Reading Philosophy Selected Texts with a Method for Beginners

A key introductory philosophy textbook, making use of an innovative, interactive technique for reading philosophical texts 

Reading Philosophy: Selected Texts with a Method for Beginners, Second Edition, provides a unique approach to reading philosophy, requiring students to engage with material as they read. It contains carefully selected texts, commentaries on those texts, and questions for the reader to think about as they read. It serves as starting points for both classroom discussion and independent study. The texts cover a wide range of topics drawn from diverse areas of philosophical investigation, ranging over ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, aesthetics, and political philosophy. 

This edition has been updated and expanded. New chapters discuss the moral significance of friendship and love, the subjective nature of consciousness and the ways that science might explore conscious experience. And there are new texts and commentary in chapters on doubt, self and moral dilemmas.

• Guides readers through the experience of active, engaged philosophical reading 
• Presents significant texts, contextualized for newcomers to philosophy 
• Includes writings by philosophers from antiquity to the late 20^th-century 
• Contains commentary that provides the context and background necessary for discussion and argument 
• Prompts readers to think through specific questions and to reach their own conclusions 

This book is an ideal resource for beginning students in philosophy, as well as for anyone wishing to engage with the subject on their own. 

Samuel Guttenplan is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy and College Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. Now retired after nearly 35 years in Birkbeck’s philosophy department, Professor Guttenplan was the founding Executive Editor of Mind & Language, a successful interdisciplinary journal launched in 1986, and served as Executive Editor for 22 years. He continues as an editor of the journal. His research interests include the philosophies of mind, language, philosophical logic, and ethics. 

Jennifer Hornsby is Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London. She is Emeritus Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and  a Fellow of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the British Academy, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has published work in philosophy of mind, action and language, and on topics in social and feminist philosophy. 

Christopher Janaway is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton, and was formerly Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London. He was principal investigator on the Arts and Humanities Research Council–funded research project “Nietzsche and Modern Moral Philosophy,” and is editor of the The Works of Schopenhauer. Professor Janaway’s recent research has also been on Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. 

John Schwenkler is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Florida State University. His research interests are in the philosophy of mind and action, epistemology, ethics, and cognitive science. Professor Schwenkler is the author of Anscombe’s Intention: A Guide, and co-editor, with Enoch Lambert, of Becoming Someone New: Essays on Transformative Experience, Choice, and Change. 

Preface

University of London External Programme

Sources and Acknowledgements

Introduction

1 Doubt

Introduction to the Problem

Introduction to Descartes
René Descartes, ‘First Meditation’

Commentary on Descartes

2 Self

Introduction to the Problem

Introduction to Descartes
René Descartes, ‘Second Meditation’ (extract)

Commentary on Descartes

Introduction to Strawson
P. F. Strawson, ‘Self, Mind and Body’

Commentary on Strawson

3 Tragedy

Introduction to the Problem

Introduction to Hume
David Hume, ‘Of Tragedy’

Commentary on Hume

Introduction to Feagin
Susan L. Feagin, ‘The Pleasures of Tragedy’

Commentary on Feagin

4 Dilemma

Introduction to the Problem

Introduction to Lemmon
E. J. Lemmon, ‘Moral Dilemmas’ (extract)

Commentary on Lemmon

Introduction to Mill
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (extracts)

Commentary on Mill

5 Friendship

Introduction to the Problem

Introduction to Aristotle
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII (Extracts)

Commentary on Aristotle

Introduction to Stroud

Commentary on Stroud

6 Equality

Introduction to the Problem

Introduction to Williams
Bernard Williams, ‘The Idea of Equality’

Commentary on Williams

Introduction to Nozick
Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia (extracts)

Commentary on Nozick

7 Identity

Introduction to the Problem

Introduction to Locke
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (extracts)

Commentary on Locke

Introduction to Williams
Bernard Williams, ‘The Self and the Future’

Commentary on Williams

8 Freedom

Introduction to the Problem

Introduction to Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer, Prize Essay on the Freedom of the Will (extracts)

Commentary on Schopenhauer

Introduction to Strawson
P. F. Strawson, ‘Freedom and Resentment’ (extract)

Commentary on Strawson

9 Consciousness

Introduction to the Problem

Introduction to Nagel
Thomas Nagel, ‘What Is it Like to Be a Bat?’ (Extracts)

Commentary on Nagel

Introduction to Churchland

Commentary on Churchland

10 Causality

Introduction to the Problem

Introduction to Hume
David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (extracts)

Commentary on Hume

Introduction to Anscombe
G. E. M. Anscombe, ‘Causality and Determination’ (extract)

Commentary on Anscombe

11 Qualities

Introduction to Some Problems

Introduction to Boyle and Locke
Robert Boyle, The Origin of Forms and Qualities (extracts)

Commentary on Boyle
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (extract)

Commentary on Locke

Introduction to Berkeley
George Berkeley, The Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous (extracts)

Commentary on Berkeley

Further Questions

Essay/Examination Questions

Further Reading

Index

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