Resources for ‘Introduction to Philosophy’, Michaelmas Term 2014

Andrea Lechler

Introductory philosophy books

Simon Blackburn, Think (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

James Garvey and Jeremy Stangroom, The Story of Philosophy: A History of Western Thought
(Quercus, 2012).

Thomas Nagel, What Does It All Mean?: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1989).

Nigel Warburton, Philosophy: The Basics (London: Routledge). Various editions.

Nigel Warburton, A Little History of Philosophy (Yale University Press, 2011).

Selections of texts with helpful introductions for each text

John Cottingham (ed.), Western Philosophy: An Anthology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996 / 2007).

Guttenplan, Hornsby and Janaway (eds.), Reading Philosophy: Selected Texts with a Method for
Beginners (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003).

1) Do we need the state? Are we obliged to follow its laws?

• Max Weber, ‘Politics as a vocation’, in M. Weber, Essays from Max Weber, trans. H. Gerth and
C. W. Mills (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1948).
• Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651, in particular chapters XIII and XIV. [A free version of the
original text can be found here:
http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=869&Itemid=27.
The following is a translation into modern English by Jonathan Bennett:
http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/pdfs/hobbes1651part1_2.pdf]
• Robert Paul Wolff, In Defence of Anarchism (New York: Harper & Row, 1970).
• John Locke, Two Treatises of Civil Government, 1689: http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/222.
Bennett’s translation: http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/authors/locke.html
• David Hume, Of the Original Contract, 1742:
http://www.econlib.org/library/LFBooks/Hume/hmMPL35.html

• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hobbes-moral/
• http://www.iep.utm.edu/hobmoral/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rousseau/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke-political/
• http://www.iep.utm.edu/locke-po/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/political-obligation/
• http://www.iep.utm.edu/poli-obl/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/authority/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/contractarianism/
• http://www.iep.utm.edu/soc-cont/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/free-rider/
• Jonathan Wolff, Introduction to Political Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996),
Chapters 1 and 2.
• David Miller, Political Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2003), Chapter 2.
• David Lefkowitz, ‘The Duty to Obey the Law’, Philosophy Compass 1(6), 2006, 571-598.

Podcasts:
• The following is a course in political philosophy that contains relevant sessions on Hobbes, Locke
and Rousseau: http://oyc.yale.edu/political-science/plsc-114#overview
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p003k9l1
• http://philosophybites.com/hobbes/

2) What is the best type of government?

• Free translation of Plato’s Republic:

http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=767&chapter=9379
5&layout=html&Itemid=27
• John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government, 1861:
http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/234
• John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859: http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/mill-the-collected-works-of-
john-stuart-mill-volume-xviii-essays-on-politics-and-society-part-i

• Jonathan Wolff, Introduction to Political Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996),
Chapter 3.
• David Miller, Political Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2003), Chapter 3.
• Jeremy Waldron, ‘Democracy’, in Estlund (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Political Philosophy
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

• http://www.iep.utm.edu/republic/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-ethics-politics/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/democracy/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mill/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberalism/
• http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/voting-systems/

Podcasts:
• http://oyc.yale.edu/political-science/plsc-114#overview (especially sessions on Plato, Rousseau
and Tocqueville)
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00547jm
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p003c1cx

3) What is happiness?

• John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, 1861: http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/mill-the-collected-works-of-

john-stuart-mill-volume-x-essays-on-ethics-religion-and-society#lf0223-10_head_045
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics: http://classics.mit.edu//Aristotle/nicomachaen.html
A very useful recent edition is: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics: Translation, Introduction, and
Commentary, Sarah Broadie and Christopher Rowe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
• Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Blackwell, 1974).
• Russ Shafer-Landau, The Fundamentals of Ethics, 2nd ed. (New York: OUP, 2012), Chapters 1 to
4 and 17.
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/happiness/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/well-being/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hedonism/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mill/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-ancient/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reflective-equilibrium/

Podcast:
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p005489g/In_Our_Time_Happiness/

4) Should I try to make everyone happy?

• John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, 1861: http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/mill-the-collected-works-of-

john-stuart-mill-volume-x-essays-on-ethics-religion-and-society#lf0223-10_head_045
• Henry Sigwick, The Methods of Ethics, 7th edition, 1907. (Available for free here:
http://www.laits.utexas.edu/poltheory/sidgwick/me/)
• Peter Singer, ‘Famine, Affluence and Morality’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 1(3), 1972,
pp. 229-243.
• J.J.C. Smart and Bernard Williams, Utilitarianism: For and Against (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1973).
• Richard Yetter Chappell, ‘Value Receptacles’, Noȗs, 2013.

• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/utilitarianism-history/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/
• http://www.iep.utm.edu/conseque/
• http://www.iep.utm.edu/util-a-r/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism-rule/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mill-moral-political/

All ethics / moral philosophy textbooks have chapters on utilitarianism / consequentialism. I

particularly recommend:
• Julia Driver, Ethics. The Fundamentals (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007).
• Russ Shafer-Landau, The Fundamentals of Ethics, 2nd ed. (New York: OUP, 2012).
• Mark Timmons, Moral Theory. An Introduction (Plymouth: Rowman and Littlefield, 2013).

Podcasts:
• http://www.justiceharvard.org/ (just start from the beginning)
• http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/utilitarianism-mill-and-utility-calculus
• http://philosophybites.com/consequentialism/

5) Can I know for certain that there is a world outside my mind?

• John Veith’s translation of Descartes’ Meditations:

http://www.wright.edu/cola/descartes/mede.html
• Audio recording of Veith’s translation: http://librivox.org/meditations-on-first-philosophy-by-
rene-descartes/
• Jonathan Bennett’s free and more modern translation of the Meditations:
http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/pdf/descmedi.pdf
• Gary Hatfield, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Descartes and the Meditations (2003).
• Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (1912), first chapters:
https://archive.org/details/problemsofphilo00russuoft
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-works/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-epistemology/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-ontological/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pyrrho/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/

Podcasts:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010mvcp

6) What is good reasoning?

• Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (1912):

https://archive.org/details/problemsofphilo00russuoft
• David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), Book I, Part II, Section VI:
http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/342 (Jonathan Bennett’s translation into modern English:
http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/pdfs/hume1739book1_3.pdf)
• Laurence BonJour, Epistemology: Classic Problems and Contemporary Responses (Rowman and
Littlefield, 2009), Chapter 4.
• James Van Cleve, ‘Reliability, Justification, and the Problem of Induction’, Midwest Studies in
Philosophy, IX, 1984, pp. 555-567.
• Simon Blackburn, Think, Chapter 6.

• http://www.iep.utm.edu/val-snd/
• http://www.iep.utm.edu/argument/
• http://www.iep.utm.edu/ded-ind/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction-problem/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logical-consequence/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/contradiction/

• Marianne Talbot‘s Critical Reasoning for Beginners lecture series:

http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/podcasts/critical_reasoning_for_beginners
• Marianne Talbot, Critical Reasoning: A Romp Through the Foothills of Logic for Complete
Beginners (Metafore, 2014).
• Tracy Bowell and Gary Kemp, Critical Thinking: A Concise Guide, 4th edition (Routledge, 2014).
• Critical Thinking Web module on argument analysis: http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/arg/
• Chris Swoyer, Critical Reasoning: A User’s Manual:
http://www.ou.edu/ouphil/faculty/chris/crmscreen.pdf
• Phil Stokes, Essential Thinking: http://essentialthinking.wordpress.com/
• Free online course on reasoning: https://www.coursera.org/course/thinkagain

7) Does God exist?

• Alvin Plantinga, ‘Is Belief in God Properly Basic?’, Noûs, 15(1), 1981, pp. 41-51.
• Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/religion-epistemology/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justep-foundational/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ontological-arguments/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmological-argument/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/teleological-arguments/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/index.html
• http://www.iep.utm.edu/relig-ep/
• http://www.iep.utm.edu/found-ep/
• http://www.iep.utm.edu/god-west/
• http://www.iep.utm.edu/design/
• http://www.iep.utm.edu/ep-defea/
• http://www.iep.utm.edu/evil-log/
• http://www.iep.utm.edu/evil-evi/

Videos:
http://philosvids.wordpress.com/category/philosophy-of-religion/page/2/
http://www.closertotruth.com/topics/meaning/existence-god
http://www.closertotruth.com/topics/meaning/philosophy-religion/faith-and-belief
http://www.closertotruth.com/series/does-evil-disprove-god
http://www.closertotruth.com/topics/meaning/philosophy-religion

8) What is the relationship between mind and body?

• Descartes’ Meditations (see Week 5).

• Thomas Nagel, ‘What is it like to be a bat?’, Philosophical Review, 83(4), 1974, pp. 435-450.
• Frank Jackson, ‘What Mary Didn't Know’, Journal of Philosophy, 83, 1986, pp. 291–295
• http://www.stereosue.com/

• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/
• http://www.iep.utm.edu/dualism/
• http://www.iep.utm.edu/descmind/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mind-identity/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia-knowledge/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epiphenomenalism/

Podcasts and videos:

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p003k9b8
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p005464j
• http://www.closertotruth.com/topics/consciousness/mind-body-problems
• http://www.closertotruth.com/topics/consciousness/consciousness
• http://www.ted.com/talks/david_chalmers_how_do_you_explain_consciousness

9) Are my actions ever truly free?

• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incompatibilism-theories/

Richard Holton’s ‘The Act of Choice’: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/phimp/3521354.0006.003/1/--act-

of-choice?view=image

Videos and podcasts:

• http://www.closertotruth.com/topics/consciousness/free-will
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00z5y9z

10) What is art?

• Hanfling, O. 1995. ‘Art, Artifact, and Function’. Philosophical Investigations 18(1), 31-48.
• Hanfling, O. 1992. ‘The Problem of Definition’. In: Philosophical Aesthetics. An Introduction.
Oxford: Blackwell.
• Dickie, G. 1984 / 1997, The Art Circle.
• Weitz, Morris, 1956, “The Role of Theory in Aesthetics,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism,
15: 27–35.
• Free versions of Clive Bell’s Art: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16917
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/art-definition/
• http://www.iep.utm.edu/aestheti/

Lecture on defining art by James Grant: http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/8-defining-art-audio