in the present book are self-contained units on the topics they address. While there are occasional references within them to other chapters, they can be taught or studied in any order. In Daybreak (section 454),Nietzsche wrote that, “A book such as this is not for reading straight through or reading aloud but for dipping into, especially when out walking or on a journey; you must be able to stick your head into it and out of it again and again and discover nothing familiar around you.” To some extent, the same is true of This is Philosophy: An Introduction, even though it is much more straightforwardly systematic and less aphoristic than Nietzsche’s Daybreak.
That said, the chapters are not randomly distributed, and are placed in one sensible progression. Most people have views about ethics and God before ever encountering philosophy, and so starting with topics that about which they have already given some thought is a natural way to entice students into a deeper investigation. Appeal to human free choice is a venerable move in theodicy, and one with which the chapter on God ends. A chapter on free will then follows. Afterwards are a pair of chapters focusing on what it is to be a thinking, persisting person at all–personal identity and philosophy of mind. The next chapter, on knowledge, ties together the threads of evidence, reason-giving, and rational belief that appear, one way or another, in all of the chapters, and ends with a comprehensive skeptical problem. Having built so much philosophical infrastructure, the book ends as many treatises once did, with a discussion of political philosophy–why we might want a government at all, and the broad outlines of how different types might be justified. But do not feel beholden to the ordering I use; reorder the chapters in the way you think best.
As all instructors know, the problems of philosophy resemble a Mandelbrot Set, and the more closely one focuses on the small details, the more complications one finds. Some of the initial hooks and spirals can be found in the annotated bibliographies at the end of each chapter. These bibliographies list primary sources from the great thinkers that students may wish to read in conjunction with the present chapters, as well as some of the more accessible contemporary literature that is the next step for the beginning philosopher.
New to the second edition
The biggest addition to the 2nd edition is an entirely new chapter on political philosophy, in which the state of nature, anarchy, contractarianism, leviathan and philosopher kings, libertarianism, and the liberal state all are presented and examined. Every other chapter has been reviewed line-by-line, with updated examples, clearer language, and new hyperlinks. Some chapters (e.g. Freedom) have been substantially revised, and in other cases the presentation of classic arguments has been tightened and improved (e.g. the Cosmological Argument). The annotated bibliographies have also been amended and made more relevant.
PREFACE FOR STUDENTS
If this is the first philosophy book you’ve ever read, then you probably have no idea what you are in for. You pick up a book on chemistry and you expect diagrams of molecules and talk about “valences” , a book on German and there will be long multi-syllable words and lots of umlauts. But philosophy? What could that be about?
The word “philosophy” comes from two Greek words: “philia” which was one of the Greek words for love, and “sophia” which means wisdom. Thus philosophy is the love of wisdom. You may think that is not terribly informative, and it isn’t. However, you have to remember that back in ancient Greece, to be a scholar at all meant that one is a philosopher. You might have been a stonemason, a fisherman, a soldier, a physician, or a philosopher, a pursuit that would have included mathematics and science. Over the years, as concrete, definite advances have been made in different areas, philosophy has spawned spin-offs, fields that have become their own disciplines with their own specific methodology and subject matter. Mathematics was one of the first fields to splinter off this way, and then in the Renaissance science became separate from philosophy. In the 19th century psychology broke away from philosophy, followed by economics. Most recently cognitive science, which used to be the scientific end of philosophy of mind, has become its own field. In some ways philosophy proper is left with the hardest questions, the ones that we have made the least definitive progress on.
That does not mean that philosophers have made no progress in 2500 years. We have. Nevertheless, the philosophical issues to be discussed in the present book are tough nuts to crack. Let us hope you do not crack your own coconut in the attempt! In the modern era, philosophy is (very roughly) in the business of giving good reasons for one’s non-empirical beliefs. That is, philosophers try to give arguments for believing claims about the nature of the self, or the existence of God, or moral duty, or the value of knowledge. These are topics that the scientific method of performing laboratory experiments and giving mathematical explanations does poorly in addressing. Philosophers take seriously the findings of experts in other disciplines, but we still have our own puzzles to solve.
Some philosophical topics stir great passions, and people find it threatening to ask questions about those issues. Philosophers are proud that one of the greatest philosophers in ancient times, Socrates, was executed by the state1 because he refused to stop questioning authority. Socrates claimed to know little, but he was willing to go down for the pursuit of truth, fearless inquiry, and the life of the mind. If you are to find something of value in this book, you too need to be prepared to question your longstanding beliefs, to honestly ask yourself if the things you may have believed your entire life are actually true. All of us believe some things for poor reasons, and to be a philosopher is to try to ferret out those beliefs and either justify them or discard them as unworthy of your intellect. It is a difficult and often painful process to become an athlete of the mind, but there is great joy and thrilling discoveries to be had as well.
Just beneath the surface of your everyday life are chasms of mystery. We will not descend into the furthest reaches of the labyrinth in the present book, but there are wonders aplenty in the beginning passages. Plato wrote that philosophy begins in wonder2–so let us begin!
Website Links
1 1 http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/apology.html
2 2 http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/theatu.html
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to everyone on the team at Wiley-Blackwell, especially Marissa Koors for her encouragement to write a second edition of this book, and for her unflagging support of the This is Philosophy series. Thanks also to my many introductory students who have helped me to refine and improve this book during the joint enterprise of learning.
1 ETHICS: PRELIMINARY VIEWS:
Life’s just filled with all sorts of things you’re supposed to do. You should be nice to your sister, brush between meals, never mix beer and wine, get your car inspected, tithe to the poor, wear clean underwear, avoid consumer debt, love thy neighbor as thyself, buy low and sell high, read good books, exercise, tell the truth, have evidence-based beliefs, come to a complete stop at a red light, eat your vegetables, call your Dad once in a while. The list goes on and on. All these things you should do, various obligations, duties, and responsibilities, form the normative universe. Shoulds, oughts, duties, rights, the permissible and the impermissible populate the normative universe. Not all these shoulds and oughts are ethical in nature, however. There are many dimensions to the normative universe, not just the moral dimension. Here are a few examples:
Jeff is deciding whether he should invest his money in gold bullion, mutual funds, or government bonds.
