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Animals & Ethics 101: Thinking Critically About Animal Rights

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Animals & Ethics 101: Thinking Critically About Animal Rights

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This book provides an overview of the current debates about the nature and extent of our moral obligations to animals. Which, if any, uses of animals are morally wrong, which are morally permissible (i.e., not wrong) and why? What, if any, moral obligations do we, individually and as a society (and a global community), have towards animals and why? How should animals be treated? Why?

We will explore the most influential and most developed answers to these questions – given by philosophers, scientists, and animal advocates and their critics – to try to determine which positions are supported by the best moral reasons.

Subject:: Philosophy
Material Type:: Textbook
Author:: Nathan Nobis
Date Added:: 11/26/2019

A Concise Introduction to Logic

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A Concise Introduction to Logic

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A Concise Introduction to Logic is an introduction to formal logic suitable for undergraduates taking a general education course in logic or critical thinking, and is accessible and useful to any interested in gaining a basic understanding of logic. This text takes the unique approach of teaching logic through intellectual history; the author uses examples from important and celebrated arguments in philosophy to illustrate logical principles. The text also includes a basic introduction to findings of advanced logic. As indicators of where the student could go next with logic, the book closes with an overview of advanced topics, such as the axiomatic method, set theory, Peano arithmetic, and modal logic. Throughout, the text uses brief, concise chapters that readers will find easy to read and to review.

Subject:: Philosophy
Material Type:: Textbook
Provider:: State University of New York
Provider Set:: OpenSUNY Textbooks
Author:: Craig DeLancey
Date Added:: 03/27/2017

Ethics for A-Level

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Ethics for A-Level

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What does pleasure have to do with morality? What role, if any, should intuition have in the formation of moral theory? If something is ‘simulated', can it be immoral?

This accessible and wide-ranging textbook explores these questions and many more. Key ideas in the fields of normative ethics, metaethics and applied ethics are explained rigorously and systematically, with a vivid writing style that enlivens the topics with energy and wit. Individual theories are discussed in detail in the first part of the book, before these positions are applied to a wide range of contemporary situations including business ethics, sexual ethics, and the acceptability of eating animals. A wealth of real-life examples, set out with depth and care, illuminate the complexities of different ethical approaches while conveying their modern-day relevance.

This concise and highly engaging resource is tailored to the Ethics components of AQA Philosophy and OCR Religious Studies, with a clear and practical layout that includes end-of-chapter summaries, key terms, and common mistakes to avoid. It should also be of practical use for those teaching Philosophy as part of the International Baccalaureate.

Ethics for A-Level is of particular value to students and teachers, but Fisher and Dimmock's precise and scholarly approach will appeal to anyone seeking a rigorous and lively introduction to the challenging subject of ethics.

Subject:: Philosophy
Material Type:: Textbook
Provider:: Open Book Publishers
Author:: Andrew Fisher; Mark Dimmock
Date Added:: 11/14/2018

Fundamental Methods of Logic

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Fundamental Methods of Logic

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Fundamental Methods of Logic is suitable for a one-semester introduction to logic/critical reasoning course. It covers a variety of topics at an introductory level. Chapter One introduces basic notions, such as arguments and explanations, validity and soundness, deductive and inductive reasoning; it also covers basic analytical techniques, such as distinguishing premises from conclusions and diagramming arguments. Chapter Two discusses informal logical fallacies. Chapters Three and Four concern deductive logic, introducing the basics of Aristotelian and Sentential Logic, respectively. Chapter Five deals with analogical and causal reasoning, including a discussion of Mill's Methods. Chapter Six covers basic probability calculations, Bayesian inference, fundamental statistical concepts and techniques, and common statistical fallacies.

Subject:: Philosophy
Material Type:: Textbook
Provider:: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Author:: Matthew Knachel
Date Added:: 09/08/2017

Inferring and Explaining

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Inferring and Explaining

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Inferring and Explaining is a book in practical epistemology. It examines the notion of evidence and assumes that good evidence is the essence of rational thinking. Evidence is the cornerstone of the natural, social, and behavioral sciences. But it is equally central to almost all academic pursuits and, perhaps most importantly, to the basic need to live an intelligent and reflective life.

Subject:: Philosophy
Material Type:: Textbook
Provider:: Portland State University
Provider Set:: PDXOpen
Author:: Jeffery L. Johnson
Date Added:: 06/28/2019

The Intelligent Troglodyte's Guide to Plato's Republic

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The Intelligent Troglodyte's Guide to Plato's Republic

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The Republic of Plato is one of the classic gateway texts into the study and practice of philosophy, and it is just the sort of book that has been able to arrest and redirect lives. How it has been able to do this, and whether or not it will be able to do this in your own case, is something you can only discover for yourself. The present guidebook aims to help a person get fairly deep, fairly quickly, into the project. It divides the dialogue into 96 sections and provides commentary on each section as well as questions for reflection and exploration. It is organized with a table of contents and is stitched together with a system of navigating bookmarks. Links to external sites such as the Perseus Classical Library are used throughout. This book is suitable for college courses or independent study.

Subject:: Arts and Humanities; Philosophy
Material Type:: Reading; Student Guide; Textbook
Provider:: Fort Hays State University
Provider Set:: FHSU Scholars Repository
Author:: Douglas Drabkin
Date Added:: 01/01/2016

An Introduction to Formal Logic

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An Introduction to Formal Logic

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forall x is an introduction to sentential logic and first-order predicate logic with identity, logical systems that significantly influenced twentieth-century analytic philosophy. After working through the material in this book, a student should be able to understand most quantified expressions that arise in their philosophical reading.

This books treats symbolization, formal semantics, and proof theory for each language. The discussion of formal semantics is more direct than in many introductory texts. Although forall x does not contain proofs of soundness and completeness, it lays the groundwork for understanding why these are things that need to be proven.

Subject:: Philosophy
Material Type:: Textbook
Provider:: forall x
Author:: P.D. Magnus
Date Added:: 01/01/2012

Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking

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Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking

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This is an introductory textbook in logic and critical thinking. The goal of the textbook is to provide the reader with a set of tools and skills that will enable them to identify and evaluate arguments. The book is intended for an introductory course that covers both formal and informal logic. As such, it is not a formal logic textbook, but is closer to what one would find marketed as a critical thinking textbook. Downloadable as a pdf file.

Subject:: Philosophy
Material Type:: Textbook
Provider:: Lansing Community College
Author:: Matthew J. Van Cleave
Date Added:: 01/04/2016

An Introduction to Philosophy

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An Introduction to Philosophy

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The goal of this text is to present philosophy to newcomers as a living discipline with historical roots. While a few early chapters are historically organized, my goal in the historical chapters is to trace a developmental progression of thought that introduces basic philosophical methods and frames issues that remain relevant today. Later chapters are topically organized. These include philosophy of science and philosophy of mind, areas where philosophy has shown dramatic recent progress. This text concludes with four chapters on ethics, broadly construed. I cover traditional theories of right action in the third of these. Students are first invited first to think about what is good for themselves and their relationships in a chapter of love and happiness. Next a few meta-ethical issues are considered; namely, whether they are moral truths and if so what makes them so. The end of the ethics sequence addresses social justice, what it is for one’s community to be good. Our sphere of concern expands progressively through these chapters. Our inquiry recapitulates the course of development into moral maturity

Subject:: Philosophy
Material Type:: Textbook
Provider:: Bellevue College
Author:: W. Russ Payne
Date Added:: 08/29/2018

Introduction to Philosophy: Ethics

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Introduction to Philosophy: Ethics

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We often make judgments about good and bad, right and wrong. Philosophical ethics is the critical examination of these and other concepts central to how we evaluate our own and each others’ behavior and choices.

This text examines some of the main threads of discussion on these topics that have developed over the last couple of millenia, mostly within the Western cultural tradition. It considers basic questions about moral and ethical judgment: Is there such a thing as something that is really right or really wrong independent of time, place and perspective? What is the relationship between religion and ethics? How can we reconcile self-interest and ethics? Is it ever acceptable to harm one person in order to help others? What do recent discussions in evolutionary biology or have to say about human moral systems? What is the relation between gender and ethics? The authors invite you to participate in their exploration of these and many other questions in philosophical ethics.

If you are adopting or adapting this book for a course, please let us know on our adoption form for the Introduction to Philosophy open textbook series: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdwf2E7bRGvWefjhNZ07kgpgnNFxVxxp-iidPE5gfDBQNGBGg/viewform?usp=sf_link.

Subject:: Philosophy
Material Type:: Textbook
Provider:: Rebus Community
Author:: Christina Hendricks (Series Editor); Douglas Giles; Frank Aragbonfoh Abumere; George Matthews (Book Editor); Jeffrey Morgan; Joseph Kranak; Kathryn MacKay; Michael Klenk; Paul Rezkalla; Ya-Yun (Sherry) Kao
Date Added:: 12/18/2019

Introduction to Philosophy: Philosophy of Mind

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Introduction to Philosophy: Philosophy of Mind

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Introduction to Philosophy: Philosophy of Mind (edited by Heather Salazar) surveys the central themes in philosophy of mind and places them in a historical and contemporary context intended to engage first-time readers in the field. It focuses on debates about the status and character of the mind and its seemingly subjective nature in an apparently more objective world.

Written by experts and emerging researchers in their subject areas, each chapter brings clarity to complex material and involves the reader through a wealth of examples. Many chapters include applications of the concepts to film and literature that will stimulate readers to firmly grasp the significance of the philosophy of mind. Subjects covered are how the mind fits into the material world and how to analyze its properties. In that vein, substance dualism, materialism, behaviorism, functionalism, and property dualism are all explored.

In addition, it includes insightful contributions on how to explain seemingly subjective feelings, the mystery of consciousness, conceptual understanding of the world outside of the mind, and free will. The book is designed to be used alone or alongside a reader of historical and contemporary original sources.

If you are adopting or adapting this book for a course, please let us know on our adoption form for the Introduction to Philosophy open textbook series: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdwf2E7bRGvWefjhNZ07kgpgnNFxVxxp-iidPE5gfDBQNGBGg/viewform?usp=sf_link.

Subject:: Philosophy
Material Type:: Textbook
Provider:: Rebus Community
Author:: Christina Hendricks; Daniel Haas; Elly Vintiadis; Eran Asoulin; Heather Salazar; Henry Shevlin; Jason Newman; Paul Richard Blum; Tony Cheng
Date Added:: 09/20/2019

The Meaning of Love: Second Edition

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The Meaning of Love: Second Edition

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This book explores the philosophical views on the meaning of love. The text explores a variety of topics used to define love, including attraction, relationship satisfaction, emotional, and ethical considerations. The author takes a rational, logical, analytic, and scrutinizing look at experiences and other forms of literature on the subject of love.

Subject:: Philosophy
Material Type:: Textbook
Author:: Richard Garlikov
Date Added:: 02/21/2019

Metaethics from a First Person Standpoint: An Introduction to Moral Philosophy

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Metaethics from a First Person Standpoint: An Introduction to Moral Philosophy

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Metaethics from a First Person Standpoint addresses in a novel format the major topics and themes of contemporary metaethics, the study of the analysis of moral thought and judgement. Metathetics is less concerned with what practices are right or wrong than with what we mean by ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’
Looking at a wide spectrum of topics including moral language, realism and anti-realism, reasons and motives, relativism, and moral progress, this book engages students and general readers in order to enhance their understanding of morality and moral discourse as cultural practices. Catherine Wilson innovatively employs a first-person narrator to report step-by-step an individual’s reflections, beginning from a position of radical scepticism, on the possibility of objective moral knowledge. The reader is invited to follow along with this reasoning, and to challenge or agree with each major point. Incrementally, the narrator is led to certain definite conclusions about ‘oughts’ and norms in connection with self-interest, prudence, social norms, and finally morality. Scepticism is overcome, and the narrator arrives at a good understanding of how moral knowledge and moral progress are possible, though frequently long in coming.
Accessibly written, Metaethics from a First Person Standpoint presupposes no prior training in philosophy and is a must-read for philosophers, students and general readers interested in gaining a better understanding of morality as a personal philosophical quest.

Subject:: Philosophy
Material Type:: Textbook
Provider:: Open Book Publishers
Author:: Catherine Wilson
Date Added:: 06/28/2019

Open Logic Text

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Open Logic Text

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The Open Logic Text is an open textbook on mathematical logic aimed at a non-mathematical audience, intended for advanced logic courses as taught in many philosophy departments. It is open-source: you can download the LaTeX code. It is open: you’re free to change it whichever way you like, and share your changes. It is collaborative: a team of people is working on it, using the GitHub platform, and we welcome contributions and feedback. And it is written with configurability in mind.

Subject:: Computer Science; Philosophy; Mathematics
Material Type:: Textbook
Author:: Aldo Antonelli; Andrew Arana; Audrey Yap; Gillian Russell; Jeremy Avigad; Nicole Wyatt; Richard Zach; Walter Dean
Date Added:: 05/14/2015

The Originals: Classic Readings in Western Philosophy

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The Originals: Classic Readings in Western Philosophy

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It is important for students not only to get an appreciation and understanding of philosophy but also to be exposed to the very words and ideas of those who have shaped our thinking over the centuries. Accordingly, the title of this collection hints at the facts that these readings are from the original sources and that these philosophers were the originators of many of the issues we still discuss today. Major areas of philosophy covered here are: Ethics, Epistemology, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Religion, Ethics, Socio-Political Philosophy, and finally, Aesthetics.

Subject:: Philosophy
Material Type:: Textbook
Provider:: BCcampus
Provider Set:: BCcampus Open Textbooks
Author:: Jeff McLaughlin
Date Added:: 08/10/2018

Sets, Logic, Computation

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Sets, Logic, Computation

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Textbook for Calgary's Logic II course based on the Open Logic Project. Covers naive set theory, first-order logic, sequent calculus and natural deduction, the completeness, compactness, and Löwenheim-Skolem theorems, Turing machines, and the undecidability of the halting problem and of first-order logic.

Subject:: Philosophy
Material Type:: Textbook
Provider:: Open Logic Project
Author:: Richard Zach
Date Added:: 01/01/2017

Tacitus, Annals, 15.20-23, 33-45. Latin Text, Study Aids with Vocabulary, and Commentary

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Tacitus, Annals, 15.20-23, 33-45. Latin Text, Study Aids with Vocabulary, and Commentary

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The emperor Nero is etched into the Western imagination as one of ancient Rome’s most infamous villains, and Tacitus’ Annals have played a central role in shaping the mainstream historiographical understanding of this flamboyant autocrat.
This section of the text plunges us straight into the moral cesspool that Rome had apparently become in the later years of Nero’s reign, chronicling the emperor’s fledgling stage career including his plans for a grand tour of Greece; his participation in a city-wide orgy climaxing in his publicly consummated ‘marriage’ to his toy boy Pythagoras; the great fire of AD 64, during which large parts of central Rome went up in flames; and the rising of Nero’s ‘grotesque’ new palace, the so-called ‘Golden House’, from the ashes of the city. This building project stoked the rumours that the emperor himself was behind the conflagration, and Tacitus goes on to present us with Nero’s gruesome efforts to quell these mutterings by scapegoating and executing members of an unpopular new cult then starting to spread through the Roman empire: Christianity.
All this contrasts starkly with four chapters focusing on one of Nero’s most principled opponents, the Stoic senator Thrasea Paetus, an audacious figure of moral fibre, who courageously refuses to bend to the forces of imperial corruption and hypocrisy.
This course book offers a portion of the original Latin text, study aids with vocabulary, and a commentary. Designed to stretch and stimulate readers, Owen’s and Gildenhard’s incisive commentary will be of particular interest to students of Latin at both A2 and undergraduate level. It extends beyond detailed linguistic analysis and historical background to encourage critical engagement with Tacitus’ prose and discussion of the most recent scholarly thought.

Subject:: Philosophy
Material Type:: Textbook
Provider:: Open Book Publishers
Author:: Ingo Gildenhard; Matthew Owen
Date Added:: 09/01/2013

Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice: The Capability Approach Re-Examined

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Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice: The Capability Approach Re-Examined

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How do we evaluate ambiguous concepts such as wellbeing, freedom, and social justice? How do we develop policies that offer everyone the best chance to achieve what they want from life? The capability approach, a theoretical framework pioneered by the philosopher and economist Amartya Sen in the 1980s, has become an increasingly influential way to think about these issues.

Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice: The Capability Approach Re-Examined is both an introduction to the capability approach and a thorough evaluation of the challenges and disputes that have engrossed the scholars who have developed it. Ingrid Robeyns offers her own illuminating and rigorously interdisciplinary interpretation, arguing that by appreciating the distinction between the general capability approach and more specific capability theories or applications we can create a powerful and flexible tool for use in a variety of academic disciplines and fields of policymaking.

This book provides an original and comprehensive account that will appeal to scholars of the capability approach, new readers looking for an interdisciplinary introduction, and those interested in theories of justice, human rights, basic needs, and the human development approach.

Subject:: Philosophy
Material Type:: Textbook
Provider:: Open Book Publishers
Author:: Ingrid Robeyns
Date Added:: 12/01/2017

Words of Wisdom: Intro to Philosophy

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Words of Wisdom: Intro to Philosophy

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Words of Wisdom can come from anyone. In this text we discuss topics ranging from "Are Humans good by nature?" to "Is there a God?" to "Do I have the right to my own opinion?" Philosophy is the study of wisdom, and can emerge in our conversations in places like social media, in school, around the family dinner table, and even in the car. The text uses materials that are 2,500 years old, and materials that were in the news this year. Wise people come in all shapes and types, and from every culture on earth. We have poetry and folktales, sacred writings and letters. Dialogues and interviews, news columns, podcasts, Ted Talks, You Tube recordings and even comedy are all a part of the content in this text.You will be most successful using this collection this on line.

Subject:: Philosophy
Material Type:: Textbook
Author:: Jody Ondich
Date Added:: 01/01/2018

forall x: Calgary Remix

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forall x: Calgary Remix

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forall x is a full-featured textbook on formal logic. It covers key notions of logic such as consequence and validity of arguments, the syntax of truth-functional propositional logic TFL and truth-table semantics, the syntax of first-order (predicate) logic FOL with identity (first-order interpretations), translating (formalizing) English in TFL and FOL, and Fitch-style natural deduction proof systems for both TFL and FOL. It also deals with some advanced topics such as truth-functional completeness. Exercises with solutions are available. It is provided in PDF (for screen reading, printing, and a special version for dyslexics) and in LaTeX source code. A proof editor/checker for the proof system used is available at http://proofs.openlogicproject.org/.

Subject:: Philosophy
Material Type:: Textbook
Author:: Aaron Thomas-Bolduc; P.D. Magnus; Richard Zach; Tim Button
Date Added:: 04/12/2019