Introduction to Philosophy: Epistemology

Introduction to Philosophy: Epistemology engages first-time philosophy readers on a guided tour through the core concepts, questions, methods, arguments, and theories of epistemology—the branch of philosophy devoted to the study of knowledge. After a brief overview of the field, the book progresses systematically while placing central ideas and thinkers in historical and contemporary context. The chapters cover the analysis of knowledge, the nature of epistemic justification, rationalism vs. empiricism, skepticism, the value of knowledge, the ethics of belief, Bayesian epistemology, social epistemology, and feminist epistemologies. Along the way, instructors and students will encounter a wealth of additional resources and tools: Chapter learning outcomes Key terms Images of philosophers and related art Useful diagrams and tables Boxes containing excerpts and other supplementary material Questions for reflection Suggestions for further reading A glossary For an undergraduate survey epistemology course, Introduction to Philosophy: Epistemology is ideal when used as a main text paired with primary sources and scholarly articles. For an introductory philosophy course, select book chapters are best used in combination with chapters from other books in the Introduction to Philosophy series.

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: Brian C. Barnett, Daniel Massey, Guy Axtell, Jonathan Lopez, K. S. Sangeetha, Monica C. Poole, Todd R. Long, William D. Rowley

Introduction to Philosophy: Logic

Introduction to Philosophy: Logic provides students with the concepts and skills necessary to identify and evaluate arguments effectively. The chapters, all written by experts in the field, provide an overview of what arguments are, the different types of arguments one can expect to encounter in both philosophy and everyday life, and how to recognise common argumentative mistakes. Table of Contents 1. What is Logic? 2. Evaluating Arguments 3. Formal Logic in Philosophy 4. Informal Fallacies 5. Necessary and Sufficient Conditions Access also available here: https://press.rebus.community/intro-to-phil-logic/

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: Bahram Assadian, Benjamin Martin, Cassiano Terra Rodrigues, Christina Hendricks, Matthew Knachel, Michael Shaffer, Nathan Smith

Introduction to Philosophy: Philosophy of Mind

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.

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: Christina Hendricks, Daniel Haas, Elly Vintiadis, Eran Asoulin, Heather Salazar, Henry Shevlin, Jason Newman, Paul Richard Blum, Tony Cheng

Introduction to Philosphy (PHIL 101)

This is an introductory course to Philosophy, which is the study of general and fundamental problems such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Students will be introduced to the primary branches of Philosophy - ethics, logic, metaphysics, and epistemology. The course considers philosophers and works of Western Philosophy, including Plato, Hebrew scripture, Schopenhauer, Swedenborg, Buber, Kant, Hume, Locke and Berkeley.

Material Type: Full Course, Homework/Assignment, Lecture Notes, Lesson Plan, Reading, Syllabus

Logical Fallacies

This website allows students to explore many common logical fallacies. There are some accompanying handouts to help students take notes and organize their ideas.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Logic and Critical Thinking

This course provides an introduction to critical thinking, informal logic, and a small amount of formal logic; its purpose is to provide students with the basic tools of analytical reasoning. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to: Understand what critical thinking is and why it is valuable; Distinguish between good and bad definitions, Recognize the differences between explicit and implicit meaning, and remove ambiguities of meaning from unclearly worded statements; Recognize arguments in writing, pick out good and bad arguments by their form, and construct sound arguments of their own; Diagnose the most common reasoning errors and fallacies, as well as identify ways of improving them; Understand the basics of sentential and predicate logic and gain practice manipulating meaning symbolically; Understand the rudiments of scientific methodology and reasoning; Evaluate arguments that rely on specific types of visual representation; Understand the basics of strategic reasoning and problem solving; Understand the particular challenges involved in reasoning about values and morality; Diagnose fallacies and evaluate arguments about values and morality. (Philosophy 102)

Material Type: Assessment, Full Course, Homework/Assignment, Lecture, Reading, Syllabus

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

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.

Material Type: Textbook

Author: Catherine Wilson

Modern Philosophy

This is a textbook (or better, a workbook) in modern philosophy. It combines readings from primary sources with two pedagogical tools. Paragraphs in italics introduce figures and texts. Numbered study questions (also in italics) ask students to reconstruct an argument or position from the text, or draw connections among the readings. And I have added an introductory chapter (Chapter 0 – Minilogic and Glossary), designed to present the basic tools of philosophy and sketch some principles and positions. The immediate goal is to encourage students to grapple with the ideas rather than passing their eyes over the texts. This makes for a better classroom experience and permits higher-level discussions. Another goal is to encourage collaboration among instructors, as they revise and post their own versions of the book.

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: Alexander, Dunn, Ott, Walter

Modern Philosophy

This is a textbook (or better, a workbook) in modern philosophy. It combines readings from primary sources with two pedagogical tools. Paragraphs in italics introduce figures and texts. Numbered study questions (also in italics) ask students to reconstruct an argument or position from the text, or draw connections among the readings. And I have added an introductory chapter (Chapter 0 – Minilogic and Glossary), designed to present the basic tools of philosophy and sketch some principles and positions. The immediate goal is to encourage students to grapple with the ideas rather than passing their eyes over the texts. This makes for a better classroom experience and permits higher-level discussions. Another goal is to encourage collaboration among instructors, as they revise and post their own versions of the book.

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: Alexander, Dunn, Ott, Walter

PHI220 Ethics

This introduction to the study of Philosophy will provide an explanation of what philosophy is and descriptions of the three big topics areas covered in the study of philosophy.

Material Type: Full Course

Philosophical Ethics

This book is an introduction to philosophical ethics intended for use in introductory college or high school level courses. It has grown out of lecture notes I shared with the first students who took my online Ethics course at the Pennsylvania College of Technology almost 20 years ago. Since then it has seen more development in a variety of forms – starting out as a pdf document, and then evolving into a static set of WordPress pages and finally now as a book written in bookdown and hosted at GitHub. This text represents my attempt to scratch a couple of itches. The first is my wanting a presentation of the major philosophical approaches to ethics that I can actually agree with and that is integrated into my overall teaching method. I tend to teach philosophy to beginners and so there is a fair amount of discussion of the tools used by philosophers and of the ways in which their approach differs from that of their colleagues in other disciplines.

Material Type: Textbook

Author: George W. Matthews

Philosophical Ethics

This book is an introduction to philosophical ethics intended for use in introductory college or high school level courses. It has grown out of lecture notes I shared with the first students who took my online Ethics course at the Pennsylvania College of Technology almost 20 years ago. Since then it has seen more development in a variety of forms – starting out as a pdf document, and then evolving into a static set of WordPress pages and finally now as a book written in bookdown and hosted at GitHub. This text represents my attempt to scratch a couple of itches. The first is my wanting a presentation of the major philosophical approaches to ethics that I can actually agree with and that is integrated into my overall teaching method. I tend to teach philosophy to beginners and so there is a fair amount of discussion of the tools used by philosophers and of the ways in which their approach differs from that of their colleagues in other disciplines. There are of course many good quality ethics textbooks out there, and yet none has exactly matched my way of wanting to present the material. Teaching ethics over the years has been a process of active exploration and constant revision of my approach as I have come to a more nuanced and richer appreciation of what ethical thinking and theorizing is all about, as well as some ideas about how I think the main strands of argument relate to each other. Yes this is a partisan effort, but it’s all subject to revision and refinement based on, I hope at least, the better argument. That’s what I am trying to get across here. The second itch I am trying to scratch has to do with initiatives in open education, and I’d like this text to contribute in its own small way to the much larger and more influential open source movement and philosophy of which I consider it a part. Knowledge is only ours to share. Yes of course writers, developers and publishers do hard work that deserves compensation. But intellectual property, it seems to me, is a false idol that deserves to be smashed. So here is my effort to chip away at it – knowledge should free us and and not sink us into both literal and figurative debt. Table of Contents: I Some Preliminaries 1 The Examined Life 2 A Little Bit of Logic 3 Fallacies and Biases II Ethics Culture and Religion 4 Relativism 5 Religion and Ethics III Reconstructing Norms 6 Egoism 7 Social Contract Theory 8 Utilitarianism 9 Kant and the ethics of duty IV Applied Ethics 10 Theory in Practice 11 Euthanasia 12 Liberty and its Limits 13 Crime and Punishment 14 Animals and Ethics 15 Ethics and the Environment

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: George W. Matthews, Plymouth State University

Philosophical Thought: Across Cultures and Through the Ages

Philosophical Thought: across cultures and through the ages, is an open-educational resource (OER) to be used as a collection of readings for introductory philosophy courses. The objectives for developing and sharing this open resource are three-fold: 1. to provide a collection of philosophical works that can be used as a foundation for faculty and students to use in undergraduate philosophy courses 2. to provide a resource that is free to students 3. to provide a resource that compiles philosophical thought from a variety of cultures and eras The works included in this book come from a wide range of sources. However, this book is indebted to Henry Imler’s editorial work on Sapienta and Phronesis, both of which are OER texts available on Pressbooks.

Material Type: Textbook

Author: Dr. Heather Wilburn

Philosophy 101 Readings

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.

Material Type: Textbook

Author: Cathy Hagman

A Philosophy Reader

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.

Material Type: Reading

Author: Charles Carroll

Plato's 'Republic': An Introduction

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.

Material Type: Textbook

Author: Sean McAleer

Political Philosophy

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.

Material Type: Textbook

Author: WIKI KNIGHTS

The Prince

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.

Material Type: Reading

Author: Niccolò Machiavelli

A Guide for Librarians, Faculty, and Students

A libguide providing an overview of the aspects of OER, created by librarians at the University of Toronto Scarborough. This guide is meant to inform the user about Digital Pedagogy. It includes information on educational theory, a collection of case studies, and resources relevant to the study of digital pedagogy.

Material Type: Module

Authors: Paulina Rousseau, University of Toronoto

The Information Literacy User’s Guide: An Open, Online Textbook

Good researchers have a host of tools at their disposal that make navigating today’s complex information ecosystem much more manageable. Gaining the knowledge, abilities, and self-reflection necessary to be a good researcher helps not only in academic settings, but is invaluable in any career, and throughout one’s life. The Information Literacy User’s Guide will start you on this route to success.The Information Literacy User’s Guide is based on two current models in information literacy: The 2011 version of The Seven Pillars Model, developed by the Society of College, National and University Libraries in the United Kingdom and the conception of information literacy as a metaliteracy, a model developed by one of this book’s authors in conjunction with Thomas Mackey, Dean of the Center for Distance Learning at SUNY Empire State College. These core foundations ensure that the material will be relevant to today’s students.The Information Literacy User’s Guide introduces students to critical concepts of information literacy as defined for the information-infused and technology-rich environment in which they find themselves. This book helps students examine their roles as information creators and sharers and enables them to more effectively deploy related skills. This textbook includes relatable case studies and scenarios, many hands-on exercises, and interactive quizzes.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Assessment, Textbook

Authors: Allison Hosier and Tor Loney, Daryl Bullis, Deborah Bernnard, Greg Bobish, Irina Holden, Jenna Hecker, Trudi Jacobson