Gurinder Purewal and Jenna Woodrow
Introduction
This Open Education Resource (OER) serves as a general introduction to philosophy and covers the Ancient to Enlightenment and then Enlightenment to Modern eras. This book provides a tremendous variety of philosophers and their works to allow students to engage with a diverse set of literature involving some of the greatest philosophical thinkers in history. The book also includes thought-provoking pieces of writing to engage with in order to help you develop your critical thinking skills.
The course is more about thinking than it is about coverage or the memorization of a bunch of facts. The main focus is on the questions. One goal is to give you a sense of what famous philosophers have said about these questions: some of it is chaos; some of it is profoundly inspiring; and a lot is both at the same time. A second goal is to get you thinking, writing, and arguing in a philosophical way.
The discipline of philosophy is fundamental to the ways we think and live as humans, as it fosters techniques that help us become clear on what it is that matters most to us in life.
Philosophy makes the invisible visible.
We take for granted the ways we make sense of our realities, our world, and our own identities. We see individuals stray so far from the original path they set out on that they forget why truth matters or why acting decently is a minimal requirement for treating others justly.
On this note, humankind has yet to grasp many of philosophy’s ‘truths.’
A few examples of the questions being explored include:
- Is there such a thing as “progress” in history?
- Is history a set of facts?
- What is a fact?
- Who decides what facts become history?
- Does God exist?
- What are the origins of our moral ideas or values?
- What rights do individuals have?
- Does life itself have meaning?
Chapter Contents
Chapter I – “How to Read and Write in Philosophy”
This information supports you as you gain both experience and knowledge engaging with the university environment and discipline of philosophy for the first time! This chapter includes five parts:
- How to attend class.
- How to read philosophy.
- How to plan a philosophy paper.
- How to write a philosophy paper.
- How to cite your sources.
Chapter II – “Thought Experiments”
This section includes an introduction to thought experiments, what they are, what their purpose is, and numerous examples for students to work through.
Chapter III – Course Readings: Ancient to Enlightenment
This chapter covers the following philosophers and assignments:
- Bertrand Russell
- Patrick Stokes
- Monty Python’s Argument Clinic
- Socrates
- Plato
- Herodotus
- Aristotle
- Rene Descartes
- David Hume
- Blaise Pascal
- Thomas Hobbes
- Pierre Laplace
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Mary Wollstonecraft
Chapter IV – Course Readings: Enlightenment to Modern
This chapter covers the following philosophers and assignments:
- Simone De Beauvoir
- The Combahee River Collective
- Quobna Ottobah Cugano
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- Immanuel Kant
- G.W.F. Hegel
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Soren Kierkegaard
- Karl Marx
- Friedrich Engels
- John Stuart Mill
- Bertrand Russell
- Jean Paul Satre
- Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
- Virginia Woolf
- Turgenev Ivan Sergeyevich
Reading the Materials
The materials for this course will require sustained attention. You should aim to read each article at least twice. Preparing yourself for discussing the material requires:
- Determining the key point the author is trying to establish or criticize
- Understanding why the author considers it important
- Identifying the reasons the author gives in support of the conclusion
- Considering whether those reasons both (a) are true or correct, and (b) actually support the author’s conclusion