The Philosophers Toolkit: A Compendium of Philosophical Concepts and Methods

by Julian Baggini (The Philosophers' Magazine); Peter S. Fosl (Transylvania University, Lexington)

• ISBN13: 9780631228745
• ISBN10: 0631228748
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-10-01
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

The Philosophers' Toolkit provides all the intellectual equipment necessary to engage with and participate in philosophical argument, reading and reflection. Each of its 87 entries explains how to use an important concept or argumentative technique accurately and effectively.

Author Biography

Julian Baggini is editor and co-publisher of The Philosophers' Magazine. He has written on philosophy for the general reader in The Independent, Independent on Sunday and Times Educational Supplement. His PhD was awarded by University College London in 1996.

Peter Fosl is Bingham Associate Professor of Philosophy and Program Chair at Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky. He serves as contributing editor to The Philosopher's Magazine. A graduate of Bucknell University and Emory University, Fosl also studied at the LSE and took a Fullbright Scholarship to the University of Edinburgh. He has published on Hume, scepticism and topics in the history of philosophy.

Table of Contents

Preface	viii
Acknowledgements	x
Basic Tools for Argument	1	(37)
Arguments, premises and conclusions	1	(4)
Deduction	5	(2)
Induction	7	(5)
Validity and soundness	12	(3)
Invalidity	15	(2)
Consistency	17	(4)
Fallacies	21	(3)
Refutation	24	(2)
Axioms	26	(2)
Definitions	28	(3)
Certainty and probability	31	(4)
Tautologies, self-contradictions and the law of non-contradiction	35	(3)
Further Tools for Arguments	38	(28)
Abduction	38	(3)
Hypothetico-deductive method	41	(2)
Dialectic	43	(3)
Analogies	46	(2)
Anomalies and exceptions that prove the rule	48	(3)
Intuition pumps	51	(2)
Logical constructions	53	(2)
Reduction	55	(3)
Thought experiments	58	(2)
Transcendental arguments	60	(3)
Useful fictions	63	(3)
Tools for Assessment	66	(67)
Alternative explanations	66	(2)
Ambiguity	68	(2)
Bivalence and the excluded middle	70	(2)
Category mistakes	72	(2)
Ceteris paribus	74	(2)
Circularity	76	(3)
Conceptual incoherence	79	(2)
Counterexamples	81	(3)
Criteria	84	(2)
Error theory	86	(2)
False dichotomy	88	(1)
Genetic fallacy	89	(3)
Horned dilemmas	92	(3)
Hume's Fork	95	(2)
Is/Ought gap	97	(3)
Leibniz's law of identity	100	(3)
Masked man fallacy	103	(2)
Ockham's Razor	105	(2)
Paradoxes	107	(3)
Partners in guilt	110	(2)
Principle of charity	112	(3)
Question-begging	115	(2)
Reductios	117	(2)
Redundancy	119	(1)
Regresses	120	(2)
Saving the phenomena	122	(2)
Self-defeating arguments	124	(3)
Sufficient reason	127	(2)
Testability	129	(4)
Tools for Conceptual Distinctions	133	(41)
A priori/A posteriori	133	(3)
Absolute/Relative	136	(3)
Analytic/Synthetic	139	(3)
Categorical/Modal	142	(1)
Conditional/Biconditional	143	(2)
Defeasible/Indefeasible	145	(1)
Entailment/Implication	146	(3)
Essence/Accident	149	(3)
Knowledge by acquaintance/description	152	(3)
Necessary/Contingent	155	(3)
Necessary/Sufficient	158	(2)
Objective/Subjective	160	(3)
Realist/Non-realist	163	(2)
Sense/Reference	165	(2)
Syntax/Semantics	167	(2)
Thick/Thin concepts	169	(2)
Types and tokens	171	(3)
Tools for Radical Critique	174	(21)
Class critique	174	(2)
Deconstruction and the critique of presence	176	(2)
Empiricist critique of metaphysics	178	(2)
Feminist critique	180	(2)
Foucaultian critique of power	182	(3)
Heideggerian critique of metaphysics	185	(2)
Lacanian critique	187	(2)
Nietzschean critique of Christian-Platonic culture	189	(2)
Pragmatist critique	191	(2)
Sartrean critique of `bad faith'	193	(2)
Tools at the Limit	195	(18)
Basic beliefs	195	(2)
Godel and incompleteness	197	(2)
Mystical experience and revelation	199	(2)
Possibility and impossibility	201	(2)
Primitives	203	(2)
Self-evident truths	205	(3)
Scepticism	208	(3)
Underdetermination	211	(2)
Internet Resources for Philosophers	213	(2)
Index	215