philosophical colleagues from around the world who were kind enough to let me know that they found the first edition of the book useful, and I am heavily indebted to a large number of friends and colleagues for invaluable suggestions about the composition of this new edition, and/or for comments on the new material. Particular thanks are due to Michaela Baker, Jonathan Dancy, Max de Gaynesford, Brian Feltham, Philip Goff, Brad Hooker, John Hyman, Ward Jones, Seán MacGiollarnath, David Oderberg, John Preston, Severin Schroeder, Philip Stratton-Lake, Daniel Whiting and Andrew Williams. Emma Borg was kind enough to cast an expert eye over the draft of Part III, and made many valuable suggestions for improvement, and Joseph Jedwab kindly did the same for Part VI, and Andrew Williams for Part X. I have a special debt to Javier Kalhat, whose judicious advice was an enormous help to me, and who also provided unstinting assistance in hunting down the relevant materials and making suggestions for abridgement. Bryan Weaver provided much appreciated help with the additions to Part IX. Finally, I should like to express my thanks to Nick Bellorini, the Commissioning Editor at Blackwell Publishers, for encouraging me to produce this second edition, and to all the members of the editorial and production team for their hard work and efficiency.
JC
Reading, England
April 2007
Preface to the Third Edition
Philosophy is not an easy subject, and the appearance of a third edition of this anthology has provided the opportunity to increase the amount of help and advice included for the benefit of students and other readers. In response to many requests, I have added, at the start of the volume, an introductory essay which offers advice on how to set about reading a philosophical text and how to write about it. There are no quick and easy formulas in philosophy, but I hope at least some of those using this anthology as a course text will find this essay helpful. In addition, the opportunity has been taken to revise and substantially augment the suggested further readings and sample questions accompanying the texts. Instead of a brief list of readings at the end of each part of the volume, each of the 144 individual extracts is now followed by several specimen questions designed to focus on some of the key philosophical problems raised by the excerpt, together with a list of readings related to the specific text in question. A particular point has been made of including references to online resources which give the student quick access to helpful critical and exegetical guidance.1
Probably no two philosophers will agree on the ideal selection of texts for an anthology of this kind, and a survey the publishers conducted of current users of the second edition produced a wide variety of suggestions for alternative texts that might be included. Though I was wary of making any wholesale changes, I have as a result introduced a small number of changes to the texts chosen for this third edition, in order to fill some gaps; but reluctance to make what was already a fairly bulky volume more unwieldy decided me to make substitutions rather than additions, and I have retained the basic framework adopted for the second edition (twelve parts each of twelve sections). The overall character of the anthology has been preserved, with preference nearly always given to texts that have stood the test of time, as opposed to more recent offerings that may be attracting current interest, but whose long-term place in the canon of Western philosophy cannot yet be said to be secure.
I am grateful to several members of the team at Wiley for encouraging me to undertake the revisions for this third edition, and to many friends and colleagues who have been kind enough to offer advice, including Paul Lodge, David McPherson, Mark Tebbit and Ramón Tello. Particular gratitude is owed to Dr Julia Weckend for her invaluable work in updating and augmenting the specimen questions and reading suggestions at the end of each extract.
JC
West Berkshire, England
January 2020
1 1 In referencing an online resource the full url is provided, clicking on which will enable those using the ebook version of this volume to link directly to the item in question. Those using the print version of this volume can access such resources by typing the url provided into a browser; but where the link is is a long one it may be quicker simply to access the homepage of the relevant site (for example the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) and then use the site’s own search facility to navigate to the particular article or item needed.
Acknowledgements
The editor and publishers wish to thank the following who have kindly given permission for the use of copyright material:
Part I Knowledge and Certainty
1 4 René Descartes, Meditation I and part of II, pp.12–17 from Meditations on First Philosophy [Meditationes de prima philosophia, 1641], trans. John Cottingham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). © 1986 by Cambridge University Press. Reproduced with permission of Cambridge University Press.
2 6 Gottfried Leibniz, paras 44–53 from Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett (ed. and trans.), New Essays on Human Understanding [Nouveaux essais sur l’entendement humain, c.1704; first pub.1765] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). © 1981 by Cambridge University Press. Reproduced with permission of Cambridge University Press.
3 8 Immanuel Kant, extracts from ‘Introduction’, Sections 1 and 2 (B1–5); ‘Transcendental Logic’, Section 1 (B74–5); ‘Transcendental Analytic’, Book I, chapter 2; ‘Transition to the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories’ (B124–6) from Critique of Pure Reason [Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 1781; 2nd edn 1787], trans. (with minor modifications) N. Kemp Smith (2nd edn) (London: Macmillan, 1933). Reproduced with permission of Springer Nature.
4 11 G. E. Moore, ‘A Defence of Common Sense’, [1925], extracts from G. H. Muirhead (ed.), Part I. Contemporary British Philosophy, second series (London: Allen & Unwin, 1925).
5 12 Wilfrid Sellars, ‘Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind’, in The Foundations of Science and the Concepts of Psychoanalysis, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 1 (University of Minnesota Press, 1956) pp. 293–300 (VIII. Does Empirical Knowledge Have a Foundation?). © 1956 by University of Minnesota Press. Reproduced with permission of University of Minnesota Press.
Part II Being and Reality
1 2 Aristotle, chapter 5 (2a11–4b19), pp. 5–12 from Categories [Categories, c.330 BC], trans. J. L. Ackrill (Oxford: Clarendon, 1963). © 1963 by Oxford University Press. Reproduced with permission of Oxford University Press.
2 3 René Descartes, Part I, articles 51, 52, 54, 63; Part II, articles 1, 2, 3, 4, 21, 22, 23, 36, 64 from Principles of Philosophy [Principia Philosophiae, 1644], pp. 210–11, 215, 223–5, 232, 240, 247 from The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. I, trans. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff and D. Murdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). © 1985 by Cambridge University Press. Reproduced with permission of Cambridge University Press.
3 5 Gottfried Leibniz, New System of Nature and the Communication of Substances [Système nouveau de la nature et de la communication des substances, 1695], pp. 115–25 (with omissions) from Philosophical Writings, trans. G. H. R. Parkinson and M. Morris (London: J.M. Dent, 1973). Reproduced with permission of Everyman’s Library, an imprint of Alfred A. Knopf.
4 9a Alfred
