What Is Philosophy? Why Is It Important?

Plato: "The Activity of Philosophy"

Plato: "Philosophy on Trial"

How Can I Decide What to Believe? Tools for Examining Arguments

2. Questions about God, Faith, and Reason

Philosophy of Religion: What Are the Issues?

What Are My Options Concerning Philosophy of Religion?

Opening Narrative: Is There a Reality that Transcends Our Own?

Edwin Abbott: "Flatland"

Is There Evidence for the Existence of God?

The Cosmological Argument

Thomas Aquinas: "Five Arguments for God"

Richard Taylor: "Why the World Needs an Explanation"

William Rowe: "A Critique of the Cosmological Argument"

The Teleological Argument

William Paley: "The World Shows Evidence of Design"

David Hume: "The Evidence of Design is Weak"

The Ontological Argument

St. Anselm and Gaunilo: "The Ontological Argument-For and Against"

Michael Martin: "A Critique of the Ontological Argument"

Do Suffering and Evil Count Against the Existence of God?

Albert Camus: "Two Responses to Suffering"

B.C. Johnson: "Evil Disproves the Existence of God"

John Hick: "There Is a Reason Why God Allows Evil"

Is Religious Faith without Evidence Justified?

Blaise Pascal: "Faith is Pragmatically Justified"

William James: "Faith is Subjectively Justified"

Michael Scriven: "Faith is not Justified"

Antony Flew, R.M. Hare, and Basil Mitchell: "Three Parables about Religious Faith"

Contemporary Application: Does Religion Conflict with Science?

Richard Dawkins: "Science is in Tension with Religion"

Paul Davies: "Science Supports Religion"

3. Questions about Human Knowledge

Human Knowledge: What Are the Issues?

What Are My Options Concerning Human Knowledge?

Opening Narrative: Do We Know as Much as We Think We Do?

Plato: "The Allegory of the Cave"

What Can We Know? How Do We Know?

Rene Descartes: "Rationalism and the Search for Certainty"

John Locke: "Empiricism and Common Sense"

George Berkeley: "Empiricism and Idealism"

David Hume: "Empiricism and Skepticism"

Immanuel Kant: "Knowledge Is Based Both on Reason and Experience"

William James: "The Pragmatic Theory of Knowledge"

Alison M. Jaggar: "A Feminist Perspective on Knowledge"

Can We Know Anything at All? Responses to Skepticism

O.K. Bouwsma: "Descartes' Evil Genius"

John Hospers: "An Argument Against Skepticism"

Contemporary Application: Does Science Give Us Objective Knowledge about the World?

Steven Weinberg: "Scientific Knowledge Is Based in Reality"

Richard Rorty: "Scientific Knowledge Is Based in Social Solidarity"

4. Questions about the Mind

The Mind: What Are the Issues?

What Are My Options Concerning the Mind?

Opening Narrative: What is the Self?

Daniel Dennett: "Where Am I?"

What is the Mind? Is It Separate from the Body?

Hugh Elliot: "Tantalus"

Rene Descartes: "Dualism-The Mind Is Separate from the Body"

Gilbert Ryle: "Logical Behaviorism-Mental Statements Refer to Behavior"

Paul Churchland: "Eliminative Materialism-There Is No Mind"

David Chalmers: "The Puzzle of Conscious Experience"

R. Buckminster Fuller: "What's a Man?"

What is the Basis of Personal Identity? Do I Survive My Death?

John Locke: "The Self Is Identical to Its Psychological States:

David Hume: "There Is No Self"

Jeffrey Olen: "An Account of Personal Identity and Immortality"

Linda Badham: "An Argument Against Immortality"

Contemporary Application: Can Computers Think?

Christopher Evans: "Computers Will Some Day Be Able to Think"

John Searle: "Computer Programs Can Only Simulate Thinking"

Terry Bisson: "They're Made Out of Meat"

5. Questions about Free Will and Determinism

Freedom and Determinism: What Are the Issues?

What Are My Options Concerning Human Freedom?

Hard Determinism

Libertarianism

Compatibilism

Opening Narrative: When Are We Morally Responsible for Our Actions?

Jonathan Harrison: "The Case of Dr. Svengali"

Do We Have Free Will? Are We Morally Responsible?

Baron d'Holbach: "Hard Determinism-We Are Determined and Not Responsible"

C.A. Campbell: "Libertarianism-We Are Free and Responsible"

W.T. Stace: "Compatibilism-We Are Determined, Free, and Responsible"

B.F. Skinner: "Can Determinism Explain Creativity?"

Contemporary Application: Can Criminals Be Held Morally Responsible for Their Actions?

C.S. Lewis: "Criminals Are Responsible for Their Actions"

Clarence Darrow: "Criminals Are Not Responsible for Their Actions"

6. Questions about Right and Wrong

Right and Wrong: What Are the Issues?

What Are My Options Concerning Right and Wrong?

Opening Narrative: Why Should I Be Moral?

Plato: "The Ring of Gyges"

Are Moral Principles Objective or Relative?

Ruth Benedict: "A Defense of Moral Relativism"

James Rachels: "A Critique of Moral Relativism"

How Do We Decide What Is Right or Wrong?

Aristotle: "Virtue Ethics"

Immanuel Kant: "The Call of Duty"

John Stuart Mill: "Utilitarian Ethics"

Ayn Rand: "Ethical Egoism"

Alison M. Jaggar: "A Feminist Perspective on Ethics"

Contemporary Application: Is Abortion Morally Permissible?

Judith Jarvis Thomson: "Abortion Is a Matter of Personal Choice"

Sidney Callahan: "Abortion Is Morally Wrong"

7. Questions about Individual Liberty and the Government

Individual Liberty and the Government: What Are the Issues?

What Are My Options Concerning Government Authority?

Opening Narrative: Who Makes the Rules? Why Should I Obey Them?

Richard Taylor: "The Parable of the Man"

Should I Always Obey the Government?

Plato: "We Have an Absolute Obligation to Obey the Government"

Martin Luther King, Jr.: "We Should Obey Just Laws and Disobey Unjust Laws"

What Makes a Government Just?

John Locke: "The Social Contract Theory"

John Stuart Mill: "The Utilitarian Theory of Government"

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: "The Communist Theory"

John Rawls: "Contemporary Liberalism"

John Hospers: "Political Libertarianism"

Contemporary Application: Does the Government Have a Right to Protect Us from Ourselves?

James Q. Wilson: "Drug Laws Constitute Justified Paternalism"

Thomas Szasz: "People Should Be Free to Take Any Drug They Want"

8. Postscript: What Is the Meaning of Life?

The Meaning of Life: What Are the Issues?

What Are My Options Concerning the Meaning of Life?

Opening Narrative: The Problem of Meaning

W.H. Auden: "The Unknown Citizen"

Alternative Visions of Life

Epicurus: "Moderate Hedonism-Enjoy Life's Simple Pleasures"

Epictetus: "Stoicism-Take Things as they Come"

Leo Tolstoy: "Theism-Meaning is Found in an Infinite God"

Bertrand Russell: "Atheism-Finding Meaning in a World without God"

Jean-Paul Sartre: "Existentialism-We Must Each Create Our Own Meaning