Reading Philosophy

This edition enhances an already outstanding resource, offering a practical guide to important new topics-such as friendship and consciousness-and philosophers including Aristotle, Ryle, and Nussbaum. -Guy Longworth, Warwick University The book is very well done, with an attractive combination of breadth and depth. Too often, introductory textbooks are comprehensive at the cost of serious attention to important specifics. This book helps the introductory student get down to the careful work of doing philosophy. -David Sosa, University of Texas at Austin Reading Philosophy is an excellent introduction to philosophy, especially as it is practiced in the analytic tradition. Students are given the opportunity to learn how to identify conclusions and premises of key arguments and enter into conversation with the readings. I know of no other text which introduces students to the practice of philosophy as this one does. -Roger P. Ebertz, University of Dubuque Learning to think philosophically requires reading and understanding philosophical argument, which can be prohibitively dense and technical for those who genuinely want to engage with the subject, either on their own or in the context of an introductory course. Reading Philosophy: Selected Texts with a Method for Beginners, Second Edition overcomes this difficulty by training readers in the work of active reading, abstract thinking, and critical analysis through concise editorial commentaries that interact with primary readings curated to introduce foundational concepts in philosophy. Unlike introductory books which summarize the views of major thinkers, Reading Philosophy requires the reader to do philosophy by tracing the arguments that make those views significant through the primary texts themselves. The volume is organized thematically around topics drawn from diverse areas of philosophical investigation-including ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, aesthetics, and political philosophy-and each chapter contains a conceptual overview, introductions to the texts and their authors, and interactive commentaries on the readings. In addition to expanded treatment of doubt, self, and moral dilemmas, chapters new to the second edition discuss the moral significance of friendship and love, the subjective nature of consciousness, and the ways that science might explore conscious experience. Direct and methodical, the expanded second edition of Reading Philosophy preserves what is fascinating about philosophy while facilitating its serious study, strengthening the book's reputation for helping beginning students and general readers alike to appreciate the richness of the subject.