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 | | What If....Collected Thought Experiments in Philosophy by Peg Tittle ISBN-10: 9780321202789 ISBN-10: 0-321-20278-3 ISBN-13: 9780321202789 ISBN-13: 978-0-321-20278-9 Paperback 2004-05-15 Longman Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description What If . . . Collected Philosophical Thought Experiments is a brief, inexpensive collection of over 100 classic and contemporary “thought experiments” , each with an accompanying commentary and thought provoking questions, which explore philosophical arguments and often address a genuine problem in life. The value of the book is in its simplicity in both format and tone: each thought experiment is accompanied by commentary that explains the importance of the experiment, and questions to provoke thought and discussion, all encapsulated within two pages. The book is direct, clear and conversational but does not dilute difficult ideas. Anyone interested in the major issues philosophers discuss, and how they use thought experiments to explore their arguments. | ||
Reviews | ||
Perfect for Intro to Philosophy I've used many anthologies for my philosophy courses, but none ever seemed to have all the thought experiments I wanted. In addition, like many other philosophy professors, I'd repeated some of the same imaginative scenarios so many times that I couldn't remember their origin or even if I'd invented them. Tittle's book addressed both those problems for me. She did all the hard work when she tracked down these passages. That alone would have been enough for me to adopt the text for my classes, but she didn't stop there. She added short commentaries for each scenario; better, her commentaries are not explications but distillations that underscore for the reader exactly why these mental morsels are so philosophically intriguing and thereby so durable. The whole range of philosophy is covered--logic, epistemology, philosophy of mind, ethics, political philosophy--all the stuff that a good course should cover. If you know little about philosophy but want an accessible introduction, or if you are a philosophy professor and want a guaranteed stimulant for class discussion, this is the book for you. | ||
A very nice resource. The somewhat deceptive title aside (the thought experiments are much more substantive than silly "what if..." scenarios), this collection of (mostly) bite-sized bits of philosophy, nicely organized into categories like metaphysics, knowledge, or ethics, has its place on my shelf. It's not only a good reference for finding famous thought experiments or puzzlements, it's also a nice way to get a taste of a variety of periods and ideas. | ||