Philosophy For Dummies UK Edition 1st edition by Martin Cohen ISBN 0470711453 9780470711453

Part I: What Is Philosophy?

Chapter 1: What’s Philosophy All About?

Defining the Job

Loving Wisdom

Deciding What Counts as ‘Real’ Knowledge

Crunching Up Three Types of Knowing

Exploring the Physical World Around You

Chapter 2: Discovering Why Philosophy Matters

Laying the Foundations for Science

Getting to Know the Physical World

Inventing Systems and Logic

Doubting Everything You Don’t Know

Chapter 3: Becoming a Philosophical Thinker

Having a Philosophical Conversation

Peeking Inside the Philosopher’s Mind

Part II: The History of Philosophy

Chapter 4: Looking at Ancient Philosophies

Laying the Groundwork with the First Greek Philosophers

Plating Up Plato (and Serving Up Socrates)

Arguing with Aristotle

Chapter 5: Moving from the Dark Ages to the Modern Day

Proving God’s Existence in Medieval Europe

Trying to Do Without God

Thinking Like Machines

Pushing Aside Philosophy with Mathematics

Chapter 6: Looking at Eastern Philosophy

Contemplating the Mysterious Tao

Honouring Confucius

Debating with Buddha

Accepting suffering: Hinduism

Chapter 7: Understanding the ‘Isms’

What’s an Ism?

Choosing between Empiricism and Idealism

Trying to Pinpoint Idealism

Applying Utilitarianism

Letting Everything Hang Out with Relativism

Rejecting Emotion with Stoicism

Doubting with the Sceptics

Avoiding Dangerous ‘Isms’

Part III: The Nuts and Bolts of Philosophy

Chapter 8: Seeing the Limits of Logic

Understanding What Logic Really Is

Appreciating the Things Aristotle Got Right

Fixing the Things Aristotle Got Wrong

Spotting Fallacies

Examining Meaningless Statements

Chapter 9: Understanding Knowledge

Laying the Foundations of Knowledge

Decoding Empiricism and Rationalism

Deducing Impressive Truths with Descartes

Chapter 10: Separating Fact from Fiction

How Do You Know You’re Not Dreaming Right Now?

Doubting Everything with Descartes

Remembering the Role of Memory

What Happens When the Brain Goes Wrong?

Chapter 11: Interpreting Language

Deconstructing Language

Conducting Philosophical Investigations with Wittgenstein

Poking at Colour Terms with Pinker

Investigating the Causes of Fires with Benjamin Whorf

Finding Linguistic Relativity Amongst the Hopi Indians

Having Another Go at Deconstructing Language with Derrida

Part IV: Exploring the Mind, Consciousness and Morality

Chapter 12: Exploring the Strange Notion of Mind

Getting to Grips with Philosophy of Mind

Probing the Pesky Problem of Other Minds

Exploring Existentialism with Ryle’s Ghost in the Machine

Discovering the Will to Philosophise

Chapter 13: Looking at Ethics and Morality

What Would God Do?

Pinning Down the Difference Between Right and Wrong

Understanding Key Ethical Theories

Applying Ethics to Hard Cases

Chapter 14: Political Philosophy

Meeting the Great Political Philosophers

Choosing Between Authority and Anarchy: Plato

Saluting Hegel and Totalitarianism

Fearing Hitler and the Bewitching Effects of Propaganda

Marching for Marxism

Signing Up to the Social Contract

Applying Machiavelli’s Social Glue

Chapter 15: Looking Out for Liberty

Praising Liberty: The American Declaration of Independence

Profiting from the Slave Trade with John Locke

Taking the Democratic Turn with J. S. Mill

Voting for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Wealth

Searching for Equality of Outcome or of Opportunity

Chapter 16: Aesthetics and Human Values

So, Just What Is Art?

Arguing about Art and Intentions

Appreciating the Aesthetic Sense

Considering Aesthetics, Art and Beauty

Choosing between Banned and Approved Art

Getting Back to Nature

Part V: Philosophy and Science

Chapter 17: From Ancient Science to Modern Philosophy

Theorising on Everything With Early Greek Philosophers

Carving Up the World with Natural Philosophers

Chapter 18: Investigating the Science of Society

Understanding the Science of Society

Keeping Positive with Comte

Socialising with Durkheim

Being Bureaucratic with Weber

Treating People as Economic Entities

Chapter 19: Exploring Scientific Truth and Scientific Fashions

Setting the Scene: Reason and Science

Causing Science Problems with the Problem of Causation

Letting Black Swans Destroy Favoured Theories

Shifting Paradigms and Causing Scientific Revolutions

Comparing Quantum Mechanics to Common-or-Garden Mechanics

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Chapter 20: Ten Famous Philosophical Books — and What They Say

The Critique of Pure Reason, by Immanuel Kant

The Republic, by Plato

Fear and Trembling, by Søren Kierkegaard

Ethics, by Baruch Spinoza

Discourse on Method, by René Descartes

A Treatise of Human Nature, by David Hume

Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes

Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, by George Berkeley

Ethics, by Aristotle

Existentialism and Humanism, by Jean-Paul Sartre

Chapter 21: Ten Philosophical Puzzles to Keep You Thinking

Probing Protagoras’s Problem

Playing in the Sandpit with the Sorites Problem

Identifying Locke’s Sock

Knowing Your Own Mind with Swampy Things

Losing Your Marbles with Professor Davidson

Squabbling over the Plank of Carneades

Giving Up Reality with the X-perience Machine

Jumping Up for the Cosmos

Worrying about What Happens After the Sun Goes Out

Getting Relativity in Einstein’s Elevator

Index