A key introductory philosophy textbook, making use of an innovative, interactive technique for reading philosophical texts Reading Philosophy: Selected Texts with a Method for Beginners, Second Edition, provides a unique approach to reading philosophy, requiring students to engage with material as they read. It contains carefully selected texts, commentaries on those texts, and questions for the reader to think about as they read. It serves as starting points for both classroom discussion and independent study. The texts cover a wide range of topics drawn from diverse areas of philosophical investigation, ranging over ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, aesthetics, and political philosophy. This edition has been updated and expanded. New chapters discuss the moral significance of friendship and love, the subjective nature of consciousness and the ways that science might explore conscious experience. And there are new texts and commentary in chapters on doubt, self and moral dilemmas. Guides readers through the experience of active, engaged philosophical reading Presents significant texts, contextualized for newcomers to philosophy Includes writings by philosophers from antiquity to the late 20th-century Contains commentary that provides the context and background necessary for discussion and argument Prompts readers to think through specific questions and to reach their own conclusions This book is an ideal resource for beginning students in philosophy, as well as for anyone wishing to engage with the subject on their own.

Logic is, and has always been, an essential part of philosophy. It employs concepts which are crucial for understanding thought and language, and demands a mastery of procedures and techniques. With the same intellectual goals as the first edition, this innovative introductory logic textbook explores the relationship between natural language and logic, motivating the student to acquire skills and techniques of formal logic.

This new and revised edition includes substantial additions which make the text even more useful to students and instructors alike. Central to these changes is an Appendix, 'How to Learn Logic', which takes the student through fourteen compact and sharply directed lessons with exercises and answers. Other new material includes a discussion of the truth tree method for both Sentential and Predicate logics, an account of alternative notations, and the provision of answers to selected exercises that figure in the main body of the book.

"Reading Philosophy "will appeal to both those beginning their study of philosophy at a university and those who want to engage with the subject on their own. Unlike introductory books which "tell" the reader about the subject, this one requires the reader to "do" philosophy. Its direct approach makes the book valuable both for students and for other readers. It can be used as the set reading in seminars in introductory courses: each chapter can act as a focal point for extended discussion week by week. But it is also well adapted for self-sufficient use by individuals working without a teacher.

The volume provides eighteen examples of high-quality philosophical texts, covering nine philosophical topics: Doubt; Self; Tragedy; Equality; Dilemma; Identity; Freedom; Causality; Qualities. The texts include writings by Descartes, Boyle, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Schopenhauer and J. S. Mill, as well as eight written by philosophers in the late twentieth century. Each chapter contains an introduction to the problem, introductions to the texts and their authors, and interactive commentaries on the texts.

The philosophy of mind is one of the fastest-growing areas in philosophy, not least because of its connections with related areas of psychology, linguistics and computation. This "Companion" is an alphabetically arranged reference guide to the subject, firmly rooted in the philosophy of mind, but with a number of entries that survey adjacent fields of interest.

The book is introduced by the editor's substantial "Essay on the Philosophy of Mind" which serves as an overview of the subject, and is closely referenced to the entries in the Companion. Among the entries themselves are several "self-profiles" by leading philosophers in the field, including Chomsky, Davidson, Dennett, Dretske, Fodor, Lewis, Searle and Stalnaker, in which their own positions within the subject are articulated. In some more complex areas, more than one author has been invited to write on the same topic, giving a polarity of viewpoints within the book's overall coverage.

All main entries have a full bibliography, and the book is indexed to the high standards set by other volumes in the Blackwell Companions to Philosophy series.