Philosophy 101:
For Further Reading
 
 



Here are some interesting and fun-to-read books related to a few of the topics discussed in class. None of these is required or expected for the course, but if you are curious about a topic and would like to explore it some more, these are some fun places to start.


General:
Peg Tittle, What If... Collected Thought Experiments in Philosophy, (Pearson, 2005).

Harry Frankfurt, On Bullshit, (Princeton University Press, 2005).

Earl Conee and Theodore Sider, Riddles of Existence: A Guided Tour of Metaphysics, (Oxford University Press, 2015). - has chapters on personal identity, the existence of God, free will, etc.

Critical Thinking:

Edward Burger and Michael Starbird, 5 Elements of Effective Thinking, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012) - a brief guide, not specific to philosophy, on how to better understand what you learn.

Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow, (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011). - Discusses various ways your minds can trick itself.

Factfulness - Ten Reasons Why We're Wrong About the World - and Why Things are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling, et al, (Flatiron Books, 2020). - Nicely illustrates some common mistakes in thinking about important issues.

Theodore Schick and Lewis Vaughn, How To Think About Weird Things, (McGraw-Hill, various editions). - An entertaining application of critical thinking to paranormal phenomena.

 
Descartes:


William Irwin, ed., The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of the Real, (Open Court, 2002). - Discusses philosophical issues related to The Matrix, which is an updated account of Descartes' evil genius thought experiment.

Bryan Magee, The Great Philosophers, (Oxford University Press, 2001). - a readable discussion of Descartes and numerous other philosophers.

Christopher Biffle, A Guided Tour of Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy, (McGraw-Hill, 2000). - a paragraph-by-paragraph guide to the Meditations.

The Mind/Body Problem:

Paul Churchland, Matter and Consciousness, (MIT Press, 2013.) - A well-organized introductory survey.


The Problem of Personal Identity:
John Perry, ed. - Personal Identity, Second Edition, (University of California Press, 2008). - A collection of classic articles.



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