The Experience of Philosophy

by Kolak, Daniel; Martin, Raymond

• ISBN13: 9780195156546
• ISBN10: 0195156544
• Edition: 4th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-08-07
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This exceptional anthology immerses students in such powerful ideas that they will find themselves not just reading about, but actually participating in, the kind of philosophieal thinking that can change the way they look at their lives and the world around them. Now in a new edition, The Experience of Philosophy features eighty-five readings that challenge students thinking about God, freedom, reality, nothingness, death, and their own identities. Provocative and accessible, these selections have been carefully chosen for their ability to draw students out of an ordinary frame of reference into exciting new territory. Although the editors include many classic sources from philosophers such as Plato, Descartes, Locke, and Kant, the emphasis is on contemporary writings. Articles by Derek Parfit, Bertrand Russell, and others help students see philosophy's links to literature. the natural sciences. and the physical and social sciences. The sixth edition features twelve new essays-by Augustine. Alvin Plantinga and Daniel Kolak, Georges Rey, Fred Dretske, David Reisman, Paul Teller, Clea F. Rees. Padmasiri de Silva. Daniel Kolak, Karl Marx, Anand Chandavarkar, and Vincent Hendricks-and more text boxes offering excerpts from other relevant works.

Author Biography

Daniel Kolak is Professor of Philosophy at William Paterson University of New Jersey Raymond Martin is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Union College

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xi
Beginning Philosophy	p. 1
"The Trial of Socrates"	p. 2
Box: "God's Commands and Man's Duties"	p. 6
"Obedience to Authority"	p. 22
Box: "Morality, Obedience, and Religion"	p. 27
Where and When	p. 31
"Flatland"	p. 32
"The Incredible Shrinking Zeno"	p. 48
"Where Am I?"	p. 62
Box: "What It Is to Be a Subject"	p. 67
"On the Idea of Time in Physics"	p. 71
Box: "What Time Is It on Mars?"	p. 73
"Time Travel: The Rules of the Road"	p. 75
Who	p. 85
"The Man Who Mistook Himself for the World"	p. 86
Box: "The Liar Fears the Void"	p. 89
"On Having No Self"	p. 94
Box: "Nirvana"	p. 95
Box: "Nirvana"	p. 96
"On Self and Substance"	p. 97
"Personal Identity"	p. 106
"Personal Identity"	p. 113
"Critique of Locke and Hume on Behalf of Common Sense"	p. 117
Box: "Narration and Personal Identity"	p. 122
"Personal Identity from Plato to Parfit"	p. 124
"Trans or Me?"	p. 139
Box: "Patriarchy"	p. 141
Freedom	p. 147
"Freedom of the Will"	p. 148
"The Illusion of Free Will"	p. 152
"Liberty and Necessity"	p. 158
Box: "The Self and Free Will"	p. 161
"The Dilemma of Determinism"	p. 169
Box: "Be Master of Yourself"	p. 171
"Free Will"	p. 177
"Freedom and Determinism"	p. 183
Box: "Defense of Leopold and Loeb"	p. 187
"Existentialism and Human Freedom"	p. 193
Knowledge	p. 199
"Knowledge"	p. 200
"Meditations"	p. 223
Box: "The Chastity of the Intellect: Santayana's Blessing"	p. 225
"Where Our Ideas Come From"	p. 232
"To Be Is to Be Perceived"	p. 235
"Perception, Knowledge, and Induction"	p. 240
Box: "Sexy Epistemology"	p. 243
"The Infinite Regress of Reasons"	p. 254
God	p. 261
"The Ontological Argument"	p. 262
Box: "Existence Is Not a Predicate"	p. 264
"The Five Ways and the Doctrine of Analogy"	p. 265
"The Wager"	p. 268
Box: "Proving God"	p. 270
"The Ethics of Belief"	p. 271
Box: "Religion as Wish Fulfillment"	p. 273
Box: "The Opium of the People"	p. 275
"The Will to Believe"	p. 277
Box: "On the Ultimate Insecurity"	p. 278
Box: "On the Corpse of a Buddha, Religion Stands"	p. 278
Box: "The History of Mysticism"	p. 281
"God and Evil"	p. 283
Box: "A World Without Suffering and Misfortune"	p. 285
Box: "Abraham and Isaac"	p. 287
Box: "Mystical Experience vs. Religious Visions"	p. 288
"Must God Create the Best?"	p. 290
Box: "God's Compassion"	p. 292
"The Elusive Messiah"	p. 298
Box: "The Historian as Philosopher"	p. 301
Box: "Historical Method in the Study of Religion"	p. 304
Box: "Lucky to Be Born into the True Religion?"	p. 306
"Philosophy, the Bible, and God: A Debate"	p. 308
Box: "The Pope Against Women Priests"	p. 315
"Religion from an African Perspective"	p. 325
"Does Anyone Really Believe in God?"	p. 335
Reality	p. 355
"Causation, Reality, and Fiction"	p. 356
"Considerations on the Universe as a Whole"	p. 361
Box: "Theory of Everything but Snowflakes"	p. 363
"Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus"	p. 365
"Fiction"	p. 368
Box: "Schizophrenia with a Vengeance"	p. 370
"Quantum Cosmology, the Anthropic Principle, and Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?"	p. 372
Box: "The First Hundredth of a Second"	p. 374
Box: "Is the Universe a Free Lunch?"	p. 375
Box: "On Hume and Quantum Mechanics"	p. 376
Box: "On Philosophy"	p. 379
Box: "On Kant and Comprehensibility"	p. 381
Box: "Grand Unification Theories (GUTs) and the End of the World"	p. 382
Box: "On Wittgenstein, Philosophy, and God"	p. 388
Box: "On Bohr, Philosophy, and Meaning"	p. 389
Box: "The Anthropic Principle"	p. 392
"The Puzzle of Reality: Why Does the Universe Exist?"	p. 396
Box: "Mind and Physics"	p. 399
Box: "Cosmic Religious Feeling"	p. 401
Experience	p. 405
"Of Sense and Imagination"	p. 406
"Experience and Understanding"	p. 409
"The Senses"	p. 419
"Percepts and Concepts"	p. 422
"How Do You Know That You Are Not a Zombie?"	p. 434
"A Simple Guide to Contemporary Philosophy of Mind"	p. 444
"Sartre on Consciousness and the Body: The Look"	p. 459
Consciousness	p. 465
"The Selfish Gene"	p. 466
Box: "The Self as Community"	p. 469
"The Story of a Brain"	p. 471
"What Is It Like to Be a Bat?"	p. 477
"Epiphenomenal Qualia"	p. 484
"Reduction, Qualia, and the Direct Introspection of Brain States"	p. 486
"Subjectivity"	p. 494
Death	p. 497
"Death and Immortality"	p. 498
Box: "Plato's Legacy"	p. 499
Box: "The Truth About the Soul"	p. 502
Box: "The Cartesian Assumption"	p. 504
"Of the Immortality of the Soul"	p. 506
"Survival of Bodily Death: A Question of Values"	p. 510
Box: "Remembrances of Past Lives"	p. 514
Box: "Karmic Tribulations"	p. 515
Box: "Beyond Death"	p. 517
Box: "What I Saw When I Was Dead"	p. 520
Box: "Resurrection"	p. 523
"Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity"	p. 526
Box: "Why Are Traces Important?"	p. 529
Box: "The Evil of Death"	p. 530
Box: "A Tibetan Buddhist Experience of Death"	p. 532
"The Wine Is in the Glass"	p. 535
Meaning	p. 539
"My Confession"	p. 540
"The Myth of Sisyphus"	p. 546
Box: "Values"	p. 549
"Is Life Meaningful?"	p. 550
"A Fast Car and a Good Woman"	p. 556
Box: "Death"	p. 559
Box: "Truth Be a Woman"	p. 560
Ethics	p. 565
"The Categorical Imperative"	p. 566
Box: "What Is in Our Power"	p. 568
"Utilitarianism"	p. 570
"The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn"	p. 574
"Reclaiming the Conscience of Huckleberry Finn"	p. 581
"Buddhist Ethics"	p. 592
"Morality and the Problem of the Other: From Sidgwick to Rawls and Parfit"	p. 604
Values and Society	p. 631
"The Myth of Gyges's Ring"	p. 632
"Virtue and Character"	p. 636
Box: "On Egoism"	p. 641
"The Rights of Women"	p. 645
Box: "Feminism"	p. 648
Box: "Female Subordination"	p. 651
"Beyond Good and Evil"	p. 652
Box: "Revolt"	p. 655
"Intrinsic Value"	p. 658
"On Liberty"	p. 665
"Alienation and the Power of Money"	p. 675
"Philosophy and Economics: Issues and Questions"	p. 684
Epilogue: Inconclusive Philosophical Postscript	p. 701
"The Value of Philosophy"	p. 702
"A Portrait of the Philosopher as a Young Man"	p. 706
"On Becoming a Philosopher"	p. 706
"Feisty Fragments"	p. 707
Glossary	p. 709
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