The second edition of this popular compendium provides the necessary intellectual equipment to engage with and participate in effective philosophical argument, reading, and reflectionFeatures significantly revised, updated and expanded entries, and an entirely new section drawn from methods in the history of philosophyThis edition has a broad, pluralistic approach--appealing to readers in both continental philosophy and the history of philosophy, as well as analytic philosophyExplains difficult concepts in an easily accessible manner, and addresses the use and application of these conceptsProven useful to philosophy students at both beginning and advanced levels
Julian Baggini is Academic Director of the Royal Institute of Philosophy and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Kent. He was the founding editor ofThe Philosophers' Magazine and has written for numerous newspapers and magazines, as well as for the think tanks The Institute of Public Policy Research, Demos, and Counterpoint. He is the author, co-author, or editor of over 20 books, includingHow The World Thinks, The Virtues of the Table, The Ego Trick, Freedom Regained, andThe Edge of Reason.
Peter S. Fosl is Professor of Philosophy and chair of PPE at Transylvania University, Kentucky. He is author ofHume's Scepticism (2020), co-author ofThe Critical Thinking Toolkit (Wiley Blackwell, 2016) andThe Ethics Toolkit (Wiley Blackwell, 2007), editor ofThe Big LebowskiandPhilosophy (Wiley Blackwell, 2012), and co-editor ofPhilosophy: The Classic Readings (Wiley Blackwell, 2009). His work covers the history of scepticism, especially in the writings of David Hume, and the philosophical dimensions of popular culture.
Alphabetical Table of Contents xi
Preface xiv
Acknowledgements xvi
1 Basic Tools for Argument 1
1.1 Arguments, premises and conclusions 1
1.2 Deduction 6
1.3 Induction 8
1.4 Validity and soundness 13
1.5 Invalidity 17
1.6 Consistency 19
1.7 Fallacies 23
1.8 Refutation 26
1.9 Axioms 28
1.10 Definitions 31
1.11 Certainty and probability 34
1.12 Tautologies, self-contradictions and the law of non-contradiction 38
2 More Advanced Tools 42
2.1 Abduction 42
2.2 Hypothetico-deductive method 46
2.3 Dialectic 49
2.4 Analogies 52
2.5 Anomalies and exceptions that prove the rule 55
2.6 Intuition pumps 58
2.7 Logical constructions 60
2.8 Reduction 62
2.9 Thought experiments 65
2.10 Useful fictions 68
3 Tools for Assessment 71
3.1 Alternative explanations 72
3.2 Ambiguity 74
3.3 Bivalence and the excluded middle 77
3.4 Category mistakes 79
3.5Ceteris paribus81
3.6 Circularity 84
3.7 Conceptual incoherence 87
3.8 Counterexamples 90
3.9 Criteria 93
3.10 Error theory 95
3.11 False dichotomy 97
3.12 False cause 99
3.13 Genetic fallacy 101
3.14 Horned dilemmas 105
3.15 Is/ought gap 108
3.16 Masked man fallacy 110
3.17 Partners in guilt 113
3.18 Principle of charity 114
3.19 Question-begging 118
3.20 Reductios 121
3.21 Redundancy 123
3.22 Regresses 125
3.23 Saving the phenomena 127
3.24 Self-defeating arguments 130
3.25 Sufficient reason 133
3.26 Testability 136
4 Tools for Conceptual Distinctions 140
4.1A priori/a posteriori141
4.2 Absolute/relative 144
4.3 Analytic/synthetic 147
4.4 Categorical/modal 150
4.5 Conditional/biconditional 151
4.6De re/de dicto153
4.7 Defeasible/indefeasible 156
4.8 Entailment/implication 158
4.9 Essence/accident 161
4.10 Internalism/externalism 164
4.11 Knowledge by acquaintance/description 167
4.12 Necessary/contingent 170
4.13 Necessary/sufficient 173
4.14 Objective/subjective 176
4.15 Realist/non-realist 178
4.16 Sense/reference 181
4.17 Syntax/semantics 182
4.18 Thick/thin concepts 185
4.19 Types/tokens 187
5 Tools of Historical Schools and Philosophers 190
5.1 Aphorism, fragment, remark 190
5.2 Categories and specific differences 193
5.3Elenchusandaporia196
5.4 Humes fork 199
5.5 Indirect discourse 202
5.6 Leibnizs law of identity 204
5.7 Ockhams razor 209
5.8 Phenomenological method(s) 211
5.9 Signs and signifiers 214
5.10 Transcendental argument 218
6 Tools for Radical Critique 222
6.1 Class critique 222
6.2 Deconstruction and the critique of presence 225
6.3 Empiricist critique of metaphysics 227
6.4 Feminist critique 229
6.5 Foucaultian critique of power 231
6.6 Heideggerian critique of metaphysics 234
6.7 Lacanian critique 237
6.8 Critiques of naturalism 239
6.9 Nietzschean critique of Christian-Platonic culture 241
6.10 Pragmatist critique 244
6.11 Sartrean critique of bad faith 246
7 Tools at the Limit 249
7.1 Basic beliefs 249
7.2 Gödel and incompleteness 252
7.3 Philosophy and/as art 254
7.4 Mystical experience and revelation 257
7.5 Paradoxes 259
7.6 Possibility and impossibility 262
7.7 Primitives 265
7.8 Self-evident truths 267
7.9 Scepticism 270
7.10 Underdetermination 273
Internet Resources for Philosophers 276
Index 277
