---
title: Further Reading
section-id: conclusion
sort: 110
author: Prof. James Okafor
created: 2026-03-12 09:00
modified: 2026-04-18 10:00
language: en
description: Annotated reading list for each section of the book.
---

# Further Reading

What follows is a selective guide to further reading, organised by chapter. The aim is to provide accessible entry points into the primary literature and the best secondary sources, not to be exhaustive.

## Epistemology

### What is Knowledge?
- **Edmund Gettier**, ‘Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?’ (1963) — three pages that changed the field. Available freely online.
- **Alvin Goldman**, ‘What is Justified Belief?’ (1979) — the classic statement of reliabilism
- **Ernest Sosa**, *A Virtue Epistemology* (2007) — sophisticated virtue-theoretic approach
- **Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa and Matthias Steup**, ‘The Analysis of Knowledge,’ *Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy* — comprehensive and freely available

### Perception and Reality
- **John Locke**, *An Essay Concerning Human Understanding*, Book II (1689) — the original representative realist account
- **George Berkeley**, *Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous* (1713) — more accessible than the *Principles*
- **A.D. Smith**, *The Problem of Perception* (2002) — thorough survey of the main positions

### Reason and Rationalism
- **René Descartes**, *Meditations on First Philosophy* (1641) — the canonical starting point
- **Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz**, *New Essays on Human Understanding* (1704, pub. 1765) — rationalist response to Locke
- **Laurence BonJour**, *In Defense of Pure Reason* (1998) — contemporary defence of a priori knowledge

### Empiricism
- **David Hume**, *An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding* (1748) — accessible presentation of Hume’s empiricism
- **A.J. Ayer**, *Language, Truth and Logic* (1936) — logical positivism’s most readable statement
- **W.V.O. Quine**, ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’ (1951) — influential attack on the analytic-synthetic distinction

### Scepticism and Its Responses
- **René Descartes**, *Meditations* (1641) — source of the dream argument and evil demon
- **Ludwig Wittgenstein**, *On Certainty* (1951) — the hinge propositions account
- **Barry Stroud**, *The Significance of Philosophical Scepticism* (1984) — the most serious treatment of scepticism as a genuine challenge

### Theories of Truth
- **William James**, *Pragmatism* (1907) — accessible statement of pragmatist truth
- **Paul Horwich**, *Truth* (1990) — the minimalist theory
- **Michael Lynch**, *True to Life: Why Truth Matters* (2004) — accessible defence of truth pluralism

## Metaphysics

### Existence and Being
- **Bertrand Russell**, ‘On Denoting’ (1905) — the theory of descriptions
- **W.V.O. Quine**, *From a Logical Point of View* (1953) — ontological commitment and naturalism
- **David Armstrong**, *Universals: An Opinionated Introduction* (1989) — accessible introduction to the universals debate

### Identity and Persistence
- **Derek Parfit**, *Reasons and Persons* (1984), Part III — the most important modern treatment of personal identity
- **David Lewis**, *On the Plurality of Worlds* (1986) — four-dimensionalism and modal realism
- **Eric Olson**, *The Human Animal* (1997) — defence of animalism

### Causation
- **David Hume**, *An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding*, Section 7 (1748)
- **David Lewis**, ‘Causation’ (1973) — the classic counterfactual account
- **Judea Pearl**, *Causality* (2009) — the interventionist framework with formal rigour

### Free Will and Determinism
- **Peter van Inwagen**, *An Essay on Free Will* (1983) — the consequence argument
- **Harry Frankfurt**, ‘Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility’ (1969) — Frankfurt cases
- **P.F. Strawson**, ‘Freedom and Resentment’ (1962) — the reactive attitudes

### Philosophy of Mind
- **David Chalmers**, *The Conscious Mind* (1996) — the hard problem and property dualism
- **Daniel Dennett**, *Consciousness Explained* (1991) — the deflationary/illusionist view
- **Frank Jackson**, ‘Epiphenomenal Qualia’ (1982) — Mary’s room

### The Nature of Time
- **J.M.E. McTaggart**, ‘The Unreality of Time’ (1908) — the A-series/B-series distinction
- **D.H. Mellor**, *Real Time II* (1998) — B-theorist account
- **Craig Callender** (ed.), *The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time* (2011) — comprehensive

## Ethics

### Foundations of Ethics
- **J.L. Mackie**, *Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong* (1977) — error theory
- **Simon Blackburn**, *Ruling Passions* (1998) — quasi-realism
- **John Rawls**, *A Theory of Justice* (1971), Section 4 — reflective equilibrium as method

### Consequentialism
- **John Stuart Mill**, *Utilitarianism* (1863) — the canonical text, short and readable
- **Peter Singer**, *Practical Ethics* (1979) — applied consequentialism
- **Samuel Scheffler**, *The Rejection of Consequentialism* (1982) — the integrity and agent-centred objections

### Deontological Ethics
- **Immanuel Kant**, *Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals* (1785) — the source
- **Robert Nozick**, *Anarchy, State, and Utopia* (1974) — rights as side constraints
- **Judith Jarvis Thomson**, *The Trolley Problem* (1985) — the doing/allowing distinction

### Virtue Ethics
- **Aristotle**, *Nicomachean Ethics* — Book I (eudaimonia), Book II (virtues as means), Book VI (practical wisdom)
- **G.E.M. Anscombe**, ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’ (1958) — the essay that launched the revival
- **Rosalind Hursthouse**, *On Virtue Ethics* (1999) — best systematic contemporary account

### Applied Ethics
- **Peter Singer**, ‘Famine, Affluence, and Morality’ (1972) — the drowning child argument
- **Tom Regan**, *The Case for Animal Rights* (1983)
- **Frances Kamm**, *Morality, Mortality*, 2 vols. (1993, 1996) — fine-grained applied deontology

### Political Philosophy
- **John Rawls**, *A Theory of Justice* (1971) — the most important work in twentieth-century political philosophy
- **Robert Nozick**, *Anarchy, State, and Utopia* (1974) — libertarian response
- **Isaiah Berlin**, ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ (1958) — negative vs positive liberty

## Non-Western Philosophy: Entry Points

The main text is weighted toward the Western analytic tradition. The following provide accessible entry points into other traditions:

- **Mark Siderits**, *Personal Identity and Buddhist Philosophy* (2003) — Buddhist no-self and personal identity
- **Bryan Van Norden**, *Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy* (2011)
- **Kwame Gyekye**, *An Essay on African Philosophical Thought* (1987) — Akan philosophy
- **Jonardon Ganeri**, *The Self: Naturalism, Consciousness, and the First-Person Stance* (2012) — Indian philosophy and analytic philosophy in dialogue
