Table of Contents with Links to Additional Relevant Material for:

Philosophical Inquiry 

Classic and Contemporary Readings

 

Edited, with Introductions,
by Jonathan E. Adler and Catherine Z. Elgin

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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"

 

*Titles marked with an asterisk have been provided by the editors to clarify the contents of the relevant selection. These titles are not part of the original work.

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