Preface                                            xi
PART I: THE ACTIVITY OF PHILOSOPHY                 1
  Chapter 1: The Nature of Philosophy              3
    Philosophy As Theory of Theories               5
    Philosophy As the Search for Conceptual        6
    Clarity
    Philosophy As the Search for a Better Way      7
    of Living
    Philosophy, in Education: The Allegory of      8
    the Cave
  Chapter 2: Logic and Language                    13
    The Ideal of Reason                            13
    Formal Logic                                   14
      Statements and Arguments                     14
      Truth-Functional Logic                       17
    Informal Logic                                 21
      Criticizing Informal Arguments: The          22
      Premisses
      Criticizing Informal Arguments: The          23
      Language
      Criticizing Informal Arguments: The          24
      Warrant
    Linguistic Analysis                            27
      The Technique of Analysis                    27
      Ethics and Linguistic Analysis: An           28
      Application
  Chapter 3: A Sketch of the History of            31
  Philosophy
    Why Philosophers Study the History of          31
    Philosophy
    Ancient Philosophy                             32
      Before Philosophy                            32
      Pre-Socratic Philosophy                      33
      The Golden Age of Greek Philosophy           35
      Greco-Roman Philosophy                       37
    Medieval Philosophy                            41
      Christian Philosophy at the Close of the     41
      Roman Empire
      The High Middle Ages                         44
    The Modern World                               45
      The Early Modern Period                      45
      The Enlightenment                            50
      Rationalists and Empiricists                 52
      The Nineteenth Century                       56
    The Contemporary World                         59
      General Characteristics                      59
      Pragmatism                                   62
      Logic and Language in the                    63
      English-Speaking World
      Philosophy on the European Continent         64
PART II: THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY                67
  Chapter 4: Metaphysics                           69
    Aristotle and the Problem of Being             69
    The Early Greek Cosmologists                   70
    Plato and the Origin of Metaphysics            73
    Aristotle                                      79
      The Physical Make-up of a Substance          79
      The Dynamics of Change                       80
      The Fixity of Things                         82
    Early Modern Metaphysics                       84
      Descartes                                    85
      Dualism, Materialism, and Idealism           87
    Metaphysics in Early Modern Great Britain      89
      Locke                                        90
      Hume                                         91
    Kant and the Critique of Metaphysics           93
    Hegel                                          96
    Metaphysics in the Twentieth Century           98
      The European Continent                       98
      Metaphysics in Great Britain and the         103
      United States
      History and Metaphysics in the Twentieth     103
      Century
  Chapter 5: Epistemology                          105
    The Problem of Knowledge in the Ancient        105
    World
    The Challenge of Skepticism                    108
      The Tree in the Forest                       108
      Illusions                                    109
    The Problem of Universals in the Middle Ages   110
    The Modern Formulation of the Problem of       112
    Knowledge
      Descartes: Rational Knowledge                112
      Primary and Secondary Qualities              113
      Locke: Empirical Knowledge                   114
      Hume and the Problem of Induction            115
      Kant and Transcendental Idealism             118
      Hegel and Absolute Idealism                  121
    Twentieth-Century Epistemology on the          121
    European Continent
      Hermeneutics and Historicism                 122
      Phenomenology                                124
    Contemporary Epistemology in the               125
    English-Speaking World
      Russell                                      125
      The Influence of the Vienna Circle           127
      Wittgenstein                                 127
      Pragmatism                                   128
    Metaphysics and Epistemology                   131
  Chapter 6: Ethics                                133
    Moral Experience                               134
    The Subject Matter of Ethics                   135
      Choice                                       135
      Freedom                                      135
      Moral Relativism                             137
    Normative Ethics                               139
      Theories of Virtue                           139
      Rule-Based Ethics                            145
    Contemporary Issues in Ethics                  165
      Moral Skepticism                             165
      New Efforts in Moral Theory                  166
  Chapter 7: Social and Political Philosophy       177
    Theory of Justice: Characteristics             177
    Plato: Justice As Harmony                      179
    Aristotle: The State and the Individual        184
    Social and Political Philosophy in the         186
    Middle Ages
      Saint Augustine                              186
      Saint Thomas Aquinas                         187
    Idealism and Realism: The Early Modern World   189
      Thomas Hobbes                                189
      John Locke                                   193
      Jean-Jacques Rousseau                        197
    The Nineteenth Century: Radicalism and         204
    Liberalism
      Karl Marx                                    204
      John Stuart Mill                             210
    Social and Political Philosophy in the         213
    Twentieth Century
      Critical Theory                              213
      Recent Social and Political Philosophy in    217
      the United States
  Chapter 8: Philosophy of Religion                225
    God and Philosophy                             225
    Defining the Concept of God                    227
      The Uniqueness of God                        227
      God's Omnipotence                            227
      God's Eternity                               228
      God As a Person                              230
      God's Moral Nature                           231
      The Euthyphro Question                       231
      God's Purposes                               233
      Divine Love                                  233
    Arguments for God's Existence                  234
      The Ontological Argument                     235
      The Cosmological Argument                    238
      The Teleological Argument                    239
    An Argument against God's Existence: The       241
    Argument from Evil
    God and Linguistic Philosophy                  243
  Chapter 9: Science and Human Nature              247
    The Problem of Human Nature                    247
      Evolution and Human Nature                   248
      The Conflict between Science and Religion    250
    The Scientific Approach to Human Nature        250
      Psychoanalysis                               251
      Behaviorism                                  254
      The Problem of Free Will                     256
      Genetics and Human Nature                    258
      Neurophysiology and the Philosophy of Mind   260
    A Humanist Approach to Human Nature:           265
    Existentialism
      The Absurdity of Human Existence             266
      Consciousness                                267
      Freedom                                      270
      "Existence Precedes Essence"                 271
      Dread, the Other, and Bad Faith              272
    Postscript                                     274
Timeline                                           275
Bibliography                                       281
Index                                              289