Introducing Philosophy: A Text With Integrated Readings, Robert C. Solomon, Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2005, 0195174623, 9780195174625, 739 pages. Philosophy is an exciting and accessible subject, and this engaging text acquaints students with the core problems of philosophy and the many ways in which they are and have been answered. Introducing Philosophy: A Text with Integrated Readings, Eighth Edition, insists both that philosophy is very much alive today and that it is deeply rooted in the past. Accordingly, it combines substantial original sources from significant works in the history of philosophy and current philosophy with detailed commentary and explanation that help to clarify the readings. The selections range from the oldest known fragments to cutting-edge essays in feminism, multiculturalism, and cognitive science. At the end of each chapter is a summary, a list of review questions, a glossary, and a bibliography with suggestions for further reading. Important philosophical terms are carefully introduced in the text and also summarized at the end of each chapter, and brief biographies of the philosophers are provided at the end of the book. New to the Eighth Edition: * Addressing the needs of a new generation of students, Robert C. Solomon has included for the first time more than 300 study and review questions. Appearing throughout the text and at the end of each chapter, these questions require immediate feedback from students. They encourage students to articulate the central ideas of what they have just read, instead of just "passing through" on the way to the next reading. * New selections expand and update the chapters on religion, knowledge, mind and body, freedom, ethics, justice, and beauty. The selections include work by Charles Hartshorne, Paul Davies, Cory Juhl, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, Sextus Empiricus, Edmund L. Gettier, David Braddon-Mitchell and Frank Jackson, John R. Searle, Colin McGinn, Daniel Dennett, Harry Frankfurt, Gilbert Harman, Emma Goldman, and Arthur C. Danto. * A companion website at www.oup.com/us/solomon8e features 300 study and review questions (100 multiple-choice, 100 true-or-false, and 100 fill-in-the-blank), discussion questions, chapter overviews and summaries, topical links, suggestions for further reading, and PowerPoint lecture aids..
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Introducing Philosophy: A Text with Integrated Readings, Tenth Edition, is an exciting, accessible, and thorough introduction to the core problems of philosophy and the many ways in which they are, and have been, answered. The authors combine substantial selections from significant works in the history of philosophy with excerpts from current philosophy, clarifying the readings and providing context with their own detailed commentary and explanation. Spanning 2,500 years, the selections range from the oldest known fragments to cutting-edge contemporary essays. Organized topically, the chapters present alternative perspectives--including analytic, continental, feminist, and non-Western viewpoints--alongside the historical works of major Western philosophers.
* An updated Companion Website at www.oup.com/us/solomon includes all the material from the Instructor's Manual along with resources for students: chapter overviews; chapter goals; interactive flash cards with key terms and definitions; discussion and essay questions; web links and activities; self-quizzes; and suggestions for further reading
"This is undoubtedly one of the best philosophy textbooks available. Among its strengths are its breadth of coverage, the seamless integration of the material along historical and topical lines, the introductions and explanations that accompany the extracts from each author, and the contrastive approach."--Christian Coseru, College of Charleston
I bought this textbook for my Philosophy 101 class this summer. And I was glad I purchased it (my college's bookstore tends to overcharge). The book comes with readings that I found to be intriguing and made me think. Not only did I enjoy this book, but I have come to love it because of my professor. Philosophy is already a hard subject as it is; the book made learning about philosophy easier. It breaks things down and makes it so that an average person can understand.
Introductory philosophy texts are a dime a dozen. (One wishes their price reflected this.) Every year I receive several from publishers hoping that I will adopt theirs for my class. I become aware of many more through brochures. Some are excellent. Some are bad. Some are so-so. "Introducing Philosophy" (Tenth Edition) by Robert Solomon, et. al., is so-so.
The approach is interesting. It's not a text written by the author that simply describes the different areas of philosophy and the various positions philosophers have taken. Nor is it exactly an anthology, devoted almost exclusively to large chunks of primary-source material. It's a hybrid. The editors/authors present short snippets from a wide variety of philosophers past and present and from time to time insert comments of their own designed to help the reader understand what the philosopher in question is saying.
The book covers the standard areas in philosophy under the following headings: Religion, reality, knowledge, self, mind and body, freedom, ethics, and justice. Each major section is then divided into anywhere from four to eleven subsections. For example, the section on "freedom" contains the following: Fatalism and karma, predestination, determinism, compulsion and ignorance, freedom in practice (Kant), radical freedom (existentialism). Each of these subheadings includes a set of very short segments from various philosophers.
The problems with this approach are twofold. First, none of the selections are long enough to get a real flavor for what the philosopher believes overall or even the context in which that philosopher is writing. Small segments in isolation from a larger whole can easily give a distorted picture of a philosopher's overall argument. Second, the brief comments that the editors insert in the course of these snippets can and sometimes do import the biases and interpretations of the editors. If students are going to have access to primary-source material it should be without editorial interference. If something is unclear to the students, let the instructor clarify. This is not the textbook editor's job. Read more ›
As its name implies, it is an introductory textbook and therefore doesn't go amazingly in-depth on any one single philosophical view. However, the book is broken up into several different areas of philosophy, and in these areas it tries to include different viewpoints and perspectives on the issues for the chapter.
Philosophy is an exciting and accessible subject, and this engaging text acquaints students with the core problems of philosophy and the many ways in which they are and have been answered. Introducing Philosophy: A Text with Integrated Readings, Eighth Edition, insists both that philosophy is very much alive today and that it is deeply rooted in the past. Accordingly, it combines substantial original sources from significant works in the history of philosophy and current philosophy with detailed commentary and explanation that help to clarify the readings. The selections range from the oldest known fragments to cutting-edge essays in feminism, multiculturalism, and cognitive science. At the end of each chapter is a summary, a list of review questions, a glossary, and a bibliography with suggestions for further reading. Important philosophical terms are carefully introduced in the text and also summarized at the end of each chapter, and brief biographies of the philosophers are provided at the end of the book.
* Addressing the needs of a new generation of students, Robert C. Solomon has included for the first time more than 300 study and review questions. Appearing throughout the text and at the end of each chapter, these questions require immediate feedback from students. They encourage students to articulate the central ideas of what they have just read, instead of just "passing through" on the way to the next reading.
* New selections expand and update the chapters on religion, knowledge, mind and body, freedom, ethics, justice, and beauty. The selections include work by Charles Hartshorne, Paul Davies, Cory Juhl, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, Sextus Empiricus, Edmund L. Gettier, David Braddon-Mitchell and Frank Jackson, John R. Searle, Colin McGinn, Daniel Dennett, Harry Frankfurt, Gilbert Harman, Emma Goldman, and Arthur C. Danto.
Robert C. Solomon's "Introducing Philosophy" is a superb introduction to philosophy. I have the 6th edition published in 1997 but this (the 5th edition) is the only one I could find on Amazon. This book is so good because it takes a Topical approach but integrates excerpts from the great philosophers. Historical introductions don't give you the intelletual excitement of great thinkers across time addressing the great problems which is why I like a topical approach (another good topical approach is Tom Morris's "Philosophy for Dummies"). But the great thing about this book is that it integrates selections from philosophers throughout history, in manageable chunks, so that one gets to read some Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Stuart Mill, Bertrand Russell and more.
The chapters are also very well organized and build on each other. The introduction introduces us to Socrates and the philosophic tradition and some logic. Then we deal with Reality, Knowledge, Truth, Necessary Truth (mathematics, logic), Religion, Personal Identity, Mind and Body, Freedom, Ethics, Political Philosophy and Aesthetics. So everything is covered and there are excerpts from all the relevant thinkers on these topics. This book is a fantastic way to get a really good feel for the issues of philosophy and some of the great writings in philosophy. Highly recommended.
Just finished the first semester of a philosophy degree and we used this as one of our textbooks. As a beginner, I found it very good. Solomon explains the extracts from philosophers in a very clear way. It is presented by topic, e.g. a chapter on Freedom, a chapter on Knowledge, with each chapter containing extracts from a number of philosophers on the subject.
The only problem I found with the book is that the extracts Solomon uses are not cited with page numbers, in the ninth edition at least. This is problematic when writing papers and essays, as once you find what you're looking for, if you want your referencing to be correct you need to get the original book and vainly attempt to find which page in the original text that the extract in Solomon came from. He gives all relevant details in his citations except for page numbers. As a student, I would argue that the page number is much more important to me than the name of the publisher.
Back when I took Intro. to Phil. (when dinosaurs still walked the Earth), the text used was Joel Feinberg's "Reason and Responsibility". Professor Feinberg's book (current and past editions are available from Amazon) takes a thematic approach with discrete readings and relatively little commentary from the editor. By contrast, the readings in Professor Soloman's book are short fragments woven throughout his text. To me, this gives the book a somewhat choppy feel; but for a someone encountering the subject for the first time or engaged in self-study, this connective tissue will probably be helpful in explaining passages that may not be entirely clear and placing them in their proper context.
My own favorite part of the book was the section dealing with philosophy of mind. Despite the immense advances in cognitive psychology and neurophysiology over the past thirty years, the precise nature of human consciousness still remains elusive (see philosopher Colin McGinn's "The Mysterious Flame" for good reasons why this is likely to remain the case). Questions of personal identity and free will are inextricably mixed with this, and Professor Soloman does a good job of disentangling these controversies and giving them a through airing.
To conclude, it is sad to report that Profesor Soloman died suddenly in Zurich airport while awaiting a flight in January of this year with his wife by his side. It later emerged that he had a congenital (and inoperable) heart defect which he was aware of and knew could potentialy prove fatal. Professor Soloman was, by all accounts, a gifted teacher who decried what he called "thinking thin" and believed that Philosophy was not merely a parlor game of puzzle-solving, but had a powerful contribution to make to 'real life'. My sincere condolences to his wife, family, and students, past and present.
I had this book recommended to me by a man that has taught Philosophy for many years in a Christian college. They had used it years ago as their primary text. For me, since there are newer books out, it is a resource book and a book for educating me to the different areas of Philosophy and an intro to primary philosophers and their writings.
Textbook for Philosophy 101. Nice format and flow through each topic or discipline, ending with Justice. It starts with the western great, Socrates/Plato's The Apology, which ties nicely to the last chapter on justice and the social contract. Logical argument is briefly touched on, definitely not enough to much wet the appetite. Religion is well balanced in that it gives Atheism a fair shake, including Hume and Voltaire both taking potshots at Deism. for better or for worse this was my first year philosophy text and it is hard to be judging when sentiment gets in the way. aggh, i was so young once! i remember this text well, remember reading about hume’s radical skepticism that seemed to undercut all physics i knew, this depressed me severely, until i read kant’s categories of experience… and then i was so happy! i do not know why i did not switch automatically to phil then, but then my interest in phil went underground for years on years, o...more for better or for worse this was my first year philosophy text and it is hard to be judging when sentiment gets in the way. aggh, i was so young once! i remember this text well, remember reading about hume’s radical skepticism that seemed to undercut all physics i knew, this depressed me severely, until i read kant’s categories of experience… and then i was so happy! i do not know why i did not switch automatically to phil then, but then my interest in phil went underground for years on years, only re-emerging when another emotional crisis hit and i started reading texts feverishly…
Solomon was born in Detroit, Michigan. His father was a lawyer, and his mother an artist. After earning a B.A. (1963) at the University of Pennsylvania, he moved to the University of Michigan to study medicine, switching to philosophy for an M.A. (1965)...more Robert C. Solomon (September 14, 1942 – January 2, 2007) was a professor of continental philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin.
He held several teaching positions at such schools as Princeton University, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Pittsburgh. From 1972 until his death, except for two years at the University of California at Riverside in the mid-1980s, he taught at University of Texas at Austin, serving as Quincy Lee Centennial Professor of Philosophy and Business. He was a member of the University of Texas Academy of Distinguished Teachers. Solomon was also a member of the inaugural class of Academic Advisors at the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics.
His interests were in 19th-century German philosophy--especially Hegel and Nietzsche--and 20th-century Continental philosophy--especially Sartre and phenomenology, as well as ethics and the philosophy of emotions. Solomon published more than 40 books on philosophy, and was also a published songwriter. He made a cameo appearance in Richard Linklater's film Waking Life (2001), where he discussed the continuing relevance of existentialism in a postmodern world. He developed a cognitivist theory of the emotions, according to which emotions, like beliefs, were susceptible to rational appraisal and revision. Solomon was particularly interested in the idea of "love," arguing against the notion that romantic love is an inherent state of being, and maintaining, instead, that it is instead a construct of Western culture, popularized and propagated in such a way that it has achieved the status of a universal in the eyes of many. Love for Solomon is not a universal, static quality, but an emotion, subject to the same vicissitudes as other emotions like anger or sadness.
Solomon received numerous teaching awards at the University of Texas at Austin, and was a frequent lecturer in the highly regarded Plan II Honors Program. Solomon was known for his lectures on Nietzsche and other Existentialist philosophers. Solomon described in one lecture a very personal experience he had while a medical student at the University of Michigan. He recounted how he stumbled as if by chance into a crowded lecture hall. He was rather unhappy in his medical studies at the time, and was perhaps seeking something different that day. He got precisely that. The professor, Frithjof Bergmann, was lecturing that day on something that Solomon had not yet been acquainted with. The professor spoke of how Nietzsche's idea asks the fundamental question: "If given the opportunity to live your life over and over again ad infinitum, forced to go through all of the pain and the grief of existence, would you be overcome with despair? Or would you fall to your knees in gratitude?" http://edufb.net/393.pdf http://edufb.net/241.pdf http://edufb.net/1613.pdf