Readings

SES # TOPICS READINGS

1

Introductions

No readings 

Proving the Existence (or Nonexistence) of God

2

God Exists: Old and New Arguments from Design

Paley, William. “State of the Argument.” Chapter 1 in Natural Theology. Oxford University Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780199535750. 

———.   “State of the Argument Continued.” Chapter 2 in Natural Theology. Oxford University Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780199535750.

White, Roger. This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.“The Argument from Cosmological Fine-Tuning.” (PDF)

3

God Does Not Exist: The Problem of Evil

Mackie, J.L. “Evil and Omnipotence.” Mind 64, no. 254 (1955): 200–212.

Schlesinger, George. “The Problem of Evil and the Problem of Suffering.” American Philosophical Quarterly 1, no. 3 (1964): 244–47.

4

Faith

 Buchak, Lara. “When is Faith Rational?” In The Norton Introduction to Philosophy. 2nd ed. Edited by Gideon Rosen, Alex Byrne, Joshua Cohen, et al. W. W. Norton & Company, 2018. ISBN: 9780393624427.

Metaethics

5

Ethics and God

Plato. “The Euthyphro.” In Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo. 2nd ed. Translated by G.M.A. Grube. Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2002.  ISBN: 9780872206335. [Preview with Google Books

6

Subjectivism

Mackie, J.L.“The Subjectivity of Values.” Chapter 1 in Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. Penguin Books, 1991. ISBN: 9780140135589. [Preview with Google Books]

7

Objectivism

Nagel, Thomas. “Ethics.” Chapter 6 in The Last Word. Oxford University Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780195149838. 

Consciousness

8

Dualist Accounts of How Things Feel

Jackson, Frank. This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.“Epiphenomenal Qualia.” (PDF) Philosophical Quarterly 32, no. 127 (1982): 127–36.

9

Materialist Accounts of How Things Feel

Buy at MIT Press Churchland, Patricia Smith. “Are Mental States Irreducible to Neurobiological States?” Chapter 8 in Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain. MIT Press, 1986. ISBN: 9780262031165. [Preview with Google Books]

10

Panpsychism

Hassel-Mørch, Hedda. “Is Matter Conscious?Nautilus, April 6, 2017.

Free Will

11

Incompatibilism about Free Will and Determinism

Van Inwagen, Peter. This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.“The Incompatibility of Free Will and Determinism.” (PDF) Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition 27, no. 3 (1975): 185–99.

12

Compatibilist Theories of Free Will

Frankfurt, Harry G. This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.“Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person.” (PDF) Journal of Philosophy 68, no. 1 (1971): 5–20.

Optional:

Wolf, Susan. “Sanity and the Metaphysics of Responsibility.” Chapter 3 in Responsibility, Character and the Emotions: New Essays in Moral Psychology. Edited by Ferdinand Schoeman. Cambridge University Press, 1988. ISBN: 9780521339513. [Preview with Google Books]

13

Free Will and Moral Responsibility

Strawson, Galen. This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.“The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility.” (PDF - 2.0MB)  Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition 75, no. 1/2 (1994): 5–24.

Optional:

Strawson, P. F. “Freedom and Resentment.” Chapter 1 in Freedom and Resentment and Other Essays. Routledge, 2008. ISBN: 9780415448505. 

Personal Identity

14

The Psychological Criterion of Personal Identity over Time

Locke, John. “Of Identity and Diversity.” Chapter 27 in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Abridged and edited by Kenneth P. Winkler. Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1996. ISBN: 9780872202160. 

15

Personal Fission

Parfit, Derek. This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.“Personal Identity.” (PDF - 5.3MB) Philosophical Review 80, no. 1 (1971): 3–27. 

Optional:

Lewis, David. “Survival and Identity.” Chapter 5 in Philosophical Papers, Volume I. Oxford University Press, 1983. ISBN: 9780195032048.

16

The Bodily Criterion of Personal Identity over Time

Williams, Bernard. This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.“The Self and the Future.” (PDF) Philosophical Review 79, no. 2 (1970): 161–80.
 

17

Is There a Self?

Dennett, Daniel C. “Where Am I?” Chapter 6 in Science Fiction and Philosophy: From Time Travel to Superintelligence. 2nd ed. Edited by Susan Schneider. Wiley-Blackwell, 2016. ISBN: 9781118922613. [Preview with Google Books]

Meaning of Life

18

The Meanings of Lives

Wolf, Susan. “The Meanings of Lives.” Chapter 68 in Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings. 8th ed. Oxford University Press, 2018. ISBN: 9780190698720.

19

The Absurd

Nagel, Thomas. This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.“The Absurd.” (PDF - 1MB) Journal of Philosophy 68, no. 20 (1971): 716–27.

Race and Gender

20

Death and the Afterlife

Scheffler, Samuel. “Lecture I: The Afterlife (Part I).” In Death and the Afterlife. Oxford University Press, 2016. ISBN: 9780190469177. [Preview with Google Books]

21

Race

Appiah, Anthony. “The Uncompleted Argument: DuBois and the Illusion of Race.” Critical Inquiry 12, no. 1 (1985): 21–37.

 Spencer, Quayshawn. “Are Folk Races like Dingoes, Dimes or Dodos?” In The Norton Introduction to Philosophy. 2nd ed. Edited by Gideon Rosen, Alex Byrne, Joshua Cohen, et al. W. W. Norton & Company, 2018. ISBN: 9780393624427. 

22

Gender and Social Construction

Haslanger, Sally. “Gender and Race: (What) Are They? (What) Do We Want Them to Be?Noûs 34, no. 1 (2000): 31–55.

 Barnes, Elizabeth. “The Metaphysics of Gender.” In The Norton Introduction to Philosophy. 2nd ed. Edited by Gideon Rosen, Alex Byrne, Joshua Cohen, et al. W. W. Norton & Company, 2018. ISBN: 9780393624427.

23

Feminist Epistemology

Mills, Charles W. “White Ignorance.” Chapter 1 in Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance. Edited by by Shannon Sullivan and Nancy Tuana. State University of New York Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780791471029. [Preview with Google Books]

24

Time Travel

Lewis, David. This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.“The Paradoxes of Time Travel.” (PDF) American Philosophical Quarterly 13, no. 2 (1976): 145–52.  

25

The Non-Identity Problem

Parfit, Derek. “The Non-Identity Problem.” Chapter 16 in Reasons and Persons. Oxford University Press, 1986. ISBN: 9780198249085. [Preview with Google Books]