KNOWLEDGE

The Nature of Knowledge

    •    Plato, Meno
    •    Plato, "The Myth of the Cave"
    •    Immanuel Kant, "The Nature of Knowledge"*
    •    Bertrand Russell, "How A Priori Knowledge is Possible"
    •    Saul Kripke, "The A Priori and the Necessary"*
    •    Edmund L. Gettier, "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?"
    •    Robert Nozick, "An Analysis of Knowledge"*

Skepticism and the Scope of Knowledge
    •    René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy
    •    Roderick Chisholm,"The Problem of the Criterion"
    •    C. S. Peirce, "Howto Make Our Ideas Clear"
    •    Barry Stroud, "Philosophical Scepticism and Everyday Life"
    •    Robert Nozick, "Skepticism"

Perceptual and Inductive Knowledge
    •    John Locke, "Origins of Our Ideas and Knowledge"*
    •    George Berkeley, Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous
    •    Alvin Goldman, "Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge"
    •    David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
    •    Thomas Reid, "Reflections on the Common Theory of Ideas"
    •    Bertrand Russell, "On Induction"
    •    Nelson Goodman, "The New Riddle of Induction"

METAPHYSICS

Causation and the Nature of Reality
    •    Derek Parfit, "Why Anything? Why This?"
    •    Gottfried Leibniz, Monadology
    •    Aristotle, "The Four Causes"*
    •    David Lewis, "Causation"
    •    Wesley Salmon, "Why Ask 'Why?'"
    •    Daniel Dennett, "Evolution as a Universal Acid"*

Identity and Personal Identity
    •    Judith Jarvis Thomson, "The Statue and the Clay"
    •    John Locke, "On Identity"*
    •    Thomas Reid, "Of Identity"
    •    John Perry, A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality
    •    Derek Parfit, "Personal Identity"

Freedom of the Will
    •    Peter van Inwagen, "The Incompatibility of Free Will and Determinism"
    •    Roderick Chisholm, "Human Freedom and the Self"
    •    Harry Frankfurt, "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person"
    •    David Lewis, "Are We Free to Break the Laws?"
    •    Thomas Nagel, "Moral Luck"

Philosophy of Mind

    •    J. J. C. Smart, "Sensations and Brain Processes"
    •    Hilary Putnam, "The Nature of Mental States"
    •    Daniel Dennett, "The Intentional Stance and Why It Works"
    •    Jerry Fodor, "Three Cheers for Propositional Attitudes"
    •    Thomas Nagel, "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?"
    •    Frank Jackson, "Epiphenomenal Qualia"
    •    Hilary Putnam, "Brains in a Vat"

ETHICS

Major Theories
    •    Plato, Euthyphro
    •    Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
    •    Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals
    •    John Stuart Mill, "Understanding and Defending Utilitarianism"*
             [Consequentialism; Rule Consequentialism]
    •    Friedrich Nietzsche, "Against Slavish Moralities"*

Motivation, Self-Interest, and the Good Life
    •    Plato, Apology
    •    Stephen Darwall, "Hobbes"
    •    Albert Camus, "The Myth of Sisyphus"
    •    Robert Nozick, "The Experience Machine"

Metaethics
    •    David Hume, "The Emotive and Social Basis of Ethics"*
    •    J. L. Mackie, "The Subjectivity of Values" [Moral Skepticism; Moral Anti-Realism]
    •    John Rawls, "Two Concepts of Rules"
    •    Christine M. Korsgaard, "What's Wrong with Lying?"

Applications
    •    Philippa Foot, "The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect"
    •    Judith Jarvis Thomson, "A Defense of Abortion"
    •    Peter Singer, "Famine, Affluence, and Morality"
    •    Thomas Nagel, "War and Massacre"
    •    James Rachels, "Active and Passive Euthanasia"
    •    Jonathan Bennett, "The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn"

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

    •    Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
    •    John Locke, "The Social Contract"*
    •    John Stuart Mill, "Social Liberty"*
    •    Karl Marx, "Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844"
    •    John Rawls, "The Original Position and the Principles of Justice"*
    •    Robert Nozick, "A Libertarian Critique of Rawls"*

PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

The Existence and Nature of God
    •    St. Anselm, "The Ontological Argument"*
    •    St. Thomas Aquinas, "The Five Ways - "Question II, Third Article"
             [Cosmological Argument; Teleological Arguments for God's Existence]
    •    William L. Rowe, "The Cosmological Argument and the Principle of Sufficient Reason"
    •    David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
    •    Antony Flew, "Theology and Falsification"
    •    Gottfried Leibniz, "A Refutation of Arguments from Evil"
    •    J. L. Mackie, "Evil and Omnipotence"
    •    Peter van Inwagen, "The Magnitude, Duration, and Distribution of Evil: A Theodicy"

Reason and Faith
    •    David Hume, "On Miracles"
    •    Richard Price, "On the Importance of Christianity and the Nature of Historical Evidence, and Miracles"
    •    Blaise Pascal, "The Wager"
    •    William K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief"
    •    William James, "The Will to Believe"
    •    Bernard Williams, "Deciding to Believe"

AESTHETICS

    •    David Hume, "Of the Standard of Taste"
    •    Immanuel Kant, "The Nature of Aesthetic Judgment"*
    •    Leo Tolstoy, "What Is Art?"
    •    Nelson Goodman, "When Is Art?"
    •    Arthur Danto, "The Artistic Enfranchisement of Real Objects: The Artworld"
    •    George Dickie, "What Is Art? An Institutional Analysis"

 

The links below offer resources for further research, writing, discussion, and teaching topics in this book.

General Resources for Studying, Researching, and Writing: 

THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
    •    Plato, Meno
    •    Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy
    •    Locke, Origins of Our Ideas and Knowledge, and Berkeley, Three Dialogues
         Between Hylas and Philonous
    •    Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
    •    Russell, "On Induction"

METAPHYSICS
    •    Locke, "On Identity" and Reid, "Of Identity"

PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
    •    Nagel, "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?"

ETHICS
    •    Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals
    •    Mill, "Understanding and Defending Utilitarianism"
    •    Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
    •    Hobbes, Leviathan, and Locke, "The Social Contract"