Issues in Philosophy An Introduction, 2nd Edition

by Pinchin, Calvin Lewis

• ISBN13: 9781403933959
• ISBN10: 1403933952
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-03-02
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

This substantially revised and updated edition of Calvin Pinchin's balanced and lucid introductory guide to philosophy is organized around the key areas students will cover, including: Theory of Knowledge; Ethics; Social and Political Philosophy; Philosophy of Religion; Philosophy of Mind; and--new for this edition--Philosophy of Science.

Author Biography

Calvin Pinchin teaches philosophy at St David's College, Llandudno, and is also AQA's Principal Examiner for A level Philosophy.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Perception and Knowledge	1	(49)
Epistemological theories	1	(4)
Descartes' Rationalism	5	(6)
Hume's theory of knowledge	11	(9)
Russell's Problems of Philosophy	20	(18)
A. J. Ayer's Language, Truth and Logic	38	(7)
The concept of knowledge	45	(5)
Problems in the Philosophy of Mind	50	(80)
Cartesian Dualism	50	(9)
Physicalism	59	(15)
Persons	74	(2)
The problem of other minds	76	(6)
Behaviourism	82	(7)
Freud and psychoanalysis	89	(6)
The problem of free will and determinism	95	(6)
The philosophy of the social sciences	101	(10)
Artificial intelligence	111	(2)
Searle and the systems reply	113	(8)
Personal identity	121	(9)
The Philosophy of Religion	130	(51)
Introductory remarks; the concept of God	130	(5)
Arguments for the existence of God	135	(22)
Problems facing the religious believer	157	(16)
The concept of faith	173	(5)
Verificationism and religious language	178	(3)
An Introduction to Ethics	181	(74)
Plato's ethical theory	182	(9)
Aristotle: the Nicomachean Ethics	191	(15)
Utilitarianism	206	(15)
Deontological ethics	221	(3)
The emotive theory of ethics	224	(5)
Richard Hare and prescriptivism	229	(14)
Moral principles and behaviour	243	(3)
Jean-Paul Sartre and existentialism	246	(9)
Social and Political Philosophy	255	(32)
Introduction to social and political philosophy	255	(14)
Images of society	269	(18)
The Philosophy of Science	287	(47)
Introduction	287	(4)
Deducibility	291	(5)
Laws of nature and accidental generalisations	296	(2)
Natural necessity	298	(2)
Hume on necessary connection	300	(4)
Hume's problem of induction	304	(1)
Science and discovery	305	(2)
Mill's canons of inductive inference	307	(4)
Science and conjecture	311	(10)
Realist and non-realist theories of science	321	(10)
A note on objectivity	331	(3)
Questions	334	(5)
Notes	339	(6)
Bibliography	345	(3)
Name Index	348	(2)
Subject and Concept Index	350