Exploring Philosophy : An Introductory Anthology

by Steven M. Cahn

• ISBN13: 9780195177626
• ISBN10: 0195177622
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2004-11-01
• Publisher: Oxford Univ Pr (Txt)

Summary

Exploring Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology, Second Edition, is a remarkably accessible and engaging introduction to philosophy. Steven M. Cahn brings together extraordinarily clear, recent essays by noted philosophers and supplements them with influential historical sources. Mostimportantly, the articles have been carefully edited to make them understandable to every reader. The topics are drawn from the major fields of philosophy and include knowledge and skepticism, freedom and determinism, mind and body, the existence of God, the problem of evil, cultural relativism,abortion, euthanasia, democracy, capital punishment, affirmative action, and the meaning of life. Exploring Philosophy, Second Edition, contains, in preeminent translations and with explanatory notes, the complete texts of Plato's Meno, Euthyphro, Defence of Socrates, and Crito as well as specially selected materials by Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Hume, Kant, and Mill. The secondedition has been expanded to present the material on knowledge and mind in two separate sections; the latter contains an essay on artificial intelligence by John Searle and updated selections on the mind-body problem by Thomas Nagel, Gilbert Ryle, and Richard Taylor. This edition also adds essays bySimon Blackburn, Martin Luther King, Jr., Norman Malcolm, and Robert McKim, and additional excerpts from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. An introduction to logic and scientific method and guiding commentary by the editor are also provided. Exploring Philosophy, Second Edition, is a landmarkcollection that enables all readers to appreciate for themselves the importance and fascination of philosophical inquiry.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction
What Is Philosophy?	3	(10)
Monroe C. Beardsley
Elizabeth Lane Beardsley
Historical Source
Defence of Socrates	13	(30)
Plato
Reasoning
The Scope of Logic	43	(7)
Wesley C. Salmon
Improving Your Thinking	50	(6)
Stephen F. Barker
Fixing Belief	56	(3)
Morris R. Cohen
Ernest Nagel
Testing Hypotheses	59	(4)
Steven M. Cahn
Patricia Kitcher
George Sher
Science and Common Sense	63	(8)
Ernest Nagel
Knowledge
Appearance and Reality	71	(3)
Bertrand Russell
What Can I Know?	74	(6)
D.Z. Phillips
Knowledge and Belief	80	(4)
Norman Malcolm
The Problem of Induction	84	(2)
Bertrand Russell
Will the Future Be Like the Past?	86	(5)
Frederick L. Will
Historical Sources
Meno	91	(34)
Plato
Meditations on First Philosophy	125	(4)
Rene Descartes
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding	129	(14)
David Hume
Mind
The Ghost in the Machine	143	(4)
Gilbert Ryle
The Mind as a Function of the Body	147	(7)
Richard Taylor
What Is It Like to Be a Bat?	154	(4)
Thomas Nagel
Do Computers Think?	158	(2)
John Searle
Free Will or Determinism?	160	(11)
Steven M. Cahn
Free Will and Determinism	171	(3)
W. T. Stace
Historical Source
Meditations on First Philosophy	174	(9)
Rene Descartes
God
Does God Exist?	183	(8)
Ernest Nagel
Why God Allows Evil	191	(11)
Richard Swinburne
Theology and Falsification	202	(4)
Antony Flew
Basil Mitchell
Do Miracles Occur?	206	(4)
Monroe C. Beardsley
Elizabeth Lane Beardsley
Pascal's Wager	210	(2)
Simon Blackburn
The Hiddenness of God	212	(6)
Robert McKim
Historical Sources
Euthyphro	218	(18)
Plato
Summa Theologiae	236	(3)
Saint Thomas Aquinas
Meditations on First Philosophy	239	(2)
Rene Descartes
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding	241	(10)
David Hume
Morality
The Challenge of Cultural Relativism	251	(11)
James Rachels
How Not to Answer Moral Questions	262	(4)
Tom Regan
The Nature of Ethical Disagreement	266	(5)
Charles L. Stevenson
A Supreme Moral Principle?	271	(5)
Steven M. Cahn
Abortion	276	(15)
Joel Feinberg
Giving Birth	291	(3)
Virginia Held
Active and Passive Euthanasia	294	(6)
James Rachels
Active and Passive Euthanasia: A Reply	300	(7)
Thomas D. Sullivan
Historical Sources
Nicomachean Ethics	307	(6)
Aristotle
Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals	313	(5)
Immanuel Kant
Utilitarianism	318	(9)
John Stuart Mill
Society
Democracy	327	(5)
John Dewey
Letter from a Birmingham Jail	332	(7)
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands	339	(5)
Michael Walzer
The Death Penalty	344	(2)
Burton Leiser
Capital Punishment	346	(15)
Hugo Adam Bedau
Two Concepts of Affirmative Action	361	(9)
Steven M. Cahn
Are Quotas Sometimes Justified?	370	(4)
James Rachels
What Is a Liberal Education?	374	(9)
Sidney Hook
Historical Sources
Crito	383	(13)
Plato
On Liberty	396	(13)
John Stuart Mill
Conclusion
The Meaning of Life	409	(8)
Richard Taylor
The Value of Philosophy	417	(4)
Bertrand Russell
Historical Source
Phaedo	421	(4)
Plato
Suggestions for Further Reading	425	(4)
Index	429