Skip to ContentGo to accessibility pageKeyboard shortcuts menu
OpenStax Logo

Menu
Table of contents
  1. Preface
  2. 1 Introduction to Philosophy
    1. Introduction
    2. 1.1 What Is Philosophy?
    3. 1.2 How Do Philosophers Arrive at Truth?
    4. 1.3 Socrates as a Paradigmatic Historical Philosopher
    5. 1.4 An Overview of Contemporary Philosophy
    6. Summary
    7. Key Terms
    8. References
    9. Review Questions
    10. Further Reading
  3. 2 Critical Thinking, Research, Reading, and Writing
    1. Introduction
    2. 2.1 The Brain Is an Inference Machine
    3. 2.2 Overcoming Cognitive Biases and Engaging in Critical Reflection
    4. 2.3 Developing Good Habits of Mind
    5. 2.4 Gathering Information, Evaluating Sources, and Understanding Evidence
    6. 2.5 Reading Philosophy
    7. 2.6 Writing Philosophy Papers
    8. Summary
    9. Key Terms
    10. References
    11. Review Questions
    12. Further Reading
  4. 3 The Early History of Philosophy around the World
    1. Introduction
    2. 3.1 Indigenous Philosophy
    3. 3.2 Classical Indian Philosophy
    4. 3.3 Classical Chinese Philosophy
    5. Summary
    6. Key Terms
    7. References
    8. Review Questions
    9. Further Reading
  5. 4 The Emergence of Classical Philosophy
    1. Introduction
    2. 4.1 Historiography and the History of Philosophy
    3. 4.2 Classical Philosophy
    4. 4.3 Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Philosophy
    5. Summary
    6. Key Terms
    7. References
    8. Review Questions
    9. Further Reading
  6. 5 Logic and Reasoning
    1. Introduction
    2. 5.1 Philosophical Methods for Discovering Truth
    3. 5.2 Logical Statements
    4. 5.3 Arguments
    5. 5.4 Types of Inferences
    6. 5.5 Informal Fallacies
    7. Summary
    8. Key Terms
    9. References
    10. Review Questions
    11. Further Reading
  7. 6 Metaphysics
    1. Introduction
    2. 6.1 Substance
    3. 6.2 Self and Identity
    4. 6.3 Cosmology and the Existence of God
    5. 6.4 Free Will
    6. Summary
    7. Key Terms
    8. References
    9. Review Questions
    10. Further Reading
  8. 7 Epistemology
    1. Introduction
    2. 7.1 What Epistemology Studies
    3. 7.2 Knowledge
    4. 7.3 Justification
    5. 7.4 Skepticism
    6. 7.5 Applied Epistemology
    7. Summary
    8. Key Terms
    9. References
    10. Review Questions
    11. Further Reading
  9. 8 Value Theory
    1. Introduction
    2. 8.1 The Fact-Value Distinction
    3. 8.2 Basic Questions about Values
    4. 8.3 Metaethics
    5. 8.4 Well-Being
    6. 8.5 Aesthetics
    7. Summary
    8. Key Terms
    9. References
    10. Review Questions
    11. Further Reading
  10. 9 Normative Moral Theory
    1. Introduction
    2. 9.1 Requirements of a Normative Moral Theory
    3. 9.2 Consequentialism
    4. 9.3 Deontology
    5. 9.4 Virtue Ethics
    6. 9.5 Daoism
    7. 9.6 Feminist Theories of Ethics
    8. Summary
    9. Key Terms
    10. References
    11. Review Questions
    12. Further Reading
  11. 10 Applied Ethics
    1. Introduction
    2. 10.1 The Challenge of Bioethics
    3. 10.2 Environmental Ethics
    4. 10.3 Business Ethics and Emerging Technology
    5. Summary
    6. Key Terms
    7. References
    8. Review Questions
    9. Further Reading
  12. 11 Political Philosophy
    1. Introduction
    2. 11.1 Historical Perspectives on Government
    3. 11.2 Forms of Government
    4. 11.3 Political Legitimacy and Duty
    5. 11.4 Political Ideologies
    6. Summary
    7. Key Terms
    8. References
    9. Review Questions
    10. Further Reading
  13. 12 Contemporary Philosophies and Social Theories
    1. Introduction
    2. 12.1 Enlightenment Social Theory
    3. 12.2 The Marxist Solution
    4. 12.3 Continental Philosophy’s Challenge to Enlightenment Theories
    5. 12.4 The Frankfurt School
    6. 12.5 Postmodernism
    7. Summary
    8. Key Terms
    9. References
    10. Review Questions
  14. Index

Anscombe, G. E. M. 1958. “Modern Moral Philosophy.” Philosophy 33 (124): 1–19.

Aquinas, Thomas. (1485) 1948. Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas. New York: Modern Library.

Aristotle. (350 BCE) 1999. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by Terence Irwin. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company.

Augustine. 1909–14. The Confessions of St. Augustine. Vol. 7. New York: P. F. Collier & Son.

Ayer, Alfred Jules. 1946. Language, Truth, and Logic. 2nd edition. London: Victor Gollancz Ltd.

Chang, Ruth. 2015. “Value Incomparability and Incommensurability.” In The Oxford Handbook of Value Theory, edited by Iwao Hirose and Jonas Olson. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Durkheim, Emile. 1995. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. Translated by Karen Fields. New York: Free Press.

Foot, Philippa. 2003. Natural Goodness. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.

Guerrilla Girls. 1989. Do Women Have to Be Naked to Get into the Met. Museum? Screenprint on paper. 280 Ă— 710 mm.

Hobbes, Thomas. 1904. Leviathan. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

hooks, bell. 2015. Feminism Is for Everybody. London and New York: Routledge.

Hume, David. (1739–1740) 2003. A Treatise of Human Nature. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications.

Hume, David. 1757. Four Dissertations. London: A. Millar, in the Strand.

Hume, David. 1874–75. The Philosophical Works of David Hume. 4 vols. edited by T. H. Green and T. H. Grose. London: Longman, Green.

Kant, Immanuel. (1785) 1998. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by Mary Gregor. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Kant, Immanuel. (1790) 2000. Critique of the Power of Judgment. Translated by Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

King, Martin L., Jr. (1963) 1994. Letter from Birmingham Jail. San Francisco, CA: Harper.

Kumano, Michiko. 2017. “On the Concept of Well-Being in Japan: Feeling Ahiawase as Hedonic Well-Being and Feeling Ikigai as Eudaimonic Well-Being.” Applied Research in Quality of Life 13 (2–3): 419–433.

Locke, John. [1689] 1967. Two Treatises of Government. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Long, A. A., and David Sedley. 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Mencius. 1970. The Works of Mencius. Translated by James Legge. New York: Dover Books.

Mill, John Stuart, and Jeremy Bentham. 1987. Utilitarianism and Other Essays. Edited by Alan Ryan. New York: Penguin Books.

Moody-Adams, Michele. 1997. Fieldwork in Familiar Places: Morality, Culture, & Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Moore, George Edward. 1993. Principia Ethica. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Noddings, Nel. 2013. Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education. 2nd edition. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Nozick, Robert. 1974/ Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.

Nussbaum, Martha. 1999. Sex and Social Justice. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Nussbaum, Martha. 2000. Women and Human Development. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Okakura, Kakuzo. (1906) 1956. The Book of Tea. Rutland, VT: C. E. Tuttle Co.

Plato. (399–360 BCE) 2002. Five Dialogues. Translated by G. M. A. Grube. Revised by John M. Cooper. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company.

Putnam, Hilary. 1982. “Beyond the Fact-Value Dichotomy.” Crítica: Revista Hispanoamericana de Filosofía 14 (41): 3–12.

Saito, Yuriko. 2007. Everyday Aesthetics. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Sibley, Frank. 1959. “Aesthetic Concepts.” The Philosophical Review 68 (4): 421–450.

Spinoza, Benedictus de. 1985. The Collected Writings of Spinoza. Vol. 1. Edited and translated by Edwin Curley. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Wimsatt, William Kurtz, and Monroe Curtis Beardsley. 1946. “The Intentional Fallacy.” The Sewanee Review 54 (3): 468–488.

Order a print copy

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

Citation/Attribution

Want to cite, share, or modify this book? This book uses the Creative Commons Attribution License and you must attribute OpenStax.

Attribution information
  • If you are redistributing all or part of this book in a print format, then you must include on every physical page the following attribution:
    Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/introduction-philosophy/pages/1-introduction
  • If you are redistributing all or part of this book in a digital format, then you must include on every digital page view the following attribution:
    Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/introduction-philosophy/pages/1-introduction
Citation information

© Jun 21, 2022 OpenStax. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License . The OpenStax name, OpenStax logo, OpenStax book covers, OpenStax CNX name, and OpenStax CNX logo are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written consent of Rice University.