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120 lines
6.7 KiB
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120 lines
6.7 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Further Reading
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section-id: conclusion
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sort: 110
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author: Prof. James Okafor
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created: 2026-03-12 09:00
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modified: 2026-04-18 10:00
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language: en
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description: Annotated reading list for each section of the book.
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---
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# Further Reading
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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.
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## Epistemology
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### What is Knowledge?
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- **Edmund Gettier**, ‘Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?’ (1963) — three pages that changed the field. Available freely online.
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- **Alvin Goldman**, ‘What is Justified Belief?’ (1979) — the classic statement of reliabilism
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- **Ernest Sosa**, *A Virtue Epistemology* (2007) — sophisticated virtue-theoretic approach
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- **Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa and Matthias Steup**, ‘The Analysis of Knowledge,’ *Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy* — comprehensive and freely available
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### Perception and Reality
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- **John Locke**, *An Essay Concerning Human Understanding*, Book II (1689) — the original representative realist account
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- **George Berkeley**, *Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous* (1713) — more accessible than the *Principles*
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- **A.D. Smith**, *The Problem of Perception* (2002) — thorough survey of the main positions
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### Reason and Rationalism
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- **René Descartes**, *Meditations on First Philosophy* (1641) — the canonical starting point
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- **Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz**, *New Essays on Human Understanding* (1704, pub. 1765) — rationalist response to Locke
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- **Laurence BonJour**, *In Defense of Pure Reason* (1998) — contemporary defence of a priori knowledge
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### Empiricism
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- **David Hume**, *An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding* (1748) — accessible presentation of Hume’s empiricism
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- **A.J. Ayer**, *Language, Truth and Logic* (1936) — logical positivism’s most readable statement
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- **W.V.O. Quine**, ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’ (1951) — influential attack on the analytic-synthetic distinction
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### Scepticism and Its Responses
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- **René Descartes**, *Meditations* (1641) — source of the dream argument and evil demon
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- **Ludwig Wittgenstein**, *On Certainty* (1951) — the hinge propositions account
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- **Barry Stroud**, *The Significance of Philosophical Scepticism* (1984) — the most serious treatment of scepticism as a genuine challenge
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### Theories of Truth
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- **William James**, *Pragmatism* (1907) — accessible statement of pragmatist truth
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- **Paul Horwich**, *Truth* (1990) — the minimalist theory
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- **Michael Lynch**, *True to Life: Why Truth Matters* (2004) — accessible defence of truth pluralism
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## Metaphysics
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### Existence and Being
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- **Bertrand Russell**, ‘On Denoting’ (1905) — the theory of descriptions
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- **W.V.O. Quine**, *From a Logical Point of View* (1953) — ontological commitment and naturalism
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- **David Armstrong**, *Universals: An Opinionated Introduction* (1989) — accessible introduction to the universals debate
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### Identity and Persistence
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- **Derek Parfit**, *Reasons and Persons* (1984), Part III — the most important modern treatment of personal identity
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- **David Lewis**, *On the Plurality of Worlds* (1986) — four-dimensionalism and modal realism
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- **Eric Olson**, *The Human Animal* (1997) — defence of animalism
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### Causation
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- **David Hume**, *An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding*, Section 7 (1748)
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- **David Lewis**, ‘Causation’ (1973) — the classic counterfactual account
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- **Judea Pearl**, *Causality* (2009) — the interventionist framework with formal rigour
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### Free Will and Determinism
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- **Peter van Inwagen**, *An Essay on Free Will* (1983) — the consequence argument
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- **Harry Frankfurt**, ‘Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility’ (1969) — Frankfurt cases
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- **P.F. Strawson**, ‘Freedom and Resentment’ (1962) — the reactive attitudes
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### Philosophy of Mind
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- **David Chalmers**, *The Conscious Mind* (1996) — the hard problem and property dualism
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- **Daniel Dennett**, *Consciousness Explained* (1991) — the deflationary/illusionist view
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- **Frank Jackson**, ‘Epiphenomenal Qualia’ (1982) — Mary’s room
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### The Nature of Time
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- **J.M.E. McTaggart**, ‘The Unreality of Time’ (1908) — the A-series/B-series distinction
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- **D.H. Mellor**, *Real Time II* (1998) — B-theorist account
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- **Craig Callender** (ed.), *The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time* (2011) — comprehensive
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## Ethics
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### Foundations of Ethics
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- **J.L. Mackie**, *Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong* (1977) — error theory
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- **Simon Blackburn**, *Ruling Passions* (1998) — quasi-realism
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- **John Rawls**, *A Theory of Justice* (1971), Section 4 — reflective equilibrium as method
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### Consequentialism
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- **John Stuart Mill**, *Utilitarianism* (1863) — the canonical text, short and readable
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- **Peter Singer**, *Practical Ethics* (1979) — applied consequentialism
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- **Samuel Scheffler**, *The Rejection of Consequentialism* (1982) — the integrity and agent-centred objections
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### Deontological Ethics
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- **Immanuel Kant**, *Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals* (1785) — the source
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- **Robert Nozick**, *Anarchy, State, and Utopia* (1974) — rights as side constraints
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- **Judith Jarvis Thomson**, *The Trolley Problem* (1985) — the doing/allowing distinction
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### Virtue Ethics
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- **Aristotle**, *Nicomachean Ethics* — Book I (eudaimonia), Book II (virtues as means), Book VI (practical wisdom)
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- **G.E.M. Anscombe**, ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’ (1958) — the essay that launched the revival
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- **Rosalind Hursthouse**, *On Virtue Ethics* (1999) — best systematic contemporary account
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### Applied Ethics
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- **Peter Singer**, ‘Famine, Affluence, and Morality’ (1972) — the drowning child argument
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- **Tom Regan**, *The Case for Animal Rights* (1983)
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- **Frances Kamm**, *Morality, Mortality*, 2 vols. (1993, 1996) — fine-grained applied deontology
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### Political Philosophy
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- **John Rawls**, *A Theory of Justice* (1971) — the most important work in twentieth-century political philosophy
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- **Robert Nozick**, *Anarchy, State, and Utopia* (1974) — libertarian response
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- **Isaiah Berlin**, ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ (1958) — negative vs positive liberty
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## Non-Western Philosophy: Entry Points
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The main text is weighted toward the Western analytic tradition. The following provide accessible entry points into other traditions:
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- **Mark Siderits**, *Personal Identity and Buddhist Philosophy* (2003) — Buddhist no-self and personal identity
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- **Bryan Van Norden**, *Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy* (2011)
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- **Kwame Gyekye**, *An Essay on African Philosophical Thought* (1987) — Akan philosophy
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- **Jonardon Ganeri**, *The Self: Naturalism, Consciousness, and the First-Person Stance* (2012) — Indian philosophy and analytic philosophy in dialogue
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