Description

Classic and Contemporary Primary Source Readings. Classic Philosophical Questions has presented decades of students with the most compelling classic and contemporary primary source readings on the most enduring and abiding questions in philosophy.
Classic Philosophical Questions is a longstanding and highly respected anthology of basic readings in philosophy, taken from ancient, modern, and contemporary sources. Issues are treated in a fundamentally open manner with arguments pro and con for the various positions covered. All selections are taken from primary sources, with introductions and study guides to facilitate reading for the beginning student.

Teaching and Learning Experience

Personalize Learning - MySearchLab delivers proven results in helping students succeed, provides engaging experiences that personalize learning, and comes from a trusted partner with educational expertise and a deep commitment to helping students and instructors achieve their goals.

Improve Critical Thinking - Philosophical issues, 'To Think About' questions and quotations, biographical sketches, and more, all help to encourage students to examine their assumptions, discern hidden values, evaluate evidence and assess their conclusions.

Engage Students - The selections within Classic Philosophical Questions contain explanatory introductions, study questions and a glossary of terms to facilitate easier reading for the beginning student.

Support Instructors- Teaching your course just got easier! You can create a Customized Text or use our PowerPoint Presentation Slides. Plus, Classic Philosophical Questions maintains the independence of each work. It does not make the assumption that a student has previously read the material when it presents issues of knowledge, metaphysics, ethics, etc. - thus allowing you to arrange the order of topics to your course needs.

Features

CLASSIC AND CONTEMPORARY PRIMARY SOURCE READINGS

• Classic Philosophical Questions offers a comprehensive, first-hand experience of all the major fundamental branches of Philosophy, as opposed to volumes dealing with specialized topics. It provides a well-rounded introduction to philosophy without requiring separate, specialized volumes. (ex. p. 42)

PERSONALIZE LEARNING

• MySearchLab delivers proven results in helping individual students succeed. It provides engaging experiences that personalize, stimulate, and measure learning for each student. And, it comes from a trusted partner with educational expertise and a deep commitment to helping students, instructors, and departments achieve their goals.
• The Pearson eText lets students access their textbook anytime and anywhere they want.
• A personalized study plan for each student helps them succeed in the course and beyond.
• Assessment tied to every video, application, and chapter enables both instructors and students to track progress and get immediate feedback—and helps instructors to find the best resources with which to help students.
• Ebsco’s ContentSelect - With Ebsco’s ContentSelect, students get 24-hour access to abstracts and full-text articles from thousands of scholarly and popular periodicals, including Newsweek, National Review and USA Today’s Magazine -- all grouped and organized by subject area.
• Research Tutorial – When students click on the research button in MySearchLab, they get a step-by-step tutorial for the entire research process, including understanding the assignment, finding a topic, creating effective notes, how to form a paradigm, understanding and finding source material, etc.

IMPROVE CRITICAL THINKING

• Philosophical issues are treated in a fundamentally open manner, offering at least two pieces on most questions representing different views. This treatment provides students with different ways of thinking about the same issue. (ex. p. 195)
• Classical Philosophical Questions is the only text on the market that starts with a question at each section, allowing students to write out their answers to the questions before reading further. (ex. p. 64)
• Unique 'To Think About' questions and quotations provide material for spirited debates or for written assignments, promoting new ways of thinking about various themes. (ex. p. 68)
• Each reading contains a biographical sketch of the author, and a group of further readings for the student wishing to pursue their philosophical issues in greater depth. (ex. p. 86)

ENGAGE STUDENTS

• All selections within Classic Philosophical Questions are taken from ancient, modern, and contemporary primary sources with introductions and study guides, facilitating easier reading for the beginning student. (ex. p. 48)
• Explanatory introductions accompany each section within Classic Philosophical Questions, guiding students to what is important and central in each section.
• A Glossary of Terms at the end Classic Philosophical Questions defines unfamiliar terms for students. (ex. p. 529)
• Study Questions for each selection within Classic Philosophical Questions allows students to immediately review their comprehension of key arguments. (ex. p. 196)

SUPPORT INSTRUCTORS

• Classic Philosophical Questions maintains the independence of each work. It does not make the assumption that a student has previously read the material when it presents issues of knowledge,

New to this Edition

Found in this section:
1. Overview of Changes
2. Chapter-by-Chapter Changes

1. Overview of changes

CLASSIC AND CONTEMPORARY PROMARY SOURCE READINGS

• Additional pages from Plato’s Phaedo, developing the general psychological and moral profile of Socrates in its relationship to his most fundamental philosophical positions. (ex. p. 36)
• A reading on the problem of evil drawn from Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy, considered by many the first formal theodicy or argument for the justice of God. (ex. p. 64)
• A brief reading by John Dewey underscoring the necessary employment of philosophical discourse in the maintenance of educational and political growth. (ex. p. 525)

PERSONALIZE LEARNING

MySearchLab with eText can be packaged with this text.

• MySearchLab provides engaging experiences that personalize learning, and comes from a trusted partner with educational expertise and a deep commitment to helping students and instructors achieve their goals.
• eText – Just like the printed text, you can highlight and add notes to the eText or download it to your iPad.
• Assessment – Chapter quizzes and flashcards offer immediate feedback and report directly to the gradebook.
• Writing and Research – A wide range of writing, grammar and research tools and access to a variety of academic journals, census data, help you hone your writing and research skills.
• A personalized study plan for each student helps them succeed in the course and beyond.
• New! Ebsco’s ContentSelect - With Ebsco’s ContentSelect, students get 24-hour access to abstracts and full-text articles from thousands of scholarly and popular periodicals, including Newsweek, National Review and USA Today’s Magazine -- all grouped and organized by subject area.
• New! Research Tutorial — When students click on the research button in MySearchLab, they get a step-by-step tutorial for the entire research process, including understanding the assignment, finding a topic, creating effective notes, how to form a paradigm, understanding and finding source material, etc.

IMPROVE CRITICAL THINKING

• An expanded section on free will, including a reading by John Stuart Mill defending a compatibilist position and balancing the traditional determinist and free will positions found in earlier editions of this book. (ex. p. 331)
• A concluding brief reading by John Dewey underscoring the necessary employment of philosophical discourse in the maintenance of educational and political growth.

ENGAGE STUDENTS

• A new section devoted to issues of personal identity and their relation to the problem of immortality, with pages from Plato, Joseph Butler and David Hume. (ex. p. 355)
• Readings from Simone de Beauvoir on women’s liberation, Benjamin Barber on the nature of democracy, and Brand Blanshard on the criterion of truth. (ex. p. 233)

SUPPORT INSTRUCTORS

• New! Create a Custom Text: For enrollments of at least 25, create your own textbook by combining chapters from best-selling Pearson textbooks and/or reading selections in the sequence you want. To begin building your custom text, visit www.pearsoncustomlibrary.com.

Table of Contents

IN THIS SECTION:

1.) BRIEF
2.) COMPREHENSIVE

 

BRIEF TABLE OF CONTENTS:

 

Part 1: Socrates and the Nature of Philosophy
Part 2: Philosophy of Religion
Part 3: Ethics
Part 4: Knowledge
Part 5: Metaphysics
Part 6: Social and Political Philosophy
Part 7: Aesthetics  
Part 8: Philosophy and the Good Life

 

COMPREHENSIVE TABLE OF CONTENTS:

 

Part 1: Socrates and the Nature of Philosophy

What is Philosophy?
The Euthyphro:  Defining Philosophical Terms
The Apology:  Socrates’ Trial and Defense
The Crito:  Socrates’ Refusal to Escape
The Phaedo:  Virtue and Socrates’ View of Death

Part 2: Philosophy of Religion

Can We Prove That God Exists?
St. Anselm:  The Ontological Argument
St. Thomas Aquinas:  The Cosmological Argument
William Paley:  The Teleological Argument
Blaise Pascal:  It is Better to Believe in God’s Existence Than to Deny it.

Does the Idea of a Good God Exclude Evil?
Boethius:  God Can Allow Some Evil.
David Hume:  A Good God Would Exclude Evil.
John Hick: Evil, Human Freedom and Moral Development

Part 3: Ethics

Are Ethics Relative?
Ruth Benedict:  Ethics Are Relative
W. T. Stace:  Ethics Are Not Relative

Are Humans Always Selfish? 
Humans Are Always Selfish:  Glaucon’s Challenge to  Socrates
James Rachels:  Humans Are Not Always Selfish

Which is Basic in Ethics: Happiness or Obligation? 
Aristotle:  Happiness Is Living Virtuously
Jeremy Bentham:  Happiness Is Seeking the Greatest Pleasure for the Greatest Number of People
Immanuel Kant:  Duty Is Prior to Happiness
Friedrich Nietzsche:  Happiness Is Having Power
Jean-Paul Sartre:  Existentialist Ethics
Virginia Held:  Feminist Ethics Are Different

Part 4: Knowledge

What is Knowledge?
Plato:  Knowledge Is “Warranted True Belief”

What Method is Best For Acquiring Knowledge?
Charles Sanders Peirce:  Four Approaches to Philosophy

How Do We Acquire Knowledge?
René Descartes:  Knowledge Is Not Ultimately Sense Knowledge
John Locke:  Knowledge is Ultimately Sensed
Immanuel Kant:  Knowledge Is Both Rational and Empirical.

How Is Truth Established?
Bertrand Russell:  Truth Is Established By Correspondence
Brand Blanshard:  Truth Means Coherence
William James:  Truth Is Established by Pragmatic Means

Can We Know the Nature of Causal Relations?
David Hume:  Cause Means Regular Association
David Hume:  There Are No Possible Grounds for Induction

Part 5: Metaphysics

Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?
Parmenides:  Being Is Uncaused
Lao-Tzu:  Non-Being Is the Source of Being

Is Reality General Or Particular?
Plato: Universals Are Real
David Hume:  Particulars Are Real

Of What Does Reality Consist?
René  Descartes:  Reality Consists of Mind and Matter
Paul Churchland:  Reality Consists of Matter
George Berkeley:  Reality Consists of Ideas
John Dewey:  Reality Consists of Mental and Physical Qualities

Are Humans Free?
Holbach:  Humans Are Determined
John  Stuart Mill:  Determinism and Freedom Are Compatible
Richard Taylor:  Humans Are Free

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