Always Learning

What If....Collected Thought Experiments in Philosophy
Peg Tittle

ISBN-10: 0321202783
ISBN-13:  9780321202789

Publisher:  Pearson
Copyright:  2005
Format:  Paper; 256 pp
Published:  05/05/2004
Status: Instock


Customers outside the U.S., click here.


Print this content

In this section:


Description

What If. . .Collected Thought Experiments in Philosophy is a brief, inexpensive collection of over 100 classic and contemporary “thought experiments,” each exploring an important philosophical argument.

Engaging and provocative thought experiments introduce students to the kind of disciplined thought required in philosophy, and awaken their intellectual curiosity. Featuring a clear and conversational writing style that doesn't dilute the ideas, the value of the book is in its simplicity–in both format and tone. Each thought experiment is accompanied by commentary from the author that explains its importance and provides thought-provoking questions, all encapsulated on two pages.


Features

  • More than 100 classic and contemporary thought experiments, excerpted from their original sources, including Putnam's Brain in a Vat, The Liar Paradox, Zeno's Achilles, Taylor's Ingenious Physiologist, Pale's Watch, Hobbes's Ship of Theseus, Parfit's Teletransporter, Quine's Gavagai, Skyrmss' Dyromaniac, Plato's Ring of Gyges, Thomson's Violinist, and Carroll's Loathe Letter, among many others.
  • Brief and inexpensive,  What If... can be assigned as a supplement in a variety of courses, including Introduction to Philosophy, Introduction to Ethics, Applied Ethics, and Introduction to Critical Thinking.
  • Organized by category, the thought experiments cover the major topics found in most introduction to philosophy courses, e.g., ethics; free will and determinism; philosophy of religion, epistemology, etc.
  • Each thought experiment presents a puzzling situation that demands a response and demonstrates that philosophy is valuable because many of these thought experiments address a genuine problem in life.
  • A short “commentary” accompanies each thought experiment, highlighting the important elements of the experiment and summarizing the context in which the thought experiment developed.
  • Thought-provoking questions and bibliographic entries at the end of each experiment give the reader additional resources for study.
  • Indexes organize the content by keyword, date of publication and author for easy referencing.


Table of Contents

Preface.

Introduction.

1. Metaphysics.

Space, Time, and Reality.

Zeno's Achilles.

Lucretius's Spear.

Berkeley's Impossibility of Conceiving the Unconcieved.

Nietzsche's Eternal Reoccurrence.

Strawson's No-Space World.

Quinton's Two-Space Myth.

Shoemaker's Time-Freezing World.

Free Will and Determinism.

Locke's Voluntary Prisoner.

James's Way Home.

Lyon's Card Predictor.

Goldman's Book of Life.

Frankfurt's Willing Addict.

Taylor's Ingenious Physiologist.

Philosophy of Religion.

Gaunilo's Lost Island.

Pascal's Wager.

Hume's Infant, Inferior, or Superannuated Deity.

Paley's Watch.

Wisdom's Long-Neglected Garden.

Hick's Resurrected People.

Hick's World with Flexible Laws of Nature.

Plantinga's Curley Smith and Transworld Depravity.

Rowe's Fawn.

2. Philosophy of Mind.

Locke's Inverted Spectrum.

Leibniz's Machine.

Turing's Imitation Game.

Kirk and Squire's Zombies.

Nagel's Bat.

Block's Chinese Nation.

Rorty's Antipodeans.

Searle's Chinese Room.

Putnam's Brain in a Vat.

Jackson's Mary, the Brilliant Color Scientist.

Searle's Brain Replacement.

3. Personal Identity.

Hobbe's Ship of Theseus.

Locke's Prince and Cobbler.

Reid's Brave Officer.

Leibniz's King of China.

William's Charles and Guy Fawkes-and Robert.

Shoemaker's Brownson.

William's Body Exchange/Mind Swap.

Perry's Divided Self.

Price's E.coli John.

Parfit's Fission.

Parfit's Teletransporter.

4. Philosophy of Language.

James' Squirrel.

Wittgenstein's Games.

Wittgenstein's “S.”

Ayer's Robinson Crusoe.

Quine's Gavagai.

Putnam's Twin Earth.

5. Epistemology.

The Possibility of Knowledge.

Descartes's Evil Demon.

Russell's Five- Minute Hypothesis.

The Sources of Knowledge.

Plato's Equal Portions of Wood and Stone.

Descartes's Wax.

Molyneux's Blind Man.

Hume's Missing Shade of Blue.

Hume's Constant Conjunction.

Kant's A Priori Space.

Mill's Chaotic World.

The Conditions of Knowledge.

Gettier's Smith and Jones (and Brown in Barcelona).

Skyrms's Pyromaniac.

Harman's False Report.

Goldman's Fake Barns.

Bonjour's Clairvoyants.

Plantinga's Epistemically Inflexible Climber.

Lehrer's Mr. Truetemp.

6. Logic.

The Liar Paradox.

The Barber Paradox.

Frege's Other-Thinking Beings.

The Surprise Quiz.

Black's Two Spheres.

Goodman's Grue.

7. Ethics.

Ethical Theory.

Plato's Ring of Gyges.

Godwin's Fenelon.

Moore's Two Worlds.

Smart's Deluded Sadist.

Foot's Gas.

Brandt's Spelunkers.

Williams's Jim in South America.

Nozick's Experience Machine.

Feinberg's Egoist.

Jamieson and Regan's Chainsaw.

Jamieson and Regan's Terrorist Tank.

Thompson's Trolley Problem.

Thompson's Transplant Problem.

Donaldson's Equim.

Applied Ethics.

Thompson's Violinist.

Thompson's Growing Child in a Tiny House.

Thompson's People-seeds.

Tooley's Kitten.

Warren's Space Traveler.

Warren's Space Explorer.

Sylvan's Last People.

Rachel's Smith and Jones at the Bathtub.

Harris's Survival Lottery.

The Routley's Nuclear Train.

Regan's Lifeboat.

Caste's Hedonine and Pononine.

Battin's Automatic Reversible Contraception.

8. Social and Political Philosophy.

Locke's Acorns and Apples.

The Prisoner's Dilemma.

Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons.

Rawls' Veil of Ignorance.

Nozick's Wilt Chamberlain.

Hardin's Lifeboat.

O'Neill's Lifeboat.

Alexander's Doomsday Machine.

Marty's Two Shipwrecked Islanders.

Parfit's Nobelist.

Mills' Mr. Oreo.

9. Aesthetics.

Dewey's Finely Wrought Object.

Ziff's Eccentric and Peculiar Objects.

Danto's Randomly Generated Work of Art.

Moore's Glass Flowers.

Carroll's Loathe Letter.

10. Just on more...

Patton's Can Bad Men Make Good Brains Do Bad Things?

Index by Author.

Index by Date of Publication.

Index by Keyword.



Back to top

Print this content

In this section:


For the Philosophy Discipline

Common Philosophical Terms
Pearson
©2005  |  Pearson  |  Paper; 72 pp  |  Instock
ISBN-10: 013189661X  |  ISBN-13: 9780131896611
More Info

CPS RF Classroom Performance System
eInstruction
©2010  |  Pearson  |  Electronic Supplement  |  Available
ISBN-10: 020577864X  |  ISBN-13: 9780205778645
More Info

Euthanasia: A New York Times Reader
New York Times
©1999  |  Pearson  |  Paper; 270 pp  |  Out of Stock
ISBN-10: 0139774971  |  ISBN-13: 9780139774973
More Info

iClicker Classroom Response System
iClicker & Allyn & Bacon/Longman
©2008  |  Pearson  |  Electronic Supplement  |  Available
ISBN-10: 0205594506  |  ISBN-13: 9780205594504
More Info

InterWrite PRS RF (Personal Response System)
InterWrite PRS & Allyn & Bacon/Longman
©2005  |  Pearson  |  Electronic Supplement  |  Available
ISBN-10: 0205436951  |  ISBN-13: 9780205436958
More Info

MySearchLab -- Standalone Access Card
Pearson
©2010  |  Pearson  |  Access Code Card  |  Instock
ISBN-10: 0205699413  |  ISBN-13: 9780205699414
More Info

Philosophy Cafe Website (Open access)
Pearson Longman
©2005  |  Pearson  |  Website  |  Live
ISBN-10: 0321275853  |  ISBN-13: 9780321275851
More Info

Politics
Aristotle
©1991  |  Pearson  |  Paper  |  Estimated Availability : 08/31/2005
ISBN-10: 0321419715  |  ISBN-13: 9780321419712
More Info

ResearchNavigator.com Guide
Allyn & Bacon
©2007  |  Pearson  |  Paper; 48 pp  |  Instock
ISBN-10: 0205517196  |  ISBN-13: 9780205517190
More Info

What Every Student Should Know About Avoiding Plagiarism
Stern
©2007  |  Pearson  |  Paper; 80 pp  |  Instock
ISBN-10: 0321446895  |  ISBN-13: 9780321446893
More Info

What Every Student Should Know About Citing Sources with APA Documentation: Updated for APA Sixth Edition, 2/E
Anderson, Carrell & Widdifield
©2010  |  Pearson  |  Paper; 80 pp  |  Instock
ISBN-10: 0205795811  |  ISBN-13: 9780205795819
More Info

What Every Student Should Know About Citing Sources with MLA Documentation, Update Edition
Greer
©2010  |  Pearson  |  Paper  |  Instock
ISBN-10: 0205715117  |  ISBN-13: 9780205715114
More Info

What Every Student Should Know About Practicing Peer Review
Trim
©2007  |  Pearson  |  Paper  |  Instock
ISBN-10: 0321448480  |  ISBN-13: 9780321448484
More Info

What Every Student Should Know About Preparing Effective Oral Presentations
Cox
©2007  |  Pearson  |  Paper; 96 pp  |  Instock
ISBN-10: 0205505457  |  ISBN-13: 9780205505456
More Info

What Every Student Should Know About Procrastination
Hoffman
©2008  |  Pearson  |  Paper; 64 pp  |  Instock
ISBN-10: 0205582117  |  ISBN-13: 9780205582112
More Info

What Every Student Should Know About Researching Online
Munger & Campbell
©2007  |  Pearson  |  Paper  |  Instock
ISBN-10: 0321445317  |  ISBN-13: 9780321445315
More Info

What Every Student Should Know About Study Skills
Pearson Longman
©2007  |  Pearson  |  Paper; 72 pp  |  Instock
ISBN-10: 0321447360  |  ISBN-13: 9780321447364
More Info

What Every Student Should Know About Using a Handbook
Murray
©2009  |  Pearson  |  Paper; 80 pp  |  Instock
ISBN-10: 0205563848  |  ISBN-13: 9780205563845
More Info


Back to top

Log in to the Instructor Resource Center

Login name: 

  Password: 

Forgot login/password?  |  Need to redeem an access code?

        

Instructor Resource Center File Download

This work is protected by local and international copyright laws and is provided solely for the use of instructors in teaching their courses and assessing student learning. Dissemination or sale of any part of this work (including on the World Wide Web) will destroy the integrity of the work and is not permitted. The work and materials from this site should never be made available to students except by instructors using the accompanying text in their classes. All recipients of this work are expected to abide by these restrictions and to honor the intended pedagogical purposes and the needs of other instructors who rely on these materials.

Cancel     I accept, proceed with download

Print this content

Pearson Higher Education offers special pricing when you choose to package your text with other student resources. If you're interested in creating a cost-saving package for your students, browse our available packages below, or contact your Pearson Higher Education representative to create your own package.

Package ISBN-10: 0321433297 | ISBN-13: 9780321433299
©2005 | Instock (Additional assembly time required)
Suggested retail price: $141.00  Buy from myPearsonStore

This package contains:

Tittle | ©2005 | Pearson | Paper; 256 pp
BonJour & Baker | ©2008 | Pearson | Paper; 672 pp


Package ISBN-10: 0321471903 | ISBN-13: 9780321471901
©2006 | Instock (Additional assembly time required)
Suggested retail price: $93.33  Buy from myPearsonStore

This package contains:



Package ISBN-10: 0205688403 | ISBN-13: 9780205688401
©2008 | Instock (Additional assembly time required)
Suggested retail price: $77.27  Buy from myPearsonStore

This package contains:

Tittle | ©2005 | Pearson | Paper; 256 pp
Cahn | ©2008 | Pearson | Paper; 400 pp


Package ISBN-10: 0205043232 | ISBN-13: 9780205043231
©2011 | Instock
Suggested retail price: $128.67  Buy from myPearsonStore

This package contains:

Tittle | ©2005 | Pearson | Paper; 256 pp
Shakespeare & Jordan | ©2005 | Pearson | Paper; 288 pp
Baird | ©2011 | Pearson | Paper; 576 pp


Back to top