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Print Price: $189.99

Format:
Hardback
672 pp.
54 illus., 239 mm x 196 mm

ISBN-13:
9780195139839

Copyright Year:
2005

Imprint: OUP US

Philosophical Questions

Readings and Interactive Guides

James Fieser and Norman Lillegard

In Philosophical Questions: Readings and Interactive Guides, James Fieser and Norman Lillegard make classic and contemporary philosophical writings genuinely accessible to students by incorporating numerous pedagogical aids throughout the book. Presenting the readings in manageable segments, they provide commentaries that elucidate difficult passages, explain archaic or technical terminology, and expand upon allusions to unfamiliar literature and arguments. In addition, "First Reactions" discussion questions, study questions, logic boxes, and chapter summaries require students to delve more deeply into important issues and to reconstruct arguments in their own words. Some study questions test for minimal comprehension, while others are designed to provoke analysis and independent philosophical reflection. This extensive pedagogical support enables students to more easily comprehend and engage with challenging material by establishing an interactive dialogue with the philosophers.
This topically organized anthology and textbook includes numerous excerpts from contemporary philosophers, as well as from Western classics and major Eastern texts, encouraging students to explore connections between works from the Western and Eastern traditions and from different time periods. Topics covered include the philosophy of religion; human nature and the self; souls, minds, bodies, and machines; epistemology; ethics; and political philosophy.
A glossary, portraits of philosophers, title pages of famous works, and thirteen specially commissioned cartoons are also included. Philosophical Questions: Readings and Interactive Guides is a rich and flexible volume ideal for introduction to philosophy courses. An Instructor's Manual with Test Questions will be available to adopters of the book. In addition, a Companion Website accompanies the book.

Preface for the Instructor:
1. INTRODUCING THE BOOK
A. Philosophical Questions and Wonder
B. Features of This Book
C. A Little Logic
2. THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
A. Challenges to Religious Belief
1. David Hume: The Irrationality of Believing in Miracles
2. Karl Marx: Religion as the Opium of the Masses
3. Friedrich Nietzsche: The Death of God
B. The Problem of Evil
1. Fyodor Dostoevsky: God and Human Suffering
2. John L. Mackie: The Logical Problem of Evil
3. William Rowe: The Logical Problem of Evil Challenged
4. John Hick: A Soul-Making Theodicy
C. Mysticism and Religious Experience
1. Hindu Mysticism
2. William James: The Limited Authority of Mystical Experiences
3. Bertrand Russell: The Untrustworthiness of Mystical Experiences
4. Richard Swinburne: The Trustworthiness of Religious Experiences
D. The Ontological Argument for God's Existence
1. Anselm's Proofs
2. Gaunilo, Aquinas, and Kant: Against the Ontological Argument
E. The Cosmological Argument for God's Existence
1. Aquinas's Proofs
2. Clarke's Proof and Hume's Criticisms
F. The Design Argument for God's Existence
1. David Hume: Against the Design Argument
2. William Paley: The Design Argument Revisited
3. Charles Darwin: Evolution and the Design Argument
4. Robin Collins: The Fine-Tuning Argument
G. Faith and Rationality
1. Blaise Pascal: Waging on Belief in God
2. William James: The Will to Believe
3. Alvin Plantinga and Jay Van Hook: Can We Know God Without Arguments?
3. HUMAN NATURE AND THE SELF
A. Determinism Versus Free Will
1. Baron d'Holbach: The Case for Determinism
2. David Hume: Compatibilism
3. Thomas Reid: In Defense of Free Will
4. Richard Taylor: Determinism, Indeterminism, and Agency
5. Harry Frankfurt: Determinism and Second-Order Desires
B. Identity and Survival
1. Buddhism: No-Self and Transmigration of the Soul
2. David Hume: The Self as a Bundle of Perceptions
3. Terence Penelhum: Identity and Survival
C. The Self as Active Being
1. Søren Kierkegaard: The Self as Spirit
2. Karl Marx: The Self as Worker
3. Friedrich Nietzsche: The Self as the Will to Power
4. Martin Heidegger: The Self as Being Toward Death
D. The Self Connected with a Larger Reality
1. Hindu Upanishads: The Self-God
2. Chuang-tzu: The Way of Nature
3. Arne Naess: The Ecological Self
4. Charles Darwin: Human Beings as Evolved Animals
4. SOULS, MINDS, BODIES, AND MACHINES
A. Ancient Western Views on Body, Soul, and Mind
1. Materialism, Atoms, and Sensation: Democritus and Lucretius
2. Body and Soul: Plato
3. Soul as Form of the Body: Aristotle
B. Classic Hindu Views on Soul, Self, and God
1. Katha Upanishad: The Outer Empirical Self and the Inner Self-God
2. Sankara: Strict Monism
3. Ramanuja: Qualified Monism
C. Modern Views on Mind and Body
1. René Descartes: Mental and Physical Substance
2. Anne Conway: The Mixture of Body and Soul
3. Benedict Spinoza and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Idealist Monism and Parallelism
D. Twentieth-Century Views on Mind and Body
1. Gilbert Ryle: Logical Behaviorism
2. J.J.C. Smart and Paul Churchland: Mind-Brain Identity and Eliminative Materialism
3. Jerry Fodor: Functionalism
E. Intentionality
1. Franz Brentano: Intentionality as the Mark of the Mental
2. Daniel Dennett: Kinds of Intentional Psychology
F. Minds and Machines
1. Thomas Huxley: Humans as Machines
2. Ludwig Wittgenstein and Paul Ziff: Reminders About Machines and Thinking
3. John Searle: Minds, Brains, and the Chinese Room Argument
4. William G. Lycan: A Reply to Searle
5. John Haugeland: Natural Languages, AI, and Existential Holism
5. EPISTEMOLOGY
A. Skepticism and Certainty
1. Chuang-tzu: The Relativity of All Things
2. Sextus Empiricus: The Goals and Methods of Skepticism
3. René Descartes: Dreams, Illusions, and the Evil Genius
4. David Hume: Skepticism About the External World
5. David Hume and Peter Strawson: The Problem of Induction
B. Sources of Knowledge: Rationalism and Empiricism
1. Plato: Knowledge Does Not Come from the Senses
2. John Locke: All Knowledge Derives from the Senses
3. John Searle: The Nature of Perception
C. A Priori Knowledge
1. David Hume: The Fork
2. Immanuel Kant: Analytic and Synthetic Judgments
3. Willard Van Orman Quine: One Dogma of Empiricism
D. Foundationalism and Coherence
1. René Descartes and John Locke: Foundationalism
2. Jonathan Dancy: Knowledge and Coherence
3. Ernest Sosa: The Raft Versus the Pyramid
E. Problems with Justified Belief
1. Edmund Gettier: True Belief Is Not Sufficient for Knowledge
2. Alvin Plantinga: Justification, Internalism, and Warrant
3. Keith Lehrer: Naturalist Externalism Versus Internalism
4. Linda Zagzebski: Justified Belief and Intellectual Virtues
F. The Social Construction of Knowledge
1. Thomas Kuhn: Social Factors in the Development of Knowledge and Science
2. Lorraine Code: Epistemology and the Sex of the Knower
3. Alan Sokal: Confusions in Constructivist Views
6. ETHICS
A. Are Moral Values Objective?
1. Plato: Morality Grounded in Unchanging Spiritual Forms
2. Sextus, Montaigne, and Mackie: Moral Relativism
3. James Rachels: The Case Against Moral Relativism
B. Can Human Conduct Be Selfless?
1. Mencius and Hsun-tzu: Whether Human Nature Is Inherently Good or Evil
2. Thomas Hobbes: The Selfish Origins of Pity and Charity
3. Joseph Butler: Love of Others Not Opposed to Self-Love
4. Edward O. Wilson: Altruism and Sociobiology
C. Reason and Moral Judgments
1. David Hume and John Searle: Can We Derive Ought from Is?
2. Alfred Jules Ayer: Expressing Feelings
3. Kurt Baier: Morality and the Best Reasons
D. Gender and Morality
1. Mary Wollstonecraft: Rational Morality for Men and Women
2. Carol Gilligan: Uniquely Female Morality
E. Virtues
1. Aristotle: Virtue and Happiness
2. Alasdair MacIntyre: Traditions and Virtues
F. Duties
1. Samuel Pufendorf: Duties to God, Oneself, and Others
2. Immanuel Kant: The Categorical Imperative
3. William D. Ross: Prima Facie Duties
4. Kant and Regan: Duties Toward Animals
G. Pleasure and Consequences
1. Epicurus: Hedonistic Ethical Egoism
2. Jeremy Bentham: Utilitarian Calculus
3. John Stuart Mill: Utilitarianism and Higher Pleasures
7. POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
A. Anarchism
1. Chuang-tzu: Governments Contrary to the Way of Nature
2. Errico Malatesta: An Argument for Anarchy
3. Robert Paul Wolff: The Conflict Between Authority and Autonomy
B. Sources of Political Authority
1. Samuel Pufendorf: Natural Law
2. Thomas Hobbes: The Social Contract
3. John Locke: Natural Rights
C. Liberalism and Communitarianism
1. John Rawls: Justice in the Original Position
2. Robert Nozick: Libertarianism
3. Michael J. Sandel: Communitarianism
D. Virtuous Leadership
1. Confucianism: Virtuous Leaders at the Root of Good Government
2. Plato: The Philosopher King
3. Niccoló Machiavelli: Political Survival
E. Limits of Political Coercion
1. Cesare Beccaria: The Limited Purpose of Punishment
2. John Stuart Mill: Preserving Individual Liberty
3. Joel Feinberg: Offense to Others
F. Civil Obedience, Disobedience, and Revolution
1. Plato: Obedience to the State
2. Martin Luther King: Civil Disobedience
3. John Locke: A Defense of Revolution
Glossary:
Works Cited:
Illustration Acknowledgments:
Index:

There are no Instructor/Student Resources available at this time.

Norman Lillegard is at University of Tennessee at Martin.

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