Introduction
Song Lyrics and Movie Titles
Guide to Critical Thinking and Logic
PROLOGUE: PHILOSOPHY
Plato, The Allegory of the Cave
Bertrand Russell, The Value of Philosophy
Jiddu Krishnamurti, The Function of Education
Steven Pinker, The Doctrine of the Blank Slate
Plato, Apology
1. KNOWLEDGE
Plato, What Is Knowledge? (from Theaetetus)
René Descartes, Knowledge Beyond a Doubt (Meditations on First Philosophy)
George Berkeley, Three Dialogues
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Bertrand Russell, Appearance and Reality
Lorraine Code, The Sex of the Knower: What Can She Know?
2. SELF, MIND, AND SOUL
THE SELF
David Hume, There is no Self (A Treatise of Human Nature)
Daniel Dennett, Where am I?
Serge-Christophe Kolm The Buddhist Theory of ‘No-Self’
MIND AND SOUL
René Descartes , Meditations on First Philosophy
John Searle, The Mind-Body Problem
Thomas Nagel, What is it Like to Be a Bat?
Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind: “Descartes’ Myth”
J. J. C. Smart, Sensations and Brain Processes
3. SCIENCE
Wesley Salmon,
An Encounter With David Hume Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Paul Feyerabend, How to Defend Society Against Science
Paul R. Thagard, Why Astrology Is a Pseudoscience
Richard Dawkins, What is True?
Helen Longino, Subjects, Power, and Knowledge: Description and Prescription in Feminist Philosophies of Science
4. GOD & CREATION
Thomas Aquinas, The Five Proofs of God (Summa Theologiae)
Anselm of Canterbury, The Ontological Argument (Proslogion)
Flew, Hare, Mitchell, Theology and Falification
Ramakrishna, Many Paths to the Same Summit
CREATIONISM AND EVOLUTION
David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
William Paley, The Watchmaker (from Natural Theology)
Harris and Calvert, Intelligent Design: The Scientific Alternative to Evolution
Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker
Philip Kitcher, Believing Where We Cannot Prove
5. THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEM OF EVIL
J. L. Mackie, Evil and Omnipotence
John Hick, The Problem of Evil (The Philosophy of Religion)
6. FAITH AND REASON
Blaise Pascal, The Wager (Pensées)
Søren Kierkegaard, The Leap of Faith
W. K. Clifford, The Ethics of Belief
William James, The Will to Believe
Steven Pinker, Whence Religious Belief?
7. EASTERN THOUGHT
Buddha, The Way, the Self, Evil, and Nirvana
Mahatma Gandhi, Selected Writings
Tao Te Ching, Selected Poems
8. FREE WILL
Richard Taylor, Freedom and Determinism (from Metaphysics)
Baron d’Holbach, The Illusion of Free Will (from System of Nature)
John Hospers, Meaning and Free Will
Robert Kane, Free Will: Ancient Dispute, New Themes
W. T. Stace, The Problems of Free Will
Jean Kilbourne, How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel
COMPUTERS AND THE SELF
John Searle, The Myth of the Computer
William Lycan, Machine Consciousness
9. POLITICS AND SOCIETY
Plato, The Republic
Hobbes, The Leviathan
John Locke, Second Treatise
Iris Young, The Myth of Merit
10. AESTHETICS
Leo Tolstoy, What is Art?
Jesse Helms, The NEA Should Not Fund Obscenity
11. ETHICS AND MORALITY
James Rachels, The Challenge of Cultural Relativism
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
Immanual Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism
Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice
Ayn Rand, The Ethics of Emergencies
ISSUES IN APPLIED ETHICS
ABORTION
Mary Anne Warren, On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion
Celia Wolf-Devine, Abortion and the Feminine Voice
DEATH PENALTY
Anthony Amsterdam, Capital Punishment
Ernest van der Haag, The Ultimate Punishment: A Defense of Capital Punishment
CLONING
John A. Robertson, The Question of Human Cloning
Leon Kass, The Wisdom of Repugnance, from The Ethics of Human Cloning
President George W. Bush, Policy on Stem Cell Research and Veto of "Stem Cell Reseach Enhancement Act"
ANIMAL RIGHTS
Peter Singer, Speciesism from Animal Liberation
Carl Cohen, The Case for the Use of Animals in Biomedical Research
SPORT ETHICS
Warren Fraleigh, Why the Good Foul Is Not Good
Jack Bowen, Criminal Punishment of Violence in Sport