Core Questions in Philosophy

Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication Page
Contents
List of Boxes
Preface
Acknowledgments
Routledge eResource
Part I Introduction
	1 What Is Philosophy?
		Chapter Outline
		Examples
		Three Theories about What Philosophy Is
		The Nature of Philosophy Has Changed Historically
		Philosophical Method
		Summary
		Review Questions
		A Problem for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	2 Deductive Arguments
		Chapter Outline
		Arguments
		Good Arguments
		Deductive Validity Defined
		“Validity” Is a Technical Term
		Logical Form
		Invalidity
		Testing for Invalidity
		Circularity, or Begging the Question
		Truth
		“True for Me”
		Wishful Thinking
		Self-Fulfilling Prophesies
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	3 Inductive and Abductive Arguments
		Chapter Outline
		Deductive Validity Is a Limitation
		Nondeductive Inference—A Weaker Guarantee
		Two Gambling Strategies
		Universal Laws
		Detective Work
		Induction
		Two Factors Influence Inductive Strength
		Abduction
		Inferring What Isn’t Observed
		Abduction Differs from Induction
		Can You Deduce the Explanation from the Observations?
		Deducing Observational Predictions from a Theory
		When the Prediction Comes True
		When the Prediction Turns Out to Be False
		How True Predictions and False Predictions Are Interpreted
		The Surprise Principle: When Does Successful Prediction Provide Strong Evidence?
		Evidence May Discriminate between Some Hypotheses While Failing to Discriminate between Others
		True Prediction Isn’t Enough
		Modest Favoring
		The Surprise Principle Summarized
		The Only Game in Town Fallacy
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
Part II Philosophy of Religion
	4 Aquinas’s First Four Ways
		Chapter Outline
		The Concept of God
		The First Two Arguments: Motion and Causality
		Aquinas on the Cause of Motion
		God Is a Person, Not Just a Cause That Exists Outside of Nature
		The Birthday Fallacy
		Why Can’t Nature Be Infinitely Old?
		Why Must Every Event in Nature Have a Cause?
		The Third Argument: Contingency
		Necessary and Contingent Beings
		Possible Worlds
		Reductio Ad Absurdum
		Contingency and Eternity
		Conservation Laws in Physics
		The Birthday Fallacy (Again)
		Necessary Beings Other Than God
		Necessary and Contingent Propositions
		Mathematical Truths
		Names Differ from the Things Named
		Numbers Aren’t Numerals
		Sets
		Necessity and Certainty Are Different
		Numbers Are Necessary Beings
		Aquinas’s Fourth Argument: Properties That Come in Degrees
		Criticizing an Argument versus Showing the Argument’s Conclusion Is False
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	5 The Design Argument
		Chapter Outline
		Goal-Directed Systems
		Two Kinds of Design Argument
		Paley’s Watch
		The Analogy
		Abductive Arguments Often Postulate Unobserved Entities
		Hume’s Criticisms of the Design Argument
		Is the Design Argument a Weak Argument from Analogy?
		Is the Design Argument a Weak Induction?
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	6 Evolution and Creationism
		Chapter Outline
		Creationism
		Some Creationist Arguments
		Darwin’s Two-Part Theory
		Natural Selection
		Speciation
		The Tree of Life
		The Principle of the Common Cause
		Two Types of Similarity that Organisms may Exhibit
		Irreducible Complexity
		Is Creationism Testable?
		Predictive Equivalence
		Prediction versus Accommodation
		Does Evolutionary Theory Make Novel Predictions?
		Concluding Remarks
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	7 Can Science Explain Everything?
		Chapter Outline
		Scientific Ignorance
		The Only Game in Town Fallacy
		The Two Questions
		What Is a Scientific Explanation?
		A Thesis about Explanation
		Why Is There Something Rather than Nothing?
		Can Physics Explain the Origin of the Universe?
		Leibniz: God Chooses Which Possible World to Actualize
		Clarke: God Explains Why the Actual World Consists of One Total History Rather than Another
		The Only Game in Town Fallacy, Again
		Causality
		The Principle of Sufficient Reason
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	8 The Ontological Argument
		Chapter Outline
		A Posteriori and A Priori
		Definitions and Existence
		Anselm’s Argument
		Gaunilo’s Criticism
		How Are the Ontological Argument and the Island Argument Related?
		Anselm’s Reply
		Dispensing with Perfection
		Conclusion
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	9 Is the Existence of God Testable?
		Chapter Outline
		Logical Positivism
		The Testability Theory of Meaning
		Analyticity
		Falsifiability
		Auxiliary Assumptions Needed
		Auxiliary Assumptions Must Be Independently Established
		“God Exists” Is Meaningful
		Summary
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	10 Pascal and Irrationality
		Chapter Outline
		Prudential and Evidential Reasons for Belief
		When Does It Make Sense to Gamble?
		Pascal’s Argument
		First Criticism of Pascal’s Argument
		Second Criticism of Pascal’s Argument
		The Role of Reason
		Freud’s Psychological Explanation of Theism
		A New Prudential Argument
		Pragmatism
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	11 The Argument from Evil
		Chapter Outline
		First Version of the Argument
		Two Kinds of Evil
		Possible Reactions to the Argument
		Theodicy and Defense
		Soul-Building Evils
		Second Version of the Argument
		Free Will
		Examples and a Third Version of the Argument
		A Criticism of the Argument
		Testability, Again
		Another Kind of Argument—The Evidential Argument from Evil
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
Part III Theory of Knowledge
	12 What Is Knowledge?
		Chapter Outline
		Epistemology
		Three Kinds of Knowledge
		Two Requirements for Knowledge: Belief and Truth
		Plato: True Belief Isn’t Sufficient for Knowledge
		Justification
		The JTB Theory
		Three Counterexamples to the JTB Theory
		What the Counterexamples Have in Common
		An Argument for Skepticism
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	13 Descartes’ Foundationalism
		Chapter Outline
		Foundationalism
		Euclid’s Parallel Postulate
		Descartes’ Method of Doubt
		The Method Applied to a Posteriori Beliefs
		Dubitability Is a Logical, Not a Psychological, Property
		The Method Applied to Beliefs Based on Rational Calculation
		I Am Thinking, Therefore I Exist
		Thesis of the Incorrigibility of the Mental
		Do First-Person Psychological Beliefs Provide a Sufficient Foundation?
		An Additional Foundational Belief: God Exists and Is No Deceiver
		How to Prove that God Exists
		The Clarity and Distinctness Criterion
		The Cartesian Circle
		Conclusion
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	14 The Reliability Theory of Knowledge
		Chapter Outline
		Descartes: Knowledge Is Internally Certifiable
		What Makes a Thermometer Reliable?
		Relevance to the Problem of Knowledge
		Three Concepts of Impossibility
		To Have Knowledge, You Don’t Need to Be Able to Construct a Philosophical Argument Refuting the Skeptic
		A Consequence of the Reliability Theory
		Thesis of the Relativity of Knowledge
		What Does the Relativity Thesis Say about Skepticism?
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	15 Justified Belief and Hume’s Problem of Induction
		Chapter Outline
		Knowledge versus Justified Belief
		Skepticism about Justified Belief
		Hume’s Skeptical Thesis about Induction
		Hume’s Argument that Induction Can’t Be Rationally Justified
		Why Can’t PUN Be Justified?
		Summary of Hume’s Argument
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	16 Can Hume’s Skepticism Be Refuted?
		Chapter Outline
		What, Exactly, Does the Principle of the Uniformity of Nature Say?
		A New Concept: Degrees of Reliability
		What Is a Rule of Inference?
		Does the Past Reliability of Induction Provide an Answer?
		Hume’s Argument Reformulated
		Strawson: It Is Analytic that Induction Is Rational
		Black: Induction Can Be Inductively Justified
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	17 Beyond Foundationalism
		Chapter Outline
		Hume’s Problem and Descartes’ Problem
		Whether X Is Evidence for Y Depends on Background Assumptions Z
		Another Relativity Thesis
		Foundationalism Leads to Skepticism
		A Nonfoundationalist Approach to Justification
		Standards of Justification Often Depend on the Audience
		Two Metaphors—Building a Building and Repairing a Ship on the Open Sea
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	18 Locke on the Existence of External Objects
		Chapter Outline
		Locke’s First Argument—“Those That Want the Organs of Any Sense”
		Locke’s Second Argument—“Ideas Which Force Themselves upon Me”
		Locke’s Third Argument—“Pleasure or Pain”
		Locke’s Fourth Argument—“Our Senses Assist One Another’s Testimony”
		Review Questions
		A Problem for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	19 Probability and Bayes’s Theorem
		Chapter Outline
		Deriving Bayes’s Theorem
		What is Controversial about Bayesianism?
		Hume’s Problem of Induction Revisited
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
Part IV Philosophy of Mind
	20 Dualism and the Mind/Body Problem
		Chapter Outline
		What Is the Mind/Body Problem?
		Descartes’ Dualism
		The Mind/Brain Identity Theory
		Immortality of the Soul
		Leibniz’s Law
		Descartes’ First Argument for Dualism—The Indubitable Existence Argument
		An Analogy
		Propositional Attitudes and Aboutness
		Descartes’ Second Argument for Dualism—The Divisibility Argument
		Causality between the Physical and the Nonphysical
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	21 Logical Behaviorism
		Chapter Outline
		The Attack on “the Ghost in the Machine”
		Logical Behaviorism Says Mentalism Is False Because It Entails Skepticism
		Do We Know about the Mental States of Others by Analogy with Our Own Case?
		Abduction
		Logical Behaviorism’s Positive Thesis—Its Analysis of Mentalistic Vocabulary
		The Dispositional Analysis of Desire Is Incomplete
		A Dispositional Analysis Does Not Refute Mentalism
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	22 Methodological Behaviorism
		Chapter Outline
		The Negative Thesis: Psychology Should Avoid Belief/Desire Explanations
		Methodological Behaviorism’s Positive Thesis
		First Objection to Behaviorism’s Positive Thesis: Novel Behaviors
		Second Objection to Behaviorism’s Positive Thesis: It Assumes that Environmental Determinism Is True
		The Two Objections Summarized
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	23 The Mind/Brain Identity Theory
		Chapter Outline
		The Identity Theory Is an A Posteriori Claim
		Materialism
		Progress in Science
		Dualism Resembles Vitalism
		A Correlation Experiment
		The Principle of Parsimony
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	24 Functionalism
		Chapter Outline
		Functionalism’s Negative Thesis: What’s Wrong with the Identity Theory?
		Multiple Realizability
		Could a Computer Have Psychological Characteristics?
		Multiple Realizability within the Class of Living Things
		Functionalism’s Positive Thesis
		Sensations
		Summary
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	25 Freedom, Determinism, and Causality
		Chapter Outline
		The Problem of Freedom
		Examples of Unfree Acts
		Are All Behaviors Like Those Produced by Obsessions?
		A Clash of Plausible Conceptions
		What Is Causality?
		Determinism
		Indeterminism
		Does Indeterminism Make Us Free?
		Causality Is the Issue, Not Determinism
		Determinism Differs from Fatalism
		Review Questions
		A Problem for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	26 A Menu of Positions on Free Will
		Chapter Outline
		“Compatibility” Defined
		Incompatibilism and Compatibilism
		Libertarianism
		Two Soft Determinist Theories
		Hume
		First Objection to Hume’s Theory: Compulsive Behavior
		Second Objection to Hume’s Theory: Locke’s Locked Room
		Does Coercion Rob Us of Free Will?
		A Second Compatibilist Proposal: The Relevance of Second-Order Desires
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	27 Compatibilism
		Chapter Outline
		The Weather Vane Analogy
		Function and Malfunction
		What Does It Mean to Ascribe a Function to Something?
		The Function of the Desire-Generating Device
		Reply to the Distant Causation Argument
		What Does Responsibility Mean?
		Moral Responsibility
		Reply to the Could-Not-Have-Done-Otherwise Argument
		Are Coerced Actions Unfree?
		An Objection to the Weather Vane Theory: Freely Chosen, Rational Self-Sacrifice
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	28 Psychological Egoism
		Chapter Outline
		Two Truisms
		Goals and Side Effects of an Act
		A Simple Example
		Four Preference Structures
		People Are Rarely Pure Altruists or Pure Egoists
		An Experimental Test
		A Second Experimental Test
		Conclusion
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
Part V Ethics
	29 Ethics—Normative and Meta
		Chapter Outline
		Ethics and Religion
		Metaethics and Normative Ethics
		Truth and Opinion
		Alternative Metaethical Positions
		Subjectivism
		Realism
		Conventionalism
		Three Varieties of Conventionalism
		Review Questions
		A Problem for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	30 The Is/Ought Gap and the Naturalistic Fallacy
		Chapter Outline
		Subjectivism: Ethical Statements Are neither True nor False
		Does the Existence of Ethical Disagreement Show that Subjectivism Is True?
		The Genetic Fallacy
		Hume: The Is/Ought Gap
		(S1): An Argument for Subjectivism with Hume’s Thesis as a Premise
		The Naturalistic Fallacy
		(S2): An Argument for Subjectivism with Moore’s Thesis as a Premise
		Summary
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	31 Observation and Explanation in Ethics
		Chapter Outline
		Reasoning about Ethical Issues
		Testing General Principles by Applying Them to Specific Examples
		Thought Experiments versus Empirical Experiments
		Observations Are “Theory Laden”
		Observation Does Not Imply Objectivity
		Insoluble Disagreements
		Is Subjectivism Preferable to Realism on Grounds of Parsimony?
		Does Subjectivism Follow?
		An Explanatory Role for Ethical Principles
		What Is the Point of Ethics?
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	32 Conventionalist Theories
		Chapter Outline
		What Makes a View Conventionalist?
		Trivial Semantic Conventionalism
		Substantive versus Trivial Conventionalism
		Plato’s Critique of the Divine Command Theory
		Two Objections to the Divine Command Theory
		Ethical Relativism
		Ethical Relativism Is Normative, Not Descriptive
		A Further Clarification of Ethical Relativism
		Ethical Relativism Is a Version of Conventionalism
		If Imperialism Is Wrong, Does That Justify Ethical Relativism?
		Sartre’s Existentialism
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	33 Utilitarianism
		Chapter Outline
		Mill’s Defense of the Greatest Happiness Principle
		Reciprocal Illumination
		What Is Happiness?
		The Problem of the Experience Machine
		Mill on “Higher” and “Lower” Pleasures
		Objection to Hedonistic Utilitarianism
		Preference Utilitarianism
		The Apples and Oranges Problem
		Utilitarianism and Justice: The Case of the Lonesome Stranger
		Punishment
		A Reply: Distinguish Rule and Act Utilitarianism
		Utilitarianism and Tolerance: The Problem of the Fanatical Majority
		Utilitarianism and Personal Integrity: The Problem of Dirty Hands
		Utilitarianism and Personal Loyalties
		A Psychological Objection to My Criticisms of Utilitarianism
		Summary
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	34 Kant’s Moral Theory
		Chapter Outline
		Hume on Reason’s Role
		Kant Rejects the Idea that Reason Is Purely Instrumental
		Kant: Moral Rules Are Categorical Imperatives
		The Moral Law
		Kant: The Moral Value of an Act Derives from Its Maxim, Not from Its Consequences
		Kant Rejected Consequentialism
		The Universalizability Criterion
		Four Examples
		Evaluation of Kant’s Examples
		A Problem for the Universalizability Criterion
		Kant: People Are Ends in Themselves
		The Rabbit and the Hat
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
	35 Aristotle on the Good Life
		Chapter Outline
		How Far Do Obligations Extend?
		The Theory of the Right and the Theory of the Good
		Are There General Principles about the Good Life?
		What Is a Good X?
		Human Beings Are Goal-Directed Systems
		The Capacity to Reason
		Aristotle: Happiness Is Not a Subjective State
		Why the Life of Rational Activity Is Best: Two More Reasons
		The Doctrine of the Mean
		A Second Criticism of Aristotle’s Theory—Defining What a Good X Is Differs from Saying What Is Good for an X
		A Third Criticism—Why Single Out Contemplation as the Best Life?
		Review Questions
		Problems for Further Thought
		Recommended Readings, Video, and Audio
Glossary
Index