Great Debates in Philosophy

This book aims to increase readers’ abilities to think creatively and critically by exposing them to influential concepts, theories, arguments, criticisms, and replies in philosophy.

Preface

CHAPTER 01 Basic Terms and Logic
1. Philosophy
2. Belief
3. Truth
4. Argument
5. Deduction vs. Induction
6. Fallacies

CHAPTER 02 Philosophy of Religion
1. The Argument from the First Cause
2. The Argument from Design
3. The Argument from Miracles
4. The Argument from Religious Experiences
5. The Problem of Evil
6. Reason vs. Faith
7. Pascal’s Wager

CHAPTER 03 Ethics
1. The Divine Command Theory
2. Cultural Relativism
3. Utilitarianism
4. Kant
5. The Veil of Ignorance
6. Virtue Ethics
7. Applications
8. Why Should We Be Moral?

CHAPTER 04 Philosophy of Mind
1. “I think, therefore I am.”
2. Descartes’s Three Distinctions
3. Interactionism
4. Substance Dualism
5. Epiphenomenalism
6. Reduction
7. Berkeley’s Idealism
8. Hume’s Bundle Theory of Mind
9. The Identity Theory
10. Functionalism

CHAPTER 05 Epistemology
1. Plato’s Analysis of Knowledge
2. Analytic vs. Synthetic
3. A Priori vs. A Posteriori
4. Empiricism vs. Rationalism
5. Plato’s Theory of Forms
6. Theories of Justification
7. Social Epistemology

CHAPTER 06 Evolutions
1. Evolutionary Theory
2. The Evolutions of Mind and Morality
3. The Modularity of Mind
4. Evolutionary Arms Race
5. Selfish Gene

CHAPTER 07 Personal Identity
1. The Psychological Approach
2. The Biological Approach
3. The Sociological Approach
4. The Hybrid Approach
5. Identity Nihilism

References
Index