My Philosophy Library - with Notes [under construction]
101 PHILOSOPHY PROBLEMS. By Martin Cohen. Published (2nd edition). Valuable as a novel approach to introducing philosophy by means of a collection of exemplary puzzles, paradoxes, illustrative stories, visual illusions, etc.
AFTER VIRTUE - A STUDY IN MORAL THEORY. By Alasdair MacIntyre. Published 1984 (2nd edition). A fascinating demolition of rule-guided impartial ethics, and an assertion of a latter day, partial, and tragedy-embracing, virtue ethics. Not for beginners.
AN INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS. By John Hospers. Published in 1997 (4th edition). A popular introduction to the analytic approach to philosophy. Beginners could do worse than read this. But I would not recommend the chapter on ethics, which should have been even-handed but instead favors one particular ethical theory (Ayn Rand's).
THE COMPLETE IDIOT'S GUIDE TO PHILOSOPHY. By Jay Stevenson Ph.D. Published 2002 (2nd edition).
CONJECTURES AND REFUTATIONS - THE GROWTH OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE. By Karl Popper. Published 1972 (4th edition). A fascinating collection of essays on epistemology and philosophy of science. Argues Popper's famous view of science as conjecture and refutation, hypothesis and falsification, trial and error. Popper was a wonderfully clear and engaging writer, but a few of these essays are 'difficult' for the non-specialist.
A DICTIONARY OF PHILOSOPHY. Editorial consultant Antony Flew. Published 1983 (2nd edition).
THE ETHICS OF ARISTOTLE - THE NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. By Aristotle. Translated by J.A.K. Thompson (1953). Revised by Hugh Tredinnick (1976). There are two books by Aristotle on ethics. This one was named for his son Nicomachus. Anyone who studies ethics should read this, and especially anyone who is studying virtue ethics.
EVIL IN MODERN THOUGHT - AN ALTERNATIVE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. By Susan Neiman. Published 2002. This is a fascinating re-interpretation of modern philosophy as being largely a struggle with The Problem of Evil. Recommended, but newcomers to philosophy will find it difficult.
GET A GRIP ON PHILOSOPHY. By Neil Turnbull. Published 1999. This is probably the most eccentric but also one of the best introductions to philosophy I've yet seen (and, as this list shows, I've seen quite a few). Into the bargain it is also an introductory *history* of philosophy. The author is an academic who is concerned that philosophy may be cutting its own throat by making itself incomprehensible to most people - even to most intelligent people. This book is his contribution to the new movement to make philosophy accessible again, as it once was, to all who are capable of the modest degree of abstract thinking it requires. It is a book that both beginners and long-time students can learn from - it is far from being an 'idiot's guide'. And it is profusely and amusingly illustrated in a variety of styles. The physical book itself is unusual too. It is printed on brown paper and has a dust jacket even though it's a paperback. These illustrative and physical peculiarities might seem to scream 'postmodern!' - but the text is penetratingly critical of the postmodernist movement - so their intent, I suppose, is to show that anti-postmodernists too can be smiling assassins. If you can find this book, obtain a copy and read it - you won't regret it.
HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY. By Bertrand Russell. Published 1946. Still one of the best one-volume histories available, and written by one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century. My only criticism is that it devotes far too many pages to obscure details of religious history and fails to make clear what their philosophical significance was.
INTRODUCING PHILOSOPHY. Written by Dave Robinson and illustrated by Judy Groves. Published 1999. An illustrated history of philosophy, written for beginners. Wide coverage, but shallow, from the pre-Socratics to some of the main postmodernists.
THE LAST DAYS OF SOCRATES. By Plato. Translation by Hugh Tredennick. Contains the following four dialogs:
Euthyphro - In which Socrates, at the courthouse in which he will soon be on trial, meets Euthyphro, who is charging his own father with manslaughter over the death of a (mere) slave. Socrates asks him why and Euthyphro says he knows it is what the gods would find good. Socrates then presents him with what has come to be called 'The Euthyphro Dilemma': is the morally right good because the gods find it good, or do the gods find it good because it is morally right? In other words, do the moral authorities invent what's morally right or do they discover it? Do they create it arbitrarily, or does it exist independently of them?
The Apology - In the sense it is used here, 'apology' means 'defence'. This dialog is Plato's version of the self-defence Socrates put forward at his trial. He was charged with impiety (an offence against religion) and with corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens. Despite arguing brilliantly on his own behalf, he openly predicts he will be found guilty and sentenced to death - as indeed he was.
Crito - Socrates on death row. Crito comes representing Socrates' friends with the suggestion that they help him to escape his death sentence.
LEVIATHAN, OR THE MATTER, FORM AND POWER OF A COMMONWEALTH ECCLESIASTICAL AND CIVIL. By Thomas Hobbes. First published 1651, this edition 1968, reprint 1986. Hobbes's notorious account of human nature in material-mechanical terms, and his prescriptive account of politics as founded in liberal pragmatics, and the state as sovereign power to avert the "war of all against all".
MATTER AND CONSCIOUSNESS - A CONTEMPORARY INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. By Paul M. Churchland. Published 1988 (2nd edition).
MIND, LANGUAGE AND SOCIETY - PHILOSOPHY IN THE REAL WORLD. By John Searle. Published 1999. A contemporary Realist gives a brief, plausible and readable account of his philosophy.
MODERN PHILOSOPHY - AN INTRODUCTION AND SURVEY. By Roger Scruton. Published 1994. An excellent, if quirky, survey of modern philosophy. Not terribly difficult, but not for absolute beginners either.
THE NEW FONTANA DICTIONARY OF MODERN THOUGHT - THIRD EDITION. Edited by Alan Bullock and Stephen Trombley. This edition published 1999. This extremely valuable reference book is about modern thought in general. Informative about central concepts in philosophy, the sciences, technology, sociology, the arts, politics, etc. No matter what your field of study, you need this book.
THE OXFORD COMPANION TO PHILOSOPHY. Edited by Ted Honderich. Published 1995. An excellent one-volume encyclopedia of philosophy. The usual topics are well covered, but also there are lots of entries on unexpected topics.
A PASSION FOR WISDOM - A VERY BRIEF HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. By Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M. Higgins. Published 1997. The authors do amazingly well to summarize both the Western and Eastern philosophical traditions in 137 pages (and that's including a six-page bibliography and a five-page index!). This is well worth reading for beginners and the initiated. Starts the chase in the East, centuries before the Greeks joined the hunt, and ends with a sniff of postmodernism. No living philosophers are included.
THE PASSION OF THE WESTERN MIND - UNDERSTANDING THE IDEAS THAT HAVE SHAPED OUR WORLD VIEW. By Richard Tarnas. Published 1991. Ambitious one-volume overview of Western philosophical, religious, and scientific thought. Densely written, repays patient and careful reading. A heroic attempt to bring maximum coherence to the story it tells.
THE PENGUIN DICTIONARY OF PHILOSOPHY. Edited by Thomas Mautner. Published 2000. Features 'philosophical self portraits' by David Armstrong (Australian), Sir Isaiah Berlin (British), R.M.Hare (British), Alasdair MacIntyre (British), John Passmore (Australian), Willard Van Orman Quine (American), Richard Rorty (American), John Searle (American), Peter Singer (Australian) and J.J.C. Smart (Australian). Another unusual feature is a number of entries on English words that have changed meaning since they were used in some of the English classics; words such as compact (which used to mean a formal agreement or contract), fond (foolish), own (admit), radical (basic), use (treat), without (outside).
THE PENGUIN HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY. By D.W. Hamlyn. Published 1987. A pretty good concise one-volume history. Hamlyn is a specialist in epistemology and some of his sections on that topic are too involved and technical for the novice.
THE PHILOSOPHER AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE. By Mark Rowlands. Published 2003. An introduction to philosophy using science fiction movies as illustrative examples. See my review.
PHILOSOPHY - BASIC READINGS. Edited by Nigel Warburton. Published 1999. An introduction to philosophy in the form of extracts from both classic and contemporary writings. The editor has aimed at readable and thought-provoking selections and is admirably successful. This is perhaps the best anthology of its kind, and deserves a place in your library. Here's a taste of the contents:
"Introduction: What is philosophy?"
1. Mary Warnock argues for the philosopher as a generalist, explainer, and arguer (supplier of reasons for assertions).
2. D.H. Mellor argues for the philosoper as a serious analyst of apparent nonsense.
3. A.J. Ayer presents the philosopher as methodical conceptual analyst.
4. Bertrand Russell explains the several ways in which philosophy is valuable.
"Section One: God"
5. Blaise Pascal's startling argument for the Christian God as the best bet in the gamble of life.
6. Martin Gardner's fideistic demolition of the standard arguments for God.
7. J.L. Mackie's atheistic assertion of The Problem of Evil and demolition of the standard defences.
8. Richard Swinburne's defence of God in the face of the Problem of Evil.
9. David Hume's demolition of the belief in miracles.
10. Richard Dawkin's provocative analogical description of religions as cultural diseases caused by "viruses of the mind".
"Section Two: Right and Wrong"
11. Immanuel Kant on his 'categorical imperative', his principle for arriving at moral rules that apply universally and regardless of consequences.
12. Robert Nozick's fascinating 'experience machine' thought experiment, designed to demonstrate that the experience of pleasure cannot be the basis of morality.
13. John Stuart Mill's defence of Utilitarianism against the charge of crude hedonism.
14. Bernard Williams's classic critique of Utilitarianism.
15. Jonathan Glover's reply to Williams, citing what he calls 'the Solzhenitsyn principle', to the effect that the rejection of consequentialism amounts to a selfish desire for morally 'clean hands'.
16. Rosalind Hursthouse favorably discusses ethical 'Neo-Aristotelianism', the recent revival of virtue ethics.
17. Judith Jarvis Thompson's classic assertion of the right to voluntary abortion.
18. Thomas Nagel points out a problem with Kantian ethics, the problem of the role of luck in questions of moral reponsibility.
19. Bernard Williams points out two problems with 'vulgar moral relativism': moral disagreement within groups, and the false assumption that all moralities are equally adequate.
"Section Three: Politics"
20. Thomas Hobbes's infamous (to some) account of what human life would be like in 'the state of nature'.
21. Isaiah Berlin on positive liberty and negative liberty.
22. Nigel Warburton's defence of the sport of boxing against attempts to outlaw it.
23. Janet Radcliffe Richards on sexual discrimination and justice.
24. Martin Luther King Jr's argument for civil disobedience.
25. Peter Singer's Utilitarian argument for 'animal liberation'.
"Section Four: The External World"
26. Descartes' doubt and deceiving demon.
27. Bernard Williams and Bryan Magee in a critical discussion of Descartes.
28. George Berkeley on the nature of color perceptions.
29. David Hume on the origin of 'ideas' (perceptions).
30. Alex Orenstein gives an account of Willard Quine's 'naturalized' epistemology (an epistemology that takes the current scientific model of human nature as its starting point).
"Section Five: Science"
31. Karl Popper on the demarcation of science from non-science.
32. Thomas Kuhn on anomalies in scientific paradigms and the emergence of revolutionary paradigms.
33. Paul Feyerabend's postmodernist rejection of scientific knowlege and education.
34. Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont critique Feyerabend's position.
"Section Six: Mind"
35. Ludwig Wittgenstein's arguments against the possibility of a 'private language'.
36. J.J.C. Smart's assertion of the mind-brain identity thesis.
37. John R. Searle's famous 'Chinese room' argument against the possibility of artificial intelligence.
38. Thomas Nagel's famous "What is it like to be a bat?" - against physicalist attempts to account for consciousness.
39. Daniel C. Dennett on the nature of personal identity.
"Section Seven: Art"
40. Clive Bell's theory of art as 'significant form'.
41. W.K. Wimsatt Jr and Monroe C. Beardsley on the 'intentional fallacy' (the alleged fallacy of judging art according to the expressed or supposed intentions of the artist).
42. David Hume on the critical assessment of art criticism.
43. Alfred Lessing asks what is wrong with a forgery.
44. Jorge Luis Borges' asks whether if two artists were to produce identical works of art they would be the same work of art.
PHILOSOPHY - THE CLASSICS. By Nigel Warburton. Published 1998. Useful synopses of twenty of the classics of philosophy. Each synopsis is followed by a critical appraisal, a glossary, and suggestions for further reading. Here's a list (note that the titles are as Warburton gives them, which is, in several cases, abbreviated ):
Plato The Republic
Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics
Rene Descartes Meditations
Thomas Hobbes Leviathan
John Locke An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
John Locke Second Treatise of Government
David Hume An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
David Hume Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
Jean-Jacques Rousseau The Social Contract
Immanuel Kant Critique of Pure Reason
Immanuel Kant Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals
Arthur Schopenhauer The World as Will and Idea [Note that this title is often translated as The World as Will and Representation .]
John Stuart Mill On Liberty
John Stuart Mill Utilitarianism
Soren Kierkegaard Either/Or
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels The German Ideology , Part One
Friedrich Nietzsche On the Genealogy of Morality
A.J. Ayer Language, Truth and Logic
Jean-Paul Sartre Being and Nothingness
Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations
This selection is heavy on moral and political philosophy, it seems to me. But the book is surely very useful for students.
PHILOSOPHY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. By A.J. Ayer. A history by Britain's most notable proponent of the philosophy of Logical Positivism.
THE REASON OF THINGS - LIVING WITH PHILOSOPHY. By A.C. Grayling. Published 2002. A collection of very short philosophical essays on a variety of topics. They were originally published as a series of articles in the "Saturday Review" of The Guardian newspaper. Everyone living in a democracy needs to read Grayling's two-page essay on voting. Highly recommended.
THE REPUBLIC. By Plato. Translation by Desmond Lee. Second edition (revised).
Plato's works, indispensible to philosophy, are praised as being both great works of philosophy and great works of literature. In a way, this is unfortunate. Literature is art, but philosophy is most decidedly not art. Philosophy is more important than art, which is something that Plato himself knew. Philosophy aims for the real - art can take or leave the real. Philosophy aims for the true - art is in love with fiction. Philosophy values clarity and distinction - art is careless of confusion. Philosophy aims for coherence - art forgives incoherence. Philosophy aims for precision - art abhores it. Philosophy aims for morality - art is basically amoral. In a word, philosophy values the essential while art values the apparent. Just as philosophy can go only so far with religion before they must part company, philosophical writing can go only so far with 'the literary'.
SCIENCE, NON-SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE. By Max Charlesworth. Published 1982. A very brief introduction to the main contemporary philosophers of science. Written for the general reader.
THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY. By Bryan Magee. Published 1998. A 28cm x 22cm Dorling-Kindersley book. A profusely illustrated history, full of beautiful color photographs and art, and worth having for these alone. Magee's text makes the book a great bargain. He provides a well-rounded history, not neglecting the East nor the postmodernists. In addition, scattered through the pages there is a fine collection of quotations from the philosophers. Also a useful glossary and a guide to further reading.
THE SYMPOSIUM. By Plato.
TALKING PHILOSOPHY - A WORDBOOK. By A.W. Sparkes. Published 1991. A book every philosophy student needs. Wide coverage of the terminology of philosophy, with emphasis on commonly misused words. Arranged thematically. Very rich in illustrative examples, quotations and references. Written in an extremely dry humorous style.
TALKING POLITICS - A WORDBOOK. By A.W. Sparkes. Published 1994. Very useful analytical coverage of the terminology of politics and political philosophy. Not set out as a dictionary (though the index allows it to be used as a dictionary), but arranged thematically - a 'connect the concepts' approach. Like Sparkes's Talking Philosophy, it is very rich in examples and references.
WHAT IS GOOD? - THE SEARCH FOR THE BEST WAY TO LIVE. By A.C. Grayling. Published 2003. A selective history of moral philosophy. Grayling presents that history as a struggle between religion and humanism over the answer to the question of what constitutes the good life for humans. He makes it clear and explicit at the outset that his own bias is strongly towards humanism.
WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED SCIENCE? - AN ASSESSMENT OF THE NATURE AND STATUS OF SCIENCE AND ITS METHODS. By Alan Chalmers. Published 1982 (2nd edition). A very good introduction to the philosophy of science.
ZENO AND THE TORTOISE - HOW TO THINK LIKE A PHILOSOPHER. By Nicholas Fearn. Published 2001.
PLEASE NOTE. The books on this list are far from being the only philosophy I've read - they are merely the books I've bought.
If I ever find the time, I'll mine this. Thanks!
You're welcome. I have listed nearly all of my books, I think (they're a bit scattered, location-wise), but I intend to add more notes to most of them. I aim to end up with a list of mini-reviews.
So Anglo... do you have any interest in Continental? I find it much more interesting: Foucault, Deleuze, Benjamin, Baudrillard, Bataille, Hardt etc...
Good fences make good neighbours. And the absence of good fences makes feud. There was a time when Anglo and Continental were, philosophically speaking, good neighbours. But the Continent, not having any good fences, had to suffer a political history of blood-feud, a history that destroyed their thinkers' faith, not only in the possibilty of a good neighbourhood, but also in the very concept of positive, constructive philosophy. So recent Continental philosophy has become the philosophy of the aftermath of blood-feud. They can point to the Holocaust - after which, "no more poetry" - and they can point to the ICBM, after which, no more good fences. But positive philosophy rises above fences and above blood-feud. Words are not thought, words are not concepts. Concept creation is and always has been utterly at liberty in Anglo philosophy. Recent Continental philosophy is about concept destruction, which, of course, locks it into the present, the superficial, the pseudo-profound. If 'anything goes', everything stays - but 'everything staying' is not a neighbourhood of worldviews, it is a chaos.
Actually they are really critiques. Derrida may resemble your remarks, but note how I left him out. Anglos always have this way of dismissing Continental theory with very inexact statements; this is ironic considering their fetishized exactness. I am really unaware of any blood-feud. Foucault is very constructing in the end as he suggest creating new technologies of self or new constructions of subjectivity. Stick to those general anthologies, you are sure to learn nothing.
I would thank you for that one example of a constructive critique, if I could conceive that phrases like "technologies of self" and "constructions of subjectivity" could possibly have any meaning that made sense. I prefer not to learn pseudo-profundities. The blood-feud I meant is usually called World War One, and its direct descendant WW2.
Tell you what, you suggest a book that'll further my education, I'll read it and post a review. What say you?
Well I would suggest Discipline and Punish by Foucault. It is a brilliant exploration of the notion of power as productive, rather than repressive: this challenges the marxist notions of some essence that is repressed.
Bertie, WW1 and WW2 have two completely different genesis. There are very specific events and ideologlies at play.
Honestly, this pseudo-profundity concept you have introduced makes you sound like a 16 year old that just finished Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I am sure you can criticize these theorists in a more convincing manner. Their point is not to be "profound," but to critique.
Thanks for the recommendation. I'll read the Foucault - but since I do intend to read it rather than the Cliff's Notes on it, it'll probably take me a couple of weeks.
The ideology of WW1, the belief that *at first* motivated nearly all of the people involved in it, was that it was another episode in the family blood-feud of the royal families of Europe and the nations in their possession (it's hard to believe now that people actually thought like that, but they did). By that war's end the royal families were conclusively removed from whatever real power they might have had (most emphatically in Russia), but the loser nations were treated with criminally stupid injustice, and (with the unfortunate help of a hiccup in the American ideology's training program that proved contageous) this directly resulted in the economic and political conditions that allowed the newly popular (if not historically new) ideologies to gain enough strength to step into the ring in which the 'royal' bout had so recently been fought.
To be profound is to venture beneath the surface of what the fashionable want to hear. To be pseudo-profound is to tell the fashionable what they want to hear, namely little that really makes sense and much of what seems to make sense to those for whom the aesthetically fashionable is what makes sense.
Hey Euro! - I've ordered a copy of the Foucault, but my book purveyor had to order it from the publisher and it must be coming by snail-mail.
What is the premise of "Grayling's two-page essay on voting"?
He makes four main claims: One, it's a scandal that in a country (the U.S.A.) that is so proud of its democracy more than half of those who have the right to vote fail to exercise that right. Two, one reason for the failure to vote is ignorance of history; ignorance of how recently and at what great cost in lives that right was won and defended. Three, another reason is that people don't value the right because they mistakenly see as a free gift. Four, the remedy is to make voting compulsory.