Despite what some may believe, philosophy is prevalent and holds a great level of importance in today’s society. It allows us to examine the most fundamental issues that we face as self-aware beings and apply them to a variety of different topics, from free-will to politics to interpretation. To get you started on your own road of contemplation, we’ve compiled some thought-provoking ideas from David Edmonds’s and Nigel Warburton’s Philosophy Bites Again:
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World Philosophy Day was created by UNESCO in 2005 in order to “win recognition for and give strong impetus to philosophy and, in particular, to the teaching of philosophy in the world”. To celebrate World Philosophy Day, we have compiled a list of what we consider to be the most essential philosophy titles. We are also providing free access to several key journal articles and online products in philosophy so that you can explore this discipline in more depth. Happy reading!
Free: Why Science Hasn’t Disproved Free Will by Alfred R. Mele
Does free will exist? The question has fueled heated debates spanning from philosophy to psychology and religion. The answer has major implications, and the stakes are high. To put it in the simple terms that have come to dominate these debates, if we are free to make our own decisions, we are accountable for what we do, and if we aren’t free, we’re off the hook.
Philosophy Bites Again by David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton
This is really a conversation, and conversations are the best way to see philosophy in action. It offers engaging and thought-provoking conversations with leading philosophers on a selection of major philosophical issues that affect our lives. Their subjects include pleasure, pain, and humor; consciousness and the self; free will, responsibility, and punishment; the meaning of life and the afterlife.
Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy by Simon Blackburn
Here at last is a coherent, unintimidating introduction to the challenging and fascinating landscape of Western philosophy. Written expressly for “anyone who believes there are big questions out there, but does not know how to approach them.”
What Does It All Mean? A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy by Thomas Nagel
In this cogent and accessible introduction to philosophy, the distinguished author of Mortal Questions and The View From Nowhere brings the central problems of philosophical inquiry to life, demonstrating why they have continued to fascinate and baffle thinkers across the centuries.
Riddles of Existence: A Guided Tour of Metaphysics by Earl Conee and Theodore Sider
Two leading philosophers explore the most fundamental questions there are, about what is, what is not, what must be, and what might be. It has an informal style that brings metaphysical questions to life and shows how stimulating it can be to think about them.
Killing in War by Jeff McMahan
This is a highly controversial challenge to the consensus about responsibility in war. Jeff McMahan argues compellingly that if the leaders are in the wrong, then the soldiers are in the wrong.
Reason in a Dark Time by Dale Jamieson
In this book, philosopher Dale Jamieson explains what climate change is, why we have failed to stop it, and why it still matters what we do. Centered in philosophy, the volume also treats the scientific, historical, economic, and political dimensions of climate change.
Poverty, Agency, and Human Rights edited by Diana Tietjens Meyers
Collects thirteen new essays that analyze how human agency relates to poverty and human rights respectively as well as how agency mediates issues concerning poverty and social and economic human rights. No other collection of philosophical papers focuses on the diverse ways poverty impacts the agency of the poor.
Aha! The Moments of Insight That Shape Our World by William B. Irvine
This book incorporates psychology, neurology, and evolutionary psychology to take apart what we can learn from a variety of significant “aha” moments that have had lasting effects. Unlike other books on intellectual breakthroughs that focus on specific areas such as the arts, Irvine’s addresses aha moments in a variety of areas including science and religion.
On What Matters: Volume One by Derek Parfit
Considered one of the most important works in the field since the 19th century, it is written in the uniquely lucid and compelling style for which Parfit is famous. This is an ambitious treatment of the main theories of ethics.
The Emergent Multiverse: Quantum Theory according to the Everett Interpretation by David Wallace
Quantum physics is the most successful scientific theory we have. But no one knows how to make sense of it. We need to bite the bullet – it’s common sense that must give way. The universe is much stranger than we can think.
The Best Things in Life: A Guide to What Really Matters by Thomas Hurka
An engaging, accessible survey of the different things that can make life worth living: pleasure, knowledge, achievement, virtue, love, and more. A book that considers what really matters in one’s life, and making decisions around those values.
What should I do?: Plato’s Crito’ in Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction by Edward Craig
Plato, born around 427 BC, is not the first important philosopher, with Vedas of India, the Buddha, and Confucius all pre-dating him. However, he is the first philosopher to have left us with a substantial body of complete works that are available to us today, which all take the form of dialogues. This chapter focuses on the dialogue called Crito in which Socrates asks ‘What should I do?’
A biography of John Locke in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
A philosopher regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers, John Locke was born on 29th August 1632 in Somerset, England. In the late 1650s he became interested in medicine, which led easily to natural philosophy after being introduced to these new ideas of mechanical philosophy by Robert Boyle. Discover what happened next in Locke’s life with this biography
‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence’ from Mind, published in 1950.
In this seminal paper, celebrated mathematician and pioneer Alan Turing attempts to answer the question, ‘Can machines think?’, and thus introduces his theory of ‘the imitation game’(now known as the Turing test) to the world. Turing skilfully debunks theological and ethical arguments against computational intelligence: he acknowledges the limitations of a machine’s intellect, while boldly exposing those of man, ultimately laying the groundwork for the study of artificial intelligence – and the philosophy behind it.
‘Phenomenology as a Resource for Patients’ from The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, published in 2012
Patient support tools have drawn on a variety of disciplines, including psychotherapy, social psychology, and social care. One discipline that has not so far been used to support patients is philosophy. This paper proposes that a particular philosophical approach, phenomenology, could prove useful for patients, giving them tools to reflect on and expand their understanding of their illness.
Do you have any philosophy books that you think should be added to this reading list? Let us know in the comments below.
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To celebrate the publication of our second Philosophy Bites book, Philosophy Bites Back, authors Nigel Warburton and David Edmonds released a 39 minute podcast episode of a wide range of philosophers answering the question ‘Who’s Your Favourite Philosopher?’
Listen to Who’s Your Favourite Philosopher?
[See post to listen to audio]
Twitter Competition
We also asked you to let us know on Twitter who your favourite philosopher is and why. The competition is now closed and we received over 150 entries, which you can view on Storify. We can now reveal the winning entries, as chosen by Nigel Warburton and David Edmonds!
View the story “Philosophy Bites Back: The Winning Tweets” on Storify
David Edmonds is an award-winning documentary maker for the BBC World Service and a Research Associate at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at Oxford University. Nigel Warburton is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the Open University. They are co-authors of Philosophy Bites (OUP, 2010) and Philosophy Bites Back (OUP, 2012), which are based on their highly successful series of podcasts. You can also follow @philosophybites on Twitter.
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The post Competition results: who’s your favourite philosopher? appeared first on OUPblog.
To celebrate the publication of our second Philosophy Bites book, Philosophy Bites Back, authors Nigel Warburton and David Edmonds have released a 39 minute podcast episode of a wide range of philosophers answering the question ‘Who’s Your Favourite Philosopher?’
Listen to Who’s Your Favourite Philosopher?
[See post to listen to audio]
Twitter Competition
We’d like to hear who is your favourite philosopher. Pick your favourite philosopher and let us know why in a tweet (140 characters or fewer), incorporating the hashtag #philosophybites. We’ll be monitoring your suggestions from @oupacademic and @philosophybites. The competition closes on 10 January 2013 and our top five entrants will receive a copy of Philosophy Bites Back. The winning entries and a selection of shortlisted tweets will be posted to OUPblog in January 2013, and may well also appear in the next book in the Philosophy Bites series. To get you started, here are a few of ideas:
TIM CRANE: Descartes. Not because what I think what he said was true, but because he was incredibly clear in his vision of things.
ALAIN DE BOTTON: Nietzsche has a fascinating metaphysical structure to his thought, writes beautifully, and has a sense of humour.
RAYMOND GEUSS: Thucydides. My favourite philosopher because nobody else thinks he’s a philosopher, but I think he is.
BRIAN LEITER: Oh Fred. Nietzsche. I call him Fred. Because he’s a great writer, and he’s more right than wrong about most of the things he has views on.
GALEN STRAWSON: Kant. Every time I hear the words the Critique of Pure Reason I involuntarily salivate.
Good luck!
David Edmonds is an award-winning documentary maker for the BBC World Service and a Research Associate at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at Oxford University. Nigel Warburton is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the Open University. They are co-authors of Philosophy Bites (OUP, 2010) and Philosophy Bites Back (OUP, 2012), which are based on their highly successful series of podcasts. You can also follow @philosophybites on Twitter.
Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only philosophy articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Image credit: Twitter ‘t’ icon by mfilej, Flickr.
The post Competition: who’s your favourite philosopher? appeared first on OUPblog.
By Dave Edmonds and Nigel Warburton
Doctors have long been able to heal the body: now scientists are developing radical ways of altering the mind. Governments must determine what practices to permit – and for this they need rational arguments to draw relevant distinctions. Time to call on the philosophers…?
You can’t find your children. You’ve gone to a busy park, there are lots of people around, evening has set in, and you’re in a terrible panic. Wouldn’t it be great if your kids were fluorescent green? That would make it far easier to keep tabs on them.
A decade ago scientists created a rabbit, Alba, which glowed in the dark. One day scientists could do the same for humans. Science is advancing faster than morality can keep up. Scientists have developed, or in the near future will develop, products and techniques that could alter us in fundamental ways.
First, and most familiar, are physical enhancements to approve our appearance or our physical capabilities. We’ve become blasé about chin tucks, and breast implants, and Botox. Athletes use science (often illegally) to improve their performance (steroids and the like).
Second, there are mood altering drugs: Prozac, for example. These can be helpful in calming us down, or picking us up.
Third, there are a variety of cognitive enhancements. Those of us who can’t start the day without a coffee, well-understand that some chemicals can improve concentration or alertness. There’s been a trend among college students, particularly in the US, to take drugs like Ritalin or Adderall: these allow them to spend more time revising for exams, or writing essays. Is that cheating? Scientists have already genetically altered mice to improve their memory: it may not be long before they can do this to humans – boosting our ability to remember long strings of numbers, or pick up a foreign language. Wouldn’t that be great?
Fourth, and most intriguing of all, there are so-called moral enhancements. We’re discovering exactly what chemicals are involved when we decide to trust another person: thus, we can alter how much one person trusts another with the hormone oxytocin. Just imagine what the implications would be if we could disperse oxytocin through air-conditioning systems.
There are risks in legalizing some of these enhancements, but also costs in prohibiting them – for many of these enhancements may make life happier and more fulfilling. But there are other issues at stake: there are very real concerns that these new options will result in growing inequality, between those who can afford to take them and those who can’t.
Philosophers of different stripes are on different sides of this issue. Some like Julian Savulescu are keen that we use scientific breakthroughs to enhance our lives; others such as Michael Sandel are wary of the drive to achieve perfection. He thinks that, for example, the use of genetic enhancements to create superb athletes, even if legalised, would be bad for humanity; it would take away from what he calls the ‘gifted’ nature of our capabilities and is a kind of hubris.
Certainly many of these new advances often elicit a ‘yuk’ reaction from non-scientists – a sense of disgust when we see, say, a human-shaped ear on the back of a mouse. Professor Savulescu believes we shouldn’t put too much stress on these ‘yuk’ reactions. He says it’s important to go one step beyond just acknowledging our feelings and ask: ‘Are there are any good reasons for or against that course of action’?”
With mind-boggling scientific breakthroughs hitting the headlines on a weekly basis, we need to tackle the subject of boundaries: what should and shouldn’t be permitted. This, of course, is a matter for society as a whole. But philosophers, in particular, are scrambling behin
What does Simon Blackburn have to say about morality? What does A.C. Grayling think about atheism? Alain de Botton about the aesthetics of architecture? Adrian Moore about infinity? Will Kymlicka about minority rights? For the last three years, David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton have challenged some of the world’s leading philosophers to hold forth on their favourite topics for the highly successful Philosophy Bites podcast. Now 25 of these entertaining, personal, and illuminating conversations are presented in print for the first time.
Sticking with the podcast theme, David Edmunds interviewed Nigel Warburton about the book and the podcast, as well as what it’s like to speak to all of these fantastic philosophers. You can hear the interview in the below podcast.
We will also be running a very exciting Twitter competition in conjunction with Waterstone’s around the time of the book’s UK publication, 9 August. Keep an eye on Waterstone’s Twitter feed for further details.
David Edmonds is an award-winning documentary maker for the BBC World Service, and is the author of Wittgenstein’s Poker (with John Eidinow), Bobby Fischer Goes to War, and Rousseau’s Dog. He is currently a Research Associate at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at Oxford University and a Contributing Editor for Prospect Magazine.
Nigel Warburton is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the Open University and author of bestselling books Philosophy: The Basics and Philosophy: The Classics. He also recently wrote Free Speech: A Very Short Introduction. He regularly teaches courses on aesthetics at Tate Modern and writes a monthly column ‘Everyday Philosophy’ for Prospect Magazine. He runs several blogs including Virtual Philosopher and Art and Allusion.
