17. René Descartes: Doubting Our Way to Certainty
The Method
Meditations on First Philosophy (each Meditation is followed by Commentary and Questions):
Meditation I
Meditation II
Meditation III
Meditation IV
Meditation V
Meditation VI
What Has Descartes Done?
A New Ideal for Knowledge:
A New Vision of Reality:
Problems:
The Place of Humans in the World of Nature:
The Mind and the Body:
God and the Problem of Skepticism:
The Preeminence of Epistemology:
18. Hobbes, Locke, and Berkeley: Materialism and the Beginnings of Empiricism
Thomas Hobbes: Catching Persons in the Net of the New Science
Method:
Minds and Motives:
* Sketch: Margaret Cavendish
* Sketch: Francis Bacon
The Natural Foundation of Moral Rules:
John Locke: Looking to Experience
Origin of Ideas:
Idea of the Soul:
Idea of Personal Identity:
Language and Essence:
The Extent of Knowledge:
Of Representative Government:
Of Toleration:
George Berkeley: Ideas into Things
Abstract Ideas:
Ideas and Things:
God:
19. David Hume: Unmasking the Pretensions of Reason
How Newton Did It
* Profile: Émilie du Chåtelet
To Be the Newton of Human Nature
The Theory of Ideas
The Association of Ideas
Causation: The Very Idea
The Disappearing Self
Rescuing Human Freedom
Is It Reasonable to Believe in God?
Understanding Morality
Reason Is Not a Motivator:
The Origins of Moral Judgment:
Is Hume a Skeptic?
20. Immanuel Kant: Rehabilitating Reason (within Strict Limits)
Critique
Judgments
Geometry, Mathematics, Space, and Time
Common Sense, Science, and the a Priori Categories
Phenomena and Noumena
Sketch: Baruch Spinoza
Sketch: Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz
Reasoning and the Ideas of Metaphysics: God, World, and Soul
The Soul:
The World and the Free Will:
God:
The Ontological Argument:
Reason and Morality
The Good Will:
The Moral Law:
Sketch: Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Autonomy:
Freedom:
21. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Taking History Seriously
Historical and Intellectual Context
The French Revolution:
The Romantics:
Epistemology Internalized
Sketch: Arthur Schopenhauer
Self and Others
Stoic and Skeptical Consciousness
Hegel's Analysis of Christianity
Reason and Reality: The Theory of Idealism
Spirit Made Objective: The Social Character of Ethics
History and Freedom
22. Kierkegaard and Marx: Two Ways to "Correct" Hegel
Kierkegaard: On Individual Existence
The Aesthetic:
The Ethical:
The Religious:
The Individual:
Marx: Beyond Alienation and Exploitation
Alienation, Exploitation, and Private Property:
Communism:
23. Moral and Political Reformers: The Happiness of All, including Women
The Classic Utilitarians
Profile: Peter Singer
The Rights of Women
24. Friedrich Nietzsche: The Value of Existence
Pessimism and Tragedy
Good-bye Real World
The Death of God
Revaluation of Values
Master Morality/Slave Morality:
Profile: Iris Murdoch
Our Morality:
The Overman
Affirming Eternal Recurrence
25. The Pragmatists: Thought and Action
Charles Sanders Peirce
Fixing Belief:
Belief and Doubt:
Truth and Reality:
Meaning:
Signs:
John Dewey
The Impact of Darwin:
Naturalized Epistemology:
Sketch: William James
Nature and Natural Science:
Value Naturalized:
26. Ludwig Wittgenstein: Linguistic Analysis and Ordinary Language
Language and Its Logic
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus:
Sketch: Bertrand Russell
Picturing:
Thought and Language:
Logical Truth:
Saying and Showing:
Setting the Limit to Thought:
Value and the Self:
Good and Evil, Happiness and Unhappiness:
The Unsayable:
Profile: The Logical Positivists
Philosophical Investigations
Philosophical Illusion:
Language-Games:
Naming and Meaning:
Family Resemblances:
The Continuity of Wittgenstein's Thought
Profile: Zen
Our Groundless Certainty
27. Martin Heidegger: The Meaning of Being
What Is the Question?
The Clue
Phenomenology
Being-in-the-World
The "Who" of Dasein
Modes of Disclosure
Attunement:
Understanding:
Discourse:
Falling-Away
Idle Talk:
Curiosity:
Ambiguity:
Care
Death
Conscience, Guilt, and Resoluteness
Temporality as the Meaning of Care
28. Simone de Beauvoir: Existentialist, Feminist
Ambiguity
Profile: Jean-Paul Sartre
Ethics
Woman
29. Postmodernism: Derrida, Foucault, and Rorty
Deconstruction: Jacques Derrida
Writing, Iterability, Différance:
Deconstructing a Text:
Knowledge and Power: Michel Foucault
Archaeology of Knowledge:
Genealogy:
Liberal Irony: Richard Rorty
Contingency, Truth, and Antiessentialism:
Liberalism and the Hope of Solidarity:
Relativism:
30. Physical Realism and the Mind: Quine, Dennett, Searle, Nagel, Jackson, and Chalmers
Science, Common Sense, and Metaphysics: Willard van Orman Quine
Holism:
Ontological Commitment:
Natural Knowing:
The Matter of Minds
Intentionality:
Intentional Systems: Daniel Dennett:
The Chinese Room: John Searle:
Consciousness: Nagel, Jackson, Chalmers:
Afterword:
Appendix: Writing a Philosophy Paper:
Glossary:
Credits:
Index:
About the Author :
Norman Melchert is Selfridge Professor of Philosophy Emeritus and a former Acting Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Lehigh University. He is the author of Who's to Say? A Dialogue on Relativism (1994) and numerous journal articles.
David R. Morrow is a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at George Mason University. College. He is the coauthor of A Workbook for Arguments, Second Edition (2015) and numerous papers in applied ethics.
Review :
"The Great Conversation is the best introductory text I have come across in twenty-five years of teaching. It's an extremely useful and insightful book with a particularly appropriate balance of depth and breadth. The writing style is easily accessible without sacrificing clarity and specificity."--Douglas Howie, North Lake College
"Both my students and I enjoy the integration of philosophy outside of typical Western thought. The writing is easily understood by introductory students who normally don't have a background in the material."--Susan M. Mullican, University of Southern Mississippi, Gulf Coast Campus
"The Great Conversation is a solid introduction. More than other texts, it takes the time in plain English to flesh out important concepts. It also tells a tight story, with the chapters building on one another, which is useful for introducing students to philosophical thinking."--Eric Boynton, Allegheny College
"The chapters on classical Chinese philosophy, with selections from numerous texts and figures, are a welcome addition. Giving students exposure to non-Western traditions of thought at the introductory level provides them with a more expansive sense of the range and possibility of philosophical thought."--Hagop Sarkissian, Baruch College and The City University of New York Graduate Center
