Clarity and Vision: An Introduction to Philosophy
Edition: 2
Copyright: 2018
Pages: 415
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Philosophical views are formed by the rigorous exercise of reason coupled with imagination in the effort to answer questions so as to resolve the perplexities that gave rise to them.
In preparing to offer a new text for an introductory course already served by a number of excellent books, the authors sought, without sacrificing philosophical rigor, to focus attention on the ways in which philosophy is rooted in human experiences, particularly those that require critical decisions, and further, to help bring students to an appreciation of the crucial role in philosophy that is played by the creative imagination.
General Introduction
Part One: The Philosophical Life
Chapter 1: What is Philosophy?
Clouds
Aristophanes
Apology
Plato
The Allegory of the Cave
Plato
Questions for Discussion
Further Readings
Part Two: Knowledge and Reality
Chapter 2: How Can We Know Anything?
Right You Are! (If You Think So)
A Parable in Three Acts
Luigi Pirandello
Meditations on First Philosophy
René Descartes
All Things Are Ideas
George Berkeley
The Ornament of the Middle Way
Shantarakshita
Bad Dreams, Evil Demons, and the Experience Machine: Philosophy and the Matrix
Christopher Grau
Questions for Discussion
Further Readings
Chapter 3: Why Believe or Disbelieve in God?
God and Evil
Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Ontological Argument
St. Anselm
The Five Ways
St. Thomas Aquinas
Design and Evil
David Hume
Questions for Discussion
Further Readings
Chapter 4: What Is the Relationship Between Mind and Body?
The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me
Delmore Schwartz
The Distinction Between Mind and Body
René Descartes
Letter to Descartes Concerning the Union of Mind and Body
Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia
The Nature of Mind
David M. Armstrong
What Is It Like to Be a Bat?
Thomas Nagel
Questions for Discussion
Further Readings
Part Three: The Self, Identity, and Freedom
Chapter 5: What Makes Us Who We Are?
Borges and I
Jorge Luis Borges
Questions of King Milinda
Anonymous
Soul and Self
John Locke
Personhood and Personal Identity
Marya Schechtman
Questions for Discussion
Further Readings
Chapter 6: Are We Ever Responsible for Our Actions?
Notes from the Underground
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Hard Determinism
Baron d’Holbach
The Dilemma of Determinism
William James
I Could Have Done Otherwise
Rick Repetti
Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person
Harry Frankfurt
Luck Swallows Everything
Galen Strawson
Free Will Skepticism and Criminal Behavior
Gregg D. Caruso
Works Cited
Questions for Discussion
Further Readings
Part Four: Ethics and Society
Chapter 7: What Makes an Action Right or Wrong?
Billy Budd
Herman Melville
The Principle of Utility
Jeremy Bentham
The Categorical Imperative
Immanuel Kant
Happiness As Virtue
Aristotle
Questions for Discussion
Further Readings
Chapter 8: How Should We Be Governed?
The Ideal State
Plato
On Liberty
John Stuart Mill
Bourgeois Freedom
Karl Marx
Of Our Spiritual Strivings
W.E.B. Dubois
Questions for Discussion
Further Readings