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Preface | |
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Introduction: Doing Philosophy | |
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Beyond Buzzwords | |
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Articulation and Argument: Two Crucial Features of Philosophy | |
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Concepts and Conceptual Frameworks | |
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Doing Philosophy with Style | |
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A Little Logic | |
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Deduction | |
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Induction | |
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Criticizing Arguments | |
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Closing Questions | |
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Suggested Readings | |
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Philosophical Questions | |
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What is Philosophy? | |
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Opening Questions | |
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Suggested Readings | |
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The Meaning of Life | |
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Opening Questions | |
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What Kind of Meaning? | |
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Children as Meaning | |
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God as Meaning | |
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Afterlife as Meaning | |
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No Meaning at All | |
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The Meanings of Life | |
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Life as a Game | |
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Life as a Story | |
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Life as Tragedy | |
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Life as Comedy | |
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Life as a Mission | |
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Life as Art | |
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Life as an Adventure | |
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Life as Disease | |
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Life as Desire | |
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Life as Nirvana | |
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Life as Altruism | |
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Life as Honor | |
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Life as Learning | |
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Life as Suffering | |
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Life as an Investment | |
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Life as Relationships | |
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Closing Questions | |
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Suggested Readings | |
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God | |
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Opening Questions | |
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Believing in God | |
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Gods and Goddesses | |
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The Traditional Western Conceptions of God | |
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God as Transcendent | |
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God as Immanent | |
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God as Totally Immanent Pantheism | |
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God as Universal Spirit | |
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God as Process | |
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God as Transcendent Creator: Deism | |
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God as the Unknown Object of Faith | |
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God as a Moral Being | |
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The Problem of Evil | |
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Denial of God | |
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Two Kinds of Evil | |
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Denial of Evil | |
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The Least of the Evils | |
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The Aesthetic Solution | |
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The Free-Will Solution | |
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Justice in the Afterlife | |
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God's "Mysterious Ways" | |
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Working Out an Answer | |
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Faith and Reason: Grounds for Believing | |
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The Cosmological Argument | |
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The Argument from Design | |
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The Ontological Argument | |
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Rational Faith | |
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Pascal's Wager | |
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Irrational Faith | |
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Religious Tolerance: Ritual, Tradition, and Spirituality | |
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Doubts | |
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Closing Questions | |
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Suggested Readings | |
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The Nature of Reality | |
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Opening Questions | |
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The Real World | |
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What Is Most Real? | |
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The Reality Behind the Appearances | |
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The Basis of Metaphysics | |
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The First Metaphysicians | |
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Thales | |
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The Pre-Socratic Materialists | |
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Early Nonphysical Views of Reality | |
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Plato's Forms | |
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Aristotle's Metaphysics | |
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Mind and Metaphysics | |
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Ren� Descartes | |
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Baruch Spinoza | |
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Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz | |
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Idealism | |
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Teleology | |
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Metaphysics and the Everyday World | |
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Closing Questions | |
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Suggested Readings | |
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The Search for Truth | |
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Opening Questions | |
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What Is True? | |
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Two Kinds of Truth | |
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Empirical Truth | |
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Necessary Truth | |
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Rationalism and Empiricism | |
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The Presuppositions of Knowledge | |
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Skepticism | |
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Ren� Descartes and the Method of Doubt | |
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David Hume's Skepticism | |
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The Resolution of Skepticism: Immanuel Kant | |
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Knowledge, Truth, and Science | |
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The Nature of Truth | |
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The Coherence Theory of Truth | |
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The Pragmatic Theory of Truth | |
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Rationality | |
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Why Be Rational? | |
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Subjective Truth and the Problem of Relativism | |
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Closing Questions | |
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Suggested Readings | |
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Self | |
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Opening Questions | |
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The Essential Self | |
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Self as Body, Self as Consciousness | |
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The Self and Its Emotions | |
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The Egocentric Predicament | |
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The Mind-Body Problem | |
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Behaviorism | |
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Identity Theory and Eliminative Materialism | |
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Functionalism | |
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Against the Mind-Body Problem | |
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Other Theories of the Self | |
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The Self as a Choice | |
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No Self, Many Selves | |
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The Self as Social | |
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The Self and Relationships | |
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Closing Questions | |
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Suggested Readings | |
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Freedom | |
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Opening Questions | |
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Freedom and the Good Life | |
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Why Is Freedom So Important to Us? | |
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What Is Political Freedom? | |
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Concepts of Self and Our Notions of Freedom | |
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Free Will and Determinism | |
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Determinism Versus Indeterminism | |
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The Role of Consciousness | |
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Compatibilism, or Soft Determinism | |
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In Defense of Freedom | |
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Closing Questions | |
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Suggested Readings | |
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Morality and the Good Life | |
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Opening Questions | |
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Moral Philosophy | |
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The Good Life | |
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Hedonism | |
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Success | |
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Asceticism | |
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Freedom | |
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Power and Creativity | |
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Religion | |
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Happiness | |
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Egoism Versus Altruism | |
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Morality and Theories of Morality | |
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Duty-Defined Morality | |
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Immanuel Kant and the Authority of Reason | |
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Consequentialist Theories | |
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Utilitarianism: Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill | |
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Aristotle and the Ethics of Virtue | |
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Feminist Ethics: The Ethics of Care | |
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Morality-Relative or Absolute? | |
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Friedrich Nietzsche and the Attack on Morality | |
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Closing Questions | |
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Suggested Readings | |
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Justice and the Good Society | |
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Opening Questions | |
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Morals and Society | |
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The Nature of Society | |
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Who Should Rule? The Question of Legitimacy | |
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Anarchism, the Free Market, and the Need for Government | |
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What Is Justice? | |
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The Meaning of Equality | |
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The Origins of Justice and the Social Contract | |
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Justice beyond Our Borders | |
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Rights and the Self | |
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Libertarianism | |
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Liberalism | |
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Communitarianism | |
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Justice Denied: The Problem of Race | |
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Sexual Politics: The Rise of Feminist Philosophy | |
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Women and the Body | |
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Plato: Patriarch or Early Feminist? | |
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Feminist Epistemology and Feminist Science | |
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Feminist Philosophy of Language | |
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Closing Questions | |
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Suggested Readings | |
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Non-Western Philosophy | |
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Opening Questions | |
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Beyond the Western Tradition | |
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The Challenges of Broadening Our Horizons | |
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Other Cultures, Other Philosophies | |
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Native American Philosophy | |
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African Philosophy | |
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Latin American Philosophy | |
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Middle Eastern Philosophy | |
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South Asian Philosophy | |
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East Asian Philosophy | |
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Closing Questions | |
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Suggested Readings | |
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Beauty | |
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Opening Questions | |
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Aesthetics | |
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Beauty and Truth | |
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Enjoying Tragedy | |
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Arguing About Taste | |
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Art, Ethics, and Religion | |
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Why Is It Art? | |
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The Aesthetics of Popular Culture | |
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Closing Questions | |
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Suggested Readings | |
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Writing Philosophy | |
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Preliminaries | |
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The Rules of Good Writing in Philosophy | |
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Organize | |
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Write Simply | |
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Be Clear | |
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Be Human | |
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Use Examples | |
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Argue Your Point | |
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Consider the Objections and Alternatives | |
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Define Your Specialized Terms | |
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Use the History of Philosophy | |
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Indirect Styles | |
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Dialogue Style | |
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Ironic Style | |
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Aphoristic Style | |
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Suggested Readings | |
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Deductive Logic Valid Argument Forms | |
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Common Informal Fallacies | |
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Informal Fallacies | |
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Mere Assertion | |
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Begging the Question | |
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Vicious Circle | |
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Irrelevancies | |
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Ad Hominem Arguments | |
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Unclear or Shifting Conclusions | |
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Changing Meanings | |
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Distraction | |
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Pseudoquestions | |
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Dubious Authority | |
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Slippery Slope | |
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Attacking a Straw Man | |
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Pity (and Other Emotional Appeals) | |
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Appeal to Force | |