|

Longman / Prentice Hall

Philosophy

My Instructor Resource Center :  Log in or request access

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

ISBN-10: 0321202783
ISBN-13:  9780321202789

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



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.

  • 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.

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.

For the Philosophy Discipline

Common Philosophical Terms
Prentice Hall
©2005 | Prentice Hall | Paper; 72 pp | Instock
ISBN-10: 013189661X | ISBN-13: 9780131896611


iClicker Classroom Response System
iClicker & Allyn & Bacon/Longman
©2008 | Prentice Hall | Electronic Supplement | Instock
ISBN-10: 0205594506 | ISBN-13: 9780205594504


InterWrite PRS RF (Personal Response System)
InterWrite PRS & Allyn & Bacon/Longman
©2005 | Prentice Hall | Electronic Supplement | Instock
ISBN-10: 0205436951 | ISBN-13: 9780205436958


Philosophy Cafe Website (Open access)
Pearson Longman
©2005 | Prentice Hall | Website | Instock
ISBN-10: 0321275853 | ISBN-13: 9780321275851


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


ResearchNavigator.com Guide
Allyn & Bacon & Barr
©2007 | Prentice Hall | Paper; 48 pp | Out of Stock
ISBN-10: 020552396X | ISBN-13: 9780205523962


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: 0321310985 | ISBN-13: 9780321310989
©2005 | Instock (Additional assembly time required)
Suggested retail price: $64.33  Buy from myPearsonStore

This package contains:

Tittle | ©2005 | Prentice Hall | Paper; 256 pp
Rauhut | ©2007 | Prentice Hall | Paper; 272 pp


Package ISBN-10: 0321433297 | ISBN-13: 9780321433299
©2005 | Out of Stock
Suggested retail price: $125.67  Buy from myPearsonStore

This package contains:

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


Package ISBN-10: 0321471903 | ISBN-13: 9780321471901
©2006 | Instock (Additional assembly time required)
Suggested retail price: $80.53  Buy from myPearsonStore

This package contains:

Tittle | ©2005 | Prentice Hall | Paper; 256 pp
Waller | ©2006 | Prentice Hall | Paper; 608 pp


Package ISBN-10: 0205688403 | ISBN-13: 9780205688401
©2008 | Instock (Additional assembly time required)
Suggested retail price: $67.93  Buy from myPearsonStore

This package contains:

Tittle | ©2005 | Prentice Hall | Paper; 256 pp
Cahn | ©2008 | Prentice Hall | Paper; 400 pp


Package ISBN-10: 0205732186 | ISBN-13: 9780205732180
©2008 | Instock (Additional assembly time required)
Suggested retail price: $106.60  Buy from myPearsonStore

This package contains:

Tittle | ©2005 | Prentice Hall | Paper; 256 pp
Shakespeare, Carroll & Damrosch | ©2003 | Prentice Hall | Paper; 304 pp
Baird & Kaufmann | ©2008 | Prentice Hall | Paper; 576 pp


Package ISBN-10: 0205691722 | ISBN-13: 9780205691722
©2008 | Instock (Additional assembly time required)
Suggested retail price: $132.73  Buy from myPearsonStore

This package contains:

Tittle | ©2005 | Prentice Hall | Paper; 256 pp
Baird & Kaufmann | ©2008 | Prentice Hall | Paper; 576 pp
Cahn | ©2008 | Prentice Hall | Paper; 400 pp


Package ISBN-10: 0321311000 | ISBN-13: 9780321311009
©2005 | Instock (Additional assembly time required)
Suggested retail price: $104.53  Buy from myPearsonStore

This package contains:

Tittle | ©2005 | Prentice Hall | Paper; 256 pp
Rauhut & Smith | ©2007 | Prentice Hall | Paper; 640 pp
Rauhut | ©2007 | Prentice Hall | Paper; 272 pp


Copyright ©2009 Pearson Education, All rights reserved. Legal Notice | Privacy Policy | Permissions