Introduction to the problems, history and nature of philosophy with reading and discussion of selected writings from the Pre-Socrates to the present, focusing on traditional Western philosophical issues.

This text is intended as an introduction to questions of moral philosophy. While the text itself is a survey, covering many of the topics in a standard philosophy course, the aim here is twofold–first to teach students about the power of stories as a vehicle for understanding moral questions, and second to give students a set of interpretive tools that will allow them to make good ethical decisions in a world that is becoming more ethically complex. At the risk of claiming too much for a course in moral philosophy, the most important skill students need when entering the working world is not so much a knowledge of marketing or accounting, finance, programming, or venture capital, as an understanding of the diverse audiences they will be working with as both colleagues and customers. In essence, the most valuable skills employers need today are human skills. In a world where we are are all attached to our social media accounts and we live and die by how many pings we receive on our phone, this text attempts to do something more old-fashioned–to tell stories about people–about their feelings, thoughts, desires. This text hopes to show both that each individual is unique and that we are all for better and for worse separate beings, but at the same time that we share with other creatures on this planet a sense of living, a wish for respect and dignity, and a connection to all that is. In teaching to face head-on the contradiction between being different and yet like everyone else I hope that the text will give students the tools to negotiate this difference.

Here is a simple listing of what is to be considered in this text and course:

1. What is Philosophy of Religion?

2. What is Religion? What are the characteristics of Religion ?

3. What are the religions of the world?

4. What is God? What are the Attributes of deity (god) ?

5. Arguments for God's Existence: Are there any rational reasons to believe?

6. The Problem of Evil - Rational arguments for disbelief: how can God exist and ther be evil in the world?

7. Souls and the afterlife: What proof is there that souls survive death?

8. Faith vs. Reason - Are there other ways to find a basis for belief?

9. Religious Language: Do religious beliefs need to be based on truth? Should religious claims be subjected to scientific verification?

10. Morality and Religion: Is there any other basis possible for a moral foundation to support a social order?

11. What is the essence of Religion?

The objective of this work is to arrive at a critical, informed and accurate understanding of what religion is, what it is about and what value it may have in the contemporary world. It is designed to foster critical thinking concerning topics related to religion. It is designed to be challenging and hopefully of those who respond to the challenge it will prove to be rewarding of the effort.

I have organized this textbook around the way I teach my introductory course in the philosophy of religion. Since I got to design this textbook and it’s for use in my own courses, it directly follows the order in which I teach the topics and each chapter makes up the reading assignment for about 1.5 hours of class time. In other words, I meet with students for thirty 1.5-hour sessions in a semester (hence there are 30 chapters in this work), and for the first meeting, we read and discuss chapter 1, for our second we cover chapter 2, then chapter 3, and so on. It leaves the guess work out of what we cover and when we cover it and keeps things very organized and streamlined. I tell you this now to give you some insight into the way I approach my classroom and time with my students. Since this is intended for an intro-level course, keeping things on track, moving, and organized in this way has proved to be very beneficial for my students.

Part I of the text is a survey of ethical systems, methods of determining the right thing to do and how to reforge ourselves and communities, so that we might be humble, wise, and just. Part II of the text looks at short selections of speeches and readings from a variety of philosophers arguing for particular ethical principles, discussing what makes for a good life, the degree to which we can offload our moral thinking onto the divine, analysis of systems of power, and how to conceptualize and respond to uneven moral and political structures in society. The last part of the text is a series of applied ethical issues, such as reproductive rights, environmental ethics, animal rights, and so on.

Part I of the text is a survey of ethical systems, methods of determining the right thing to do and how to reforge ourselves and communities, so that we might be humble, wise, and just. Part II of the text looks at short selections of speeches and readings from a variety of philosophers arguing for particular ethical principles, discussing what makes for a good life, the degree to which we can offload our moral thinking onto the divine, analysis of systems of power, and how to conceptualize and respond to uneven moral and political structures in society. The last part of the text is a series of applied ethical issues, such as reproductive rights, environmental ethics, animal rights, and so on.

This book is a lucid and accessible companion to Plato’s Republic, throwing light upon the text’s arguments and main themes, placing them in the wider context of the text’s structure. In its illumination of the philosophical ideas underpinning the work, it provides readers with an understanding and appreciation of the complexity and literary artistry of Plato’s Republic. McAleer not only unpacks the key overarching questions of the text – What is justice? And Is a just life happier than an unjust life? – but also highlights some fascinating, overlooked passages which contribute to our understanding of Plato’s philosophical thought.

Plato’s 'Republic': An Introduction offers a rigorous and thought-provoking analysis of the text, helping readers navigate one of the world’s most influential works of philosophy and political theory. With its approachable tone and clear presentation, it constitutes a welcome contribution to the field, and will be an indispensable resource for philosophy students and teachers, as well as general readers new to, or returning to, the text.

Political Philosophy is a collection of public domain works compiled by the UCF Wiki Knights student organization to provide a free / open resource for instructors to use in their courses and for others interested in the subject matter.

In terms of a political entity, a state is any politically organized community living under a single system
of government. States may or may not be sovereign. For instance, federated states are members of a
federal union, and may have only partial sovereignty, but are, nonetheless, states. Some states are
subject to external sovereignty or hegemony, in which ultimate sovereignty lies in another state. States
that are sovereign are known as sovereign states.

Uncover the community story of Northwest Reading, PA as told from interviews with community leaders and everyday residents.

AlphaPlus supports literacy workers to use blended learning approaches through our technology coaching services, face-to-face and online training, and tech support. This position paper describes our understanding of blended learning, its benefits and how adult basic education programs can be (re)conceptualized using a blended learning approach to best support learners.

The Primacy of the Public presents a framework for engineering and technology ethics focused around three core ethical principles: the principle of welfare, the autonomy principle, and the fairness principle. To support this framework, the book begins with an examination of multiple perspectives we may take on engineering and technology, all of which support the centrality of ethical analysis and evaluation. These include the nature of engineering as a profession, the social context of engineering and technology, and the view that many technologies constitute social experiments.

The Prince -- Description of the methods adopted by the Duke Valentino when murdering Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, the Signor Pagolo, and the Duke di Gravina Orsini -- The life of Castruccio Castracani of Lucca.

We are pleased to publish this WSIA edition of Trudy’s Govier’s seminal volume, Problems in Argument Analysis and Evaluation. Originally published in 1987 by Foris Publications, this was a pioneering work that played a major role in establishing argumentation theory as a discipline. Today, it is as relevant to the field as when it first appeared.

A Guide for Teachers and Instructors is part of an open professional learning series developed for staff across post-secondary institutions in British Columbia. These guides are intended to support the systemic change occurring across post-secondary institutions through Indigenization, decolonization, and reconciliation.

This book argues that the best way to understand the stories of the Old and New Testaments is to consider them as human stories with sophisticated narrative techniques at play. God is a character in these stories from the beginning, and considering god as a character in a narrative proves fruitful in responding to the human voices of these stories.

Reader, thou hast here the beginning and end of a discourse concerning government; what fate has otherwise disposed of the papers that should have filled up the middle, and were more than all the rest, it is not worth while to tell thee.

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.

It is Euro-centric to refer to all the Philosophies of Asia as “Eastern” as it unfairly groups the quite various Philosophies that developed in West Asia (Zoroastrianism), South Asia (Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Sikhism), and East Asia (Ch’an Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Shintoism) into a single unit that implies they are quite similar. Other than their relative geographic proximity, the various philosophies are, in many ways, more different than those philosophies that have been developed in Europe and the other parts of the world. This first Unit explores some of the older philosophical
viewpoints that underlie much of the philosophy that has been developed in East Asia, particularly China and Japan. These are Taoism, Confucianism, and the philosophical underpinnings of the Shinto religions.

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.