Philosophic Classics : From Plato to Derrida

by Baird, Forrest E.

• ISBN13: 9780130485618
• ISBN10: 0130485616
• Edition: 4th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-01-01
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Summary

For one-semester courses in Introduction to Philosophy, History of Philosophy, History of Philosophy survey, or History of Intellectual Thought. This anthology in the survey of Western philosophy, from the Ancient Greeks to the 20th-century, features the best available translations of textscomplete works or complete sections of works. Introductions to each historical period and to each philosopher, an abundance of drawings, diagrams, photographs, and a timeline help to keep students focused throughout.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Ancient Greek Philosophy	1	(244)
Plato	3	(140)
Euthyphro	8	(13)
Apology	21	(17)
Crito	38	(8)
Phaedo (72c-83c, 114e end)	46	(12)
Meno	58	(24)
Republic (Book II, 357a-362c, 368c-376c; Book III, 412b-417b; Book IV, c-448e; Book V, complete: 448e-480a; Book VI-VII, 502c-521b)	82	(61)
Aristotle	143	(102)
Categories (Chapters 1-5)	147	(5)
Physics (Book II complete)	152	(11)
Metaphysics (Bk I, 1-4, 6, 9; and XII, 6-9)	163	(16)
On the Soul (Book II, Chapters 1-3; III, 4-5)	179	(6)
Nichomachean Ethics (Bk I-II; VI-VII; X, 6-8)	185	(60)
Hellenistic Philosophy	245	(36)
Epicurus	248	(9)
Letter to Menoeceus	250	(4)
Principal Doctrines	254	(3)
Epictetus	257	(14)
Encheiridion (Manual)	259	(12)
Plotinus	271	(10)
Enneads (Ennead I, Tractate 6)	273	(8)
Christianity and Medieval Philosophy	281	(112)
Augustine	287	(29)
Confessions (Book VIII, 5, 8-12 and XI, 14-28)	290	(15)
City of God (Book XII, Chapters 1-9)	305	(11)
Boethius	316	(6)
The Consolation of Philosophy (Book V, Chapter 6)	318	(4)
Anselm (and Gaunilo)	322	(9)
Proslogion (Preface, Chapters 1-4)	324	(2)
Gaunilo and Anselm: Debate (Selections)	326	(5)
Hildegard of Bingen	331	(7)
Scivias (Book I, Vision 4, 16-20)	333	(5)
Moses Maimonides	338	(7)
The Guide for the Perplexed (Part II, Introduction)	340	(5)
Thomas Aquinas	345	(34)
Summa Theologica (Selections)	349	(30)
William of Ockham	379	(8)
Summa Logicae (Part I, Chapters 14-16)	382	(5)
Pico Della Mirandola	387	(6)
Oration on the Dignity of Man (1-7)	389	(4)
Modern Philosophy	393	(536)
Rene Descartes	395	(52)
Meditations on the First Philosophy	399	(44)
Correspondence with Princess Elizabeth (selections)	443	(4)
Thomas Hobbes	447	(42)
Leviathan (selections from Chapters 1-3, 6, 9, 12-15, 17-18, 21)	450	(39)
Blaise Pascal	489	(9)
Pensees (selections)	492	(6)
Baruch Spinoza	498	(54)
Ethics (Sections I & II)	500	(52)
John Locke	552	(57)
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (abridged)	554	(55)
Gottfried Leibniz	609	(40)
Discourse on Metaphysics	612	(28)
The Monadology	640	(9)
George Berkeley	649	(62)
Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous	652	(59)
David Hume	711	(80)
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding	714	(77)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau	791	(12)
The Social Contract (Book I)	794	(9)
Immanuel Kant	803	(119)
Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics	807	(72)
Foundation for the Metaphysics of Morals	879	(43)
Mary Wollstonecraft	922	(7)
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Chapter 6)	924	(5)
Nineteenth-Century Philosophy	929	(134)
G. W. F. Hagel	931	(12)
Phenomenology of Spirit (B, IV, A: ``Independence and Dependence of Self-Consciousness: Relations of Master and Servant'')	934	(6)
Who Thinks Abstractly?	940	(3)
John Stuart Mill	943	(42)
Utilitarianism	946	(39)
Søren Kiergegaard	985	(23)
Fear and Trembling (Problema I: ``Teleological Suspention of the Ethical'')	989	(8)
Concluding Unscientific Postscript (Section II, Chapter 2, ``Subjective Truth, Inwardness: Truth Is Subjectivity'')	997	(11)
Karl Marx	1008	(23)
Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1894 (``Alienated Labor'')	1011	(9)
Manifesto of the Communist Party (Chapters 1, 2, 4)	1020	(10)
A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (Preface)	1030	(1)
Friedrich Nietzsche	1031	(32)
The Birth of Tragedy (Chapters 1-3)	1035	(6)
Thus Spoke Zarathustra (First Part, 1-3)	1041	(3)
Twilight of the Idols (Selections)	1044	(16)
The Anti-Christ (First Book, 2-7, 62)	1060	(3)
Twentieth-Century Philosophy	1063
Edmund Husserl	1067
Phenomenology (Encyclopaedia Brittanica article)	1070
Bertrand Russell	1078
The Problems of Philosophy (Chapters 1 & 15)	1081
Martin Heidegger	1090
An Introduction to Metaphysics (Chapter 1: ``The Fundamental Question of Metaphysics'')	1095
Ludwig Wittgenstein	1121
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Sections 1-3.1431,4, 4.06, 4.1, 5, 5.6, 6.4-7)	1121
Philosophical Investigations (Paragraphs 1-47, 65-71, 241, 257-58, 305, 309)	1133
Jean-Paul Sartre	1150
Being and Nothingness (Chapter 2: ``Bad Faith'' [selections])	1154
Existentialism Is a Humanism (Selections)	1169
Willard Van Orman Quine	1176
Two Dogmas of Empiricism	1179
Jacques Derrida	1194
Signature, Event, Context	1198

Excerpts

There is no better introduction to philosophy than to read some of the great philosophers. But few books are more difficult to read than Aristotle'sMetaphysicsor Spinoza'sEthics.Even works that are less puzzling are sometimes like snippets of a conversation that you overhear on entering a room: What is said is clear, only you cannot be sure you have got the point because you do not know just what has gone before. A slight point may be crucial to refute some earlier suggestion, and a seemingly pointless remark may contain a barbed allusion. As a result of this difficulty, some students of philosophy cry out for a simple summary of the "central doctrines" of the great philosophers. Yet carving up great books to excerpt essential doctrines is one of the greatest sins against the spirit of philosophy. If the reading of a whole Platonic dialogue leaves one more doubtful and less sure of oneself than the perusal of a brief summary, so much the better. It is part of the point of philosophy to make us a little less sure about things. After all, Socrates himself insisted that what distinguished him from other persons was not that he knew all, or even most, answers but rather that he realized his ignorance. Still, one need not despair of joining this ongoing conversation. In the first place, you can get in near the beginning of this conversation by starting with Plato and moving on from there. Given that they are over two thousand years old, his early dialogues are surprisingly easy to follow. The later Platonic dialogues, Aristotle, and much which follows will be more difficult, but by that point you will have some idea of what the conversation is about. Secondly, the structure of this book is designed to make this conversation accessible. There are section introductions and introductions to' the individual philosophers. These latter introductions are divided into three sections: (1) biographical (a glimpse of the life), (2) philosophical (a resume of the philosopher's thought), and (3) bibliographical (suggestions for further reading). To give a sense of the development of ideas, there are short representative passages from some of the less important, but transitional, thinkers. To make all the works more readable, most footnotes treating textual matters (variant readings, etc.) have been omitted and all Greek words have been transliterated and put in angle brackets. My goal throughout this volume is to be unobtrusive and allow you to hear, and perhaps join in, the ongoing conversation that is Western philosophy. For this edition a number of small changes have been made including the addition of selections from Hildegard of Bingen, Descartes' correspondence with Princess Elizabeth, Rousseau, Wollstonecraft, and additional material from Plato, Anselm, and Locke. The translations of Plato'sApology and Crito,Plotinus'sEnneads,Anselm'sProslogion,Marx'sEconomic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844,and Martin Hiedegger'sIntroduction to Metaphysicshave also been changed. Throughout the editing of this edition, I have tried to follow the same three principles I used in the individual volumes of thePhilosophic Classicsseries: (1) to use complete works or, where more appropriate, complete sections of works (2) in clear translations (3) of texts central to the thinker's philosophy or widely accepted as part of the "canon." Those who use this volume in a one-term introduction to philosophy, history of philosophy, or history of intellectual thought course will find more material here than can easily fit a normal semester. But this embarrassment of riches gives teachers some choice and, for those who offer the same course year after year, an opportunity to change the menu.