Great Ideas of Philosophy

⎯⎯⎯. On Free choice of Will. T. Williams, trans. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Augustine wasamong the first to examine in detail the theory of moral freedom against the claims of determinism. His locating theissue within the Christian canon deprives his analysis of none of its philosophical power.———. The City of God (downloadable). An Internet source of Augustine’s moral and political philosophy.Bacon, Francis. Novum Organum. P.Urbach and J. Gibson, eds. Chicago: Open Court, 1994. Here is the “Baconian”revolution, designed to create an empirical science of discovery as a counter to traditional authority in science.Barker, S. and T. Beauchamp, eds. Thomas Reid: Critical Interpretations (Philosophical Monographs). Vol. 3.Philadelphia: University of Science Center, 1976.Barnes, J. ed. The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation. Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1984. Now the standard source of Aristotle’s extant works.Bate, W. From Classic to Romantic. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1946.Bede. A History of the English Church and People. London: Penguin, 1968. Here the “Venerable Bede” presents arecord of the early Church in the English speaking world, rich in detail and often astonishing in its claims.Birks, Peter, ed. Justinian’s Institutes. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987. The laws codified andpromulgated by the Emperor Justinian.Boardman, John et al., eds. The Oxford History of Greece and the Hellenistic World. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 1991. A fine source text edited by distinguished scholars.Borst, C.V., ed. Mind/Brain Identity Theory. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1970. Old but not “dated,” the essays inthis collection more or less exhaust the candidate “solutions” to this most vexing of issues.Brown, P. The Body and Society. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. Peter Brown’s study of the patristicand early medieval cultures of faith are illuminating at every level of detail. The special significance of man’scorporeal nature is examined closely.Budd, Malcolm. Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Psychology. London: Routledge, 1989. The Wittgensteinian“discursive turn” is featured, as the grammatical confusions in psychology are noted.Burke, Edmund. Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. New York:Columbia University Press, 1958. Here is one of the earliest contributions to aesthetics and its psychologicalgrounding, presented by a young Burke, already a master of English prose.Careri, Giovanni Bernini. Flights of Love: The Art of Devotion. Linda Lappin, trans. Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1994. Bernini’s philosophy of aesthetics and defense of the Baroque.Cassell, E. The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Abalanced and thoughtful treatise in medical ethics.Cassirer, Ernst. The Renaissance Philosophy of Man. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967. An informedsummary of major philosophical perspectives in the Renaissance.Churchland, Patricia Smith. Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of Mind-Brain. Cambridge, MA: MITPress, 1986. Philosophy of mind can get no more “materialistic” than this.Clark, Kenneth. The Romantic Rebellion: Romantic versus Classic Art. London: J. Murray, 1973. The claims ofgenius against those of science, the claims of the imagination against those of measurement.Cohen, J.B. Revolution in Science. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994. The author offers a sensibleevaluation of the idea of scientific “revolutions” and their relation to the larger intellectual context.Collingwood, R. G. The Idea of History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Essays on the nature ofhistorical scholarship and explanation.Condorcet. Selected Writings. K. Baker, ed. Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill Publishing Co., 1976. Condorcet was themost scientifically acute of the “philosophes.” The subtle and appealing character of his thought comes acrossvividly in this collection.Cottingham, J., et al., eds. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1988. This is the most accessible collection of Descartes’s major philosophical works.Dane, N., and J. Ambrose, eds. Greek Attitudes. New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1974. The editors select wiselyfrom the literary, political, philosophical and aesthetic offerings of the Classical age of Greece.42©2004 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership