Growing Wisdom: An Invitation to Western Philosophy
Edition: 2
Copyright: 2020
Pages: 402
Edition: 2
Copyright: 2020
Pages: 402
Edition: 2
Copyright: 2020
Pages: 404
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No one is born with Wisdom – the ability to think and act with understanding and insight. Wisdom grows only in a soil rich with knowledge and experience, but knowledge and experience provide only the nutrients. Wisdom must be nurtured by curiosity and a desire for understanding. Growing wisdom takes time and effort. Great minds have graced us with records of their struggles towards wisdom. This volume enables us to stand on the shoulders of some of these giants and thereby grow our own wisdom farther – and faster!
Growing Wisdom: An Invitation to Western Philosophy comprises an exceptionally affordable, readable, high-quality, scholarly rigorous collection of canonical philosophical texts. From Plato to Dennett, it presents western philosophy as dialogue between and among generations, over centuries, and challenges us to stand on the shoulders of giants in our own quest for wisdom.
- Includes context-enriching intellectual biographies of every author
- Includes “What to Look For” sections to help guide the reader towards understanding (and for use as possible discussion topics)
- Organized in historical sequence within “problem groups”
- Section introductions preview and build context for readings
- Selections chosen from earliest editions whenever possible and appropriate; each selection includes pagination of original sources and is tagged with original publication date
- Selections carefully compared with original print versions and proofed for accuracy
- Sidebars on Occam’s razor, the argument from evil, and brain transplants enrich related selections
- Appendix delivers user-friendly aids to critical thinking
About the Author
Invitation
Philosophy?
1. What Is Enlightenment?
Kant
2. The Value of Philosophy
Russell
3. The Ethics of Belief
Clifford
4. Euthyphro
Plato
5. Apology
Plato
Society and Politics
6. Crito
Plato
7. Human Flourishing and The Ideal State
Aristotle
8. The State of Nature and Natural Law
Hobbes
9. Limits on Government
Locke
10. Liberty
J.S.Mill
11. Class Struggle
Marx
Knowledge and Reality
12. Allegory of the Cave
Plato
13. Knowledge Is Recollection
Plato
SIDEBAR: Occam’s Razor
14. Meditations I and II
Descartes
15. Ideas in the Understanding
Locke
16. To Be Is To Be Perceived
Berkeley
17. Causation
Hume
18. A Copernican Revolution for Knowledge
Kant
God
19. An Ontological Proof of God’s Existence
Anselm
20. Demonstrations that God Exists
Aquinas
21. Analogy and the Argument from Design
Hume
22. The Wager
Pascal
23. The Will to Believe
James
SIDEBAR: The Argument from Evil
24. Why God Allows Evil
Swinburne
Human Nature and Personal Identity
25. The Ring of Gyges
Plato
26. The Madman
Nietzsche
27. Existentialism Is a Humanism
Sartre
28. The Myth of Sisyphus
Camus
SIDEBAR: Brain Transplants
29. Where Am I?
Dennett
30. Do We Survive Death?
Russell
31. A Defense of Life After Death
Hick
32. Free Will and Determinism
Stace
33. Are we Really Free?
Hospers
Notes on Critical Thinking
Questions
Argument
Names and Things/Use and Mention
True and False v. Valid and Invalid
Five Faces of IS
Form
Counter Examples
Deduction v. Induction
Deductive Forms
Inductive Arguments
Diversions