The Originals: Classic Readings in Western Philosophy
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The Originals: Classic Readings in Western Philosophy The Originals: Classic Readings in Western Philosophy JEFF MCLAUGHLIN THOMPSON RIVERS UNIVERSITY/BCCAMPUS KAMLOOPS/VICTORIA, B.C. The Originals: Classic Readings in Western Philosophy by Dr. Jeff McLaughlin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted. The CC license permits you to retain, reuse, copy, redistribute, and revise this book for free. Under this license, anyone who redistributes or revises this textbook, in whole or in part, can do so providing they attribute the author as follows: The Originals: Classic Readings in Western Philosophy by Jeff McLaughlin is used under a CC BY 4.0 International license. If you redistribute part of this textbook, you must retain on every digital page (including but not limited to EPUB, PDF, and HTML) and physical printed page the following: Download for free from the B.C. Open Textbook Collection. If you use this textbook as a bibliographic reference, it can be cited in APA style as follows: McLaughlin, J. (2017). The Originals: Classic Readings in Western Philosophy. Victoria, BC: BCcampus/TRU. Retrieved from https://opentextbc.ca/classicalreadings/ Note: Much of the material in this book has been reproduced and made available based on its public domain status in Canada. If you are not in Canada and using these materials, you acknowledge that it is your responsibility to comply with the applicable copyright laws in your jurisdiction. Visit BCcampus Open Education to learn more about open education in British Columbia. Introduction for Instructors It is important for students not only to get an appreciation and understanding of philosophy but also to be exposed to the very words and ideas of those who have shaped our thinking over the centuries. Accordingly, the title of this collection hints at the facts that these readings are from the original sources and that these philosophers were the originators of many of the issues we still discuss today. Major areas of philosophy covered here are: Ethics, Epistemology, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Religion, Ethics, Socio-Political Philosophy, and finally, Aesthetics. Although I’ve chosen copyright free pieces that would be used in a typical Introduction to Philosophy class you may wish to personalize it (or modernize it) with supplementary readings. Furthermore, while you can obviously choose whatever texts you want to examine and in any order, each chapter is directly or indirectly connected to the next one. For example, we move from the basic issues in chapter one regarding knowledge and how one can know to consider claims about what we know to exist in chapter two. Then, when students are familiar with those topics we move on to consider the ‘big question’ that many students have (or at least often associate with philosophy), namely, “Does God exist?” Since religious beliefs are often tied to how one lives one’s life, Ethics is the focus of the next chapter. We move from talking about the individual doing the right thing or good thing to presenting works regarding collective behaviour and the good of society. Lastly we examine the good as beauty. The selections herein within these six fields are presented in chronological order so that a very rough timeline of intellectual thought is captured. Add to this that some of the philosophers are included more than once, you can also order your selections under the themes of ‘Some Great thinkers in Western Philosophy’ or ‘An Incomplete History of Philosophy’. Before jumping into the main chapters, both Russell’s “The Value of Philosophy” and Plato’s “Apology” are useful for students to get a good sense of what philosophy is and why we do it. Reading Plato may be a bit of a challenge for newcomers so I recommend you to have the students read “How to do philosophy”. It has been copied and used all over the world at various universities and libraries since I posted it online many years ago. Lastly, if you want to drop me a line and let me know you’re using this book, I’d enjoy hearing from you. Best Regards, Dr. Jeff McLaughlin Ph.D. Thompson Rivers University Kamloops BC Canada [email protected] Dedication This one is for Bob Clark, Lois Rugg, and Murray Doubt because they know that the most important thing about technological progress is not the bells and whistles and flashing lights but the people. Contents Acknowledgements xi How to Do Philosophy xii cc-by-nc Part I. The Value of Philosophy 1. Plato - On Defending Philosophy 3 2. Bertrand Russell – On the Value of Philosophy 18 Part II. Epistemology 3. Rene Descartes – On Doubt and Certainty 25 4. John Locke – On the Foundation of Knowledge 34 5. George Berkeley – On Materialism and Idealism 44 6. David Hume – On Empiricism 78 7. Immanuel Kant – On the Sources of Knowledge 85 8. William James - On Pragmatism 96 9. Bertrand Russell – On Truth and Falsehood 103 Part III. Metaphysics 10. Plato – On the Allegory of the Cave 111 11. Plato – On Forms 116 12. Aristotle – On Categories 125 13. Aristotle - On Language and the Way Truth Works 129 14. Gottfried Wilhelm Liebniz – On Substances 135 15. David Hume – On Liberty and Necessity 140 Part IV. Philosophy of Religion 16. St. Anselm – On the Ontological Proof of God's Existence 149 17. St. Thomas Aquinas – On the Five Ways to Prove God's Existence 152 18. Blaise Pascal – On the Wager for God's Existence 154 19. David Hume– On the Irrationality of Believing in Miracles 157 20. Søren Kierkegaard – On Encountering Faith 168 21. William James – On the Will to Believe 184 22. William Paley – On The Teleological Argument 197 Part V. Ethics and Morality 23. Plato – On Justice 207 24. Aristotle - On Virtue 231 25. David Hume – On the Foundations of Morals 251 26. Immanuel Kant – On Moral Principles 262 27. Jeremy Bentham - On the Principle of Utility 275 28. John Stuart Mill – On Utilitarianism 282 Part VI. Socio-Political Philosophy 29. Thomas Hobbes – On The Social Contract 299 30. John Locke – On Property and the Formation of Societies 314 31. Jean-Jacques Rousseau - On Inequality 330 32. Mary Wollstonecraft – On the Rights of Women 348 33. Karl Marx & Frederick Engels – On Communism 362 34. Bertrand Russell – On Anti-Suffragist Arguments 380 35. John Stuart Mill – On The Equality of Women 388 Part VII. Art and Aesthetics 36. Plato – On the Value of Art and Imitation 417 37. Aristotle – On Tragedy 432 38. David Hume – On Opinion and Taste 438 39. Immanuel Kant – On the Aesthetic Taste 449 40. Edmund Burke – On the Sublime 465 About the Editor 489 Works Cited 490 Acknowledgements Even though these selected readings are copyright free, it takes many resources both financial and human to bring them together for you. I have to offer my thanks and deepest gratitude to a few people. Cory Stumpf was essential in helping me getting this project done in record time. His assistance was and is greatly appreciated! Robline (Robbi) Forsythe, also from Thompson Rivers University says she didn’t do much, but she was able to take my cover design idea and bring it to life. I owe her a coffee or two! Brenda Smith from the TRU library gave so much time to track down many of the works you find here. Moreover, if something was not available, she would find out why (e.g., the philosopher hadn’t been dead long enough, or wasn’t dead yet!). Her fine tuning of my original list saved me many hours of frustration. Indeed, it is because she was there at the very beginning of when this idea started forming in my head which such drive and positive thoughts that I decided to commit to it. Amanda Coolidge at BCcampus was my guide. She walked me through the entire process and not only responded quickly and effectively to any questions I had but also responded in such a way that it made me smile every time I saw her name pop up at the top of my mail Inbox. Dr. Jeff McLaughlin Ph.D. Thompson Rivers University Kamloops, BC, Dec 2017 xi How to Do Philosophy Can you learn how to speak a foreign language, drive a car, make a meal or tie your shoes just by reading about it in a book? Obviously not. You have to do it, and the more you practise thebetter you will become. So too with philosophy. Before you start reading the various chapters in this book you should have some familiarity with “doing” philosophy, which includes information on reading the original texts as well. How to Attend Class If you are a new university or college student, it can sometimes be difficult to get the most out of attending class without being overwhelmed. In what follows, I’m going to assume you are in a physical classroom with other students. If you’re taking a philosophy course online, you can just skip over this part. A traditional classroom environment will find you sitting down, and your instructor standing at the front of the class lecturing. At one extreme, your approach to what you hear might be trying to write down every single word that your instructor utters. This is a bad strategy, since it doesn’t allow you any time to digest any of the material, and copious notetaking doesn’t distinguish between what is important and what isn’t. At the other extreme, you might just sit back and try to absorb what you hear. Of course, this is also problematic, for the moment you leave the room you’re almost guaranteed to forget everything since you have to move on to whatever else you have planned for the day.