John Cottingham is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Reading, and an Honorary Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford University, UK. He is the author of numerous books including Descartes, The Rationalists, On the Meaning of Life, and In Search of the Soul. He is co-translator of The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, and has published articles on the history of philosophy, moral philosophy, and the philosophy of religion. Professor Cottingham is former Chairman of the British Society for the History of Philosophy and the British Society for the Philosophy of Religion, and was for many years editor of Ratio, the international journal of analytic philosophy. 

Preface xv

Acknowledgements xxi

Guidance for Readers and Format of the Volume xxviii

Introductory Essay: How to Read a Philosophical Text and How to Write about It xxxi

Part I Knowledge and Certainty 1

1 Innate Knowledge

Plato, Meno 3

2 Knowledge versus Opinion

Plato, Republic 12

3 Demonstrative Knowledge and Its Starting points

Aristotle, Posterior Analytics 19

4 New Foundations for Knowledge

René Descartes, Meditations 22

5 The Senses as the Basis of Knowledge

John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding 28

6 Innate Knowledge Defended

Gottfried Leibniz, New Essays on Human Understanding 34

7 Scepticism versus Human Nature

David Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding 39

8 Experience and Understanding

Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason 44

9 From Sense-certainty to Self-consciousness

Georg Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit 48

10 Beliefs Judged by Their Practical Effects

William James, What Pragmatism Means 54

11 Against Scepticism

G. E. Moore, A Defence of Common Sense 61

12 Does Empirical Knowledge Have a Foundation?

Wilfrid Sellars, The Myth of the Given 68

Part II Being and Reality 74

1 The Allegory of the Cave

Plato, Republic 76

2 Individual Substance

Aristotle, Categories 83

3 Supreme Being and Created Things

René Descartes, Principles of Philosophy 87

4 Qualities and Ideas

John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding 94

5 Substance, Life and Activity

Gottfried Leibniz, New System 99

6 Nothing Outside the Mind

George Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge 105

7 The Limits of Metaphysical Speculation

David Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding 111

8 Metaphysics, Old and New

Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena 117

9 Reality as Flux

Alfred Whitehead, Process and Reality, and Science and the Modern World 125

10 Being and Involvement

Martin Heidegger, Being and Time 131

11 The End of Metaphysics?

Rudolf Carnap, The Elimination of Metaphysics 138

12 The Problem of Ontology

W. V. O. Quine, On What There is 144

Part III Language and Meaning 150

1 The Meanings of Words

Plato, Cratylus 152

2 Language and Its Acquisition

Augustine, Confessions 160

3 Thought, Language and Its Components

William of Ockham, Writings on Logic 162

4 Language, Reason and Animal Utterance

René Descartes, Discourse on the Method 166

5 Abstract General Ideas

John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding 169

6 Particular Ideas and General Meaning

George Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge 173

7 Denotation versus Connotation

John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic 178

8 Names and Their Meaning

Gottlob Frege, Sense and Reference 183

9 Definite and Indefinite Descriptions

Bertrand Russell, Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy 188

10 Meaning and Use

Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books 194

11 Non-descriptive Uses of Language

J. L. Austin, Performative Utterances 202

12 How the Reference of Terms is Fixed

Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity 207

Part IV Mind and Body 214

1 The Immortal Soul

Plato, Phaedo 216

2 Soul and Body, Form and Matter

Aristotle, De Anima 223

3 The Human Soul

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 228

4 The Non-material Mind or Soul and Its Relation to the Body

René Descartes, Discourse and Meditations 236

5 The Identity of Mind and Body

Benedict Spinoza, Ethics 242

6 Mind–Body Correlations

Nicolas Malebranche, Dialogues on Metaphysics 246

7 Body and Mind as Manifestations of Will

Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea 252

8 The Problem of Other Minds

John Stuart Mill, An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy 257

9 The Hallmarks of Mental Phenomena

Franz Brentano, Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint 263

10 The Myth of the ‘Ghost in the Machine’

Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind 270

11 Mental States as Functional States

Hilary Putnam, Psychological Predicates 275

12 The Subjective Dimension of Consciousness

Thomas Nagel, What is it Like to be a Bat? 283

Part V The Self and Freedom 290

(a) The Self

1 The Self and Consciousness

John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding 292

2 The Self as Primitive Concept

Joseph Butler, Of Personal Identity 298

3 The Self as Bundle

David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature 303

4 The Partly Hidden Self

Sigmund Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis 309

5 Liberation from the Self

Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons 315

6 Selfhood and Narrative Understanding

Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self 322

(b) Freedom

7 Human Freedom and Divine Providence

Augustine, The City of God 328

8 Freedom to Do What We Want

Thomas Hobbes, Liberty, Necessity and Chance 333

9 Free Will as the Power of Rational Agency

Thomas Reid, Essays on the Active Powers of Man 339

10 Absolute Determinism

Pierre-Simon de Laplace, Philosophical Essay on Probability 346

11 Condemned to Be Free

Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness 349

12 Freedom, Responsibility and the Ability to Do Otherwise

Harry G. Frankfurt, Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility 355

Part VI God and Religion 363

1 God Cannot Be Thought Not to Exist

Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogion 365

2 The Five Proofs of God

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 368

3 God as Source of My Idea of the Infinite

René Descartes, Meditations 372

4 God’s Existence Derived from His Nature or Essence

René Descartes, Meditations 378

5 The Wager

Blaise Pascal, Pensées 382

6 The Problem of Evil

Gottfried Leibniz, Theodicy 386

7 The Argument from Design

David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion 392

8 Against Miracles

David Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding 398

9 Faith and Subjectivity

Søren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript 405

10 Reason, Passion and the Religious Hypothesis

William James, The Will to Believe 412

11 The Meaning of Religious Language

John Wisdom, Gods 418

12 Many Paths to the Same Ultimate Reality?

John Hick, Problems of Religious Pluralism 425

Part VII Science and Method 432

1 Four Types of Explanation

Aristotle, Physics 434

2 Experimental Methods and True Causes

Francis Bacon, Novum Organum 437

3 Mathematical Science and the Control of Nature

René Descartes, Discourse on the Method 444

4 The Limits of Scientific Explanation

George Berkeley, On Motion 450

5 The Problem of Induction

David Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding 456

6 The Relation Between Cause and Effect

David Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding 462

7 Causality and our Experience of Events

Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason 468

8 The Uniformity of Nature

John Stuart Mill, System of Logic 473

9 Science and Falsifiability

Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations 479

10 How Explaining Works

Carl G. Hempel, Explanation in Science and History 486

11 Scientific Realism Versus Instrumentalism

Grover Maxwell, The Ontological Status of Theoretical Entities 496

12 Change and Crisis in Science

Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 503

Part VIII Morality and the Good Life 510

1 Morality and Happiness

Plato, Republic 512

2 Ethical Virtue

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 518

3 Morality and Natural Law

Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 522

4 Virtue, Reason and the Passions

Benedict Spinoza, Ethics 528

5 Human Feeling as the Source of Ethics

David Hume, Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals 533

6 Duty and Reason as the Ultimate Principle

Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals 540

7 Happiness as the Foundation of Morality

John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism 546

8 Utility and Common-sense Morality

Henry Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics 552

9 Against Conventional Morality

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil 559

10 Duty and Intuition

W. D. Ross, The Right and the Good 565

11 Ethics as Rooted in History and Culture

Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue 571

12 Could Ethics Be Objective?

Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy 577

Part IX Problems in Ethics 583

1 Inequality, Freedom and Slavery

Aristotle, Politics 585

2 War and Justice

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 590

3 Taking One’s Own Life

David Hume, On Suicide 593

4 Gender, Liberty and Equality

Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women 599

5 Partiality and Favouritism

William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice 604

6 The Status of Non-human Animals

Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Ethics 608

7 The Purpose of Punishment

Jeremy Bentham, Principles of Morals and Legislation 611

8 Our Relationship to the Environment

Aldo Leopold, The Land Ethic 618

9 Abortion and Rights

Judith Jarvis Thomson, A Defense of Abortion, and Patrick Lee & Robert P. George, The Wrong of Abortion 624

10 The Relief of Global Suffering

Peter Singer, Famine, Affluence and Morality 632

11 Medical Ethics and the Termination of Life

James Rachels, Active and Passive Euthanasia 638

12 Cloning, Sexual Reproduction and Genetic Engineering

Leon R. Kass, The Wisdom of Repugnance 644

Part X Authority and the State 654

1 Our Obligation to Respect the Laws of the State

Plato, Crito 656

2 The Just Ruler

Thomas Aquinas, On Princely Government 661

3 Power and Control

Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince 665

4 Sovereignty and Security

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan 672

5 Consent and Political Obligation

John Locke, Second Treatise of Civil Government 678

6 Against Contractarianism

David Hume, Of the Original Contract 684

7 Society and the Individual

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract 690

8 The Unified State – From Individual Desire to Rational Self-determination

Georg Hegel, The Philosophy of Right 697

9 Property, Labour and Alienation

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology 703

10 The Limits of Majority Rule

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty 710

11 Rational Choice and Fairness

John Rawls, A Theory of Justice 716

12 The Minimal State

Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia 723

Part XI Beauty and Art 731

1 Art and Imitation

Plato, Republic 733

2 The Nature and Function of Dramatic Art

Aristotle, Poetics 739

3 The Idea of Beauty

Francis Hutcheson, Inquiry Concerning Beauty, Order, Harmony, Design 745

4 Aesthetic Appreciation

David Hume, Of the Standard of Taste 750

5 The Concept of the Beautiful

Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgement 757

6 The Metaphysics of Beauty

Arthur Schopenhauer, On Aesthetics 763

7 The Two Faces of Art

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy 769

8 The Value of Art

Leo Tolstoy, What is Art? 776

9 Imagination and Art

Jean-Paul Sartre, The Psychology of Imagination 781

10 What is Aesthetics?

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Lectures on Aesthetics 788

11 The Meaning of a Literary Work

W. K. Wimsatt Jr. and M. C. Beardsley, The Intentional Fallacy 793

12 The Basis of Judgements of Taste

Frank Sibley, Aesthetic Concepts 801

Part XII Human Life and Its Meaning 808

1 How to Accept Reality and Avoid Fear

Lucretius, On the Nature of the Universe 810

2 Life Guided by Stoic Philosophy

Seneca, Moral Letters 814

3 Meaning through Service to Others

Augustine, Confessions 818

4 Contentment with the Human Lot

Michel de Montaigne, On Experience 821

5 The Human Condition, Wretched yet Redeemable

Blaise Pascal, Pensées 826

6 Human Life as a Meaningless Struggle

Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Vanity of Existence 831

7 The Death of God and the Ascendancy of the Will

Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra 836

8 Idealism in a Godless Universe

Bertrand Russell, A Free Man’s Worship 841

9 Futility and Defiance

Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus 848

10 Involvement versus Detachment

Thomas Nagel, The Absurd 851

11 Religious Belief as Necessary for Meaning

William Lane Craig, The Absurdity of Life without God 861

12 Seeing Our Lives as Part of the Process

Robert Nozick, Philosophy’s Life 868

Background Reading and Reference 873

Notes on the Philosophers 879

Index 898

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