UNDERSTANDING PHILOSOPHY: The Smart Student's Guide to Reading and Writing Philosophy (Philosophy Study Guides)

Understanding Philosophy, Third Edition is a companion to the series of eight books in the Philosophy Study Guides series. It provides students with the grounding they need to read and better understand the philosophical classics discussed in the series.

In Part I, the tools of philosophy are described: distinguishing between deductive and inductive arguments, recognizing valid argument forms, how logic and reasoning were used by the great philosophers, formal and informal fallacies, and other important distinctions between successes and pitfalls in reasoning.

Part II is about the important, often-ignored distinction between problems of philosophy and problems of science, and the different methods used by each.

• Part III provides students with a set of topics suitable for philosophy term papers, a seven-step approach to organizing and writing a paper, and solving a philosophical problem. Chapter 9 is a sample term paper on a problem that has recently gotten out of hand – and I mean this literally - by transforming a philosophical problem into a scientific problem. The problem is the age-old question about life after death, and the way it gets transformed is an excellent example of the wide difference between philosophical and scientific problems and methods.

Part IV shows how philosophical problems have been clarified and (sometimes) solved by the great philosophers using ‘reasoning’ (logic) in the analysis of key concepts. Examples of reasoning are taken from the works of Plato, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Rene Descartes, Immanuel Kant, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and John Stuart Mill.

Part V is new. It focuses on four contemporary social issues: artificial intelligence, self-defense laws, offensive speech and behavior, and the current status of American democracy. Although these issues are rarely discussed in classical works, I show that the methods of the great philosophers are nearly identical to those used by contemporary philosophers.

A word about ‘method’. I am using this term as “a way, technique, or process of or for doing something.” (MW). Applied to a philosophical problem, what I want to show beginning philosophy students are the techniques for clarifying and (hopefully) solving it.

I do not want to confuse the ways of doing philosophy with the philosophical debate about ways of knowing. There is an age-old debate about the latter topic between the schools of rationalism and empiricism. Without boring everyone with the details of this debate, I mention it here only because the debate presupposes the use of philosophical method, as described in Part I. Whether you are arguing for one school or the other, you must rely on logic and reasoning.

Second, logic and reasoning are built into the definition of ‘philosophy’. Although this word also has several uses, Western philosophers would agree that philosophy is “critical reflection on the justification of basic human beliefs and analysis of basic concepts in terms of which such beliefs are expressed” (Edwards and Pap, A Modern Introduction to Philosophy, xiv). This definition dates back at least to the opening chapters of Plato’s Republic, in which Socrates challenges his audience to define justice. This challenge marks the distinction between philosophy and modern science.

And so, the philosopher’s parade that began 2,400 years ago continues to the present day. All you will need to join the parade is a desire to learn how to identify and analyze the basic concepts by which our fundamental human beliefs have traditionally been expressed. And since this is a parade of thought, not legs, you won’t risk blistering your feet.