Because we’ll be reading some of the most famous works of philosophy, you will find used copies of various editions at many used book stores. The full text of each work is also available on the web. You may purchase whatever edition you like, or even print out and read from the web (I imagine this could get quite bulky, and if you pay for printing, I am not sure it will wind up saving you any money) — though see the note below on page numbering. I have ordered five “standard” editions through the NYU Bookstore.

• Descartes, Meditations, selections from the Objections and Replies
  • bookstore: Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings, Cambridge University Press, edited by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff & Dugald Murdoch
  • web: Wright State trilingual HTML edition (I have been unable to find the Objections and Replies online; please email me if you run across them)
  • general references:
    • Daniel Garber, “Descartes, René” (Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
    • John Cottingham, Descartes (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986) — good introductory overview
    • Margaret Wilson, Descartes (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978) — excellent, but advanced
  • topic references:
    • Marilyn McCord Adams, “Evil, problem of,” particularly §3—Free will defences (Routledge)
    • Alvin Plantinga, “God, arguments for the existence of: §§2–3 ontological arguments” (Routledge)

 

• Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
  • bookstore: Everyman Press, edited by John Yolton & Mark Goldie
  • web: Institute for Learning Technologies at Columbia University
  • general references:
    • Michael Ayers, “Locke, John” (Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
    • J.L. Mackie, Problems From Locke (Oxford: Oxford University Press) — excellent though ahistorical discussion
    • Michael Ayers, Locke (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1991) — thorough two volume commentary
    • Michael Ayers, Locke: The Great Philosophers (Routledge, 1999) — a short introduction to Locke; I have only glanced at this book, but the author is excellent (note that a good deal of this book is devoted to Locke’s political philosophy)
  • topic references:
  • Elliott Sober, “Innate knowledge” (Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
  • A.D. Smith, “Primary-secondary distinction” (Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
  • Brian Garrett, “Personal identity,” particularly §3—Psychological and mixed criteria (Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
  • André Gallois, “Sense-data” and Mike Martin, “Perception: §3 sense-datum theories of perception” (Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

   

• Berkeley, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous
  • bookstore: Oxford University Press, edited by Jonathan Dancy
  • web: Bartleby’s Harvard Classics
  • general references:
    • George Pitcher, Berkeley (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977)
    • Ian Tipton, “Berkeley, George” (Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
  • topic references:
  • Timothy Sprigge, “Idealism,” particularly §2—Berkeleian ontological idealism (Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

   

• Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
  • bookstore: Oxford University Press, edited by Tom Beauchamp
  • web: Leeds Electronic Text Centre
  • general references:
    • Annette Baier, “Hume, David,” particularly §2—Hume’s account of knowledge (Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
    • William Edward Morris, “Hume, David” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
    • Don Garrett Cognition and Commitment in Hume's Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997)
    • David Pears, Hume’s System (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990)
    • Barry Stroud, Hume (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977)
  • topic references:
    • William Edward Morris, “Hume, David—causation: the negative phase and causation: the positive phase” (the word 'causation' is unfortunate; the topic here is induction) (Stanford Encyclopedia)
    • Nancy Cartwright, “Causation,” particularly §1—Hume’s legacy (Routledge)
    • Galen Strawson, “Free will,” particularly §1—Compatibilism (Routledge)
    • David Basinger, “Miracles,” particularly §3—The credibility of personal testimony (Routledge)

   

• Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics
  • bookstore: Cambridge University Press, edited by Gary Hatfield
  • web: Web Exhibits
  • general references:
    • Paul Guyer, “Kant, Immanuel” (Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy) — detailed overview
    • Timothy Sprigge, “Kantian idealism” (Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
    • Ralph Walker, Kant (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978)
  • topic references:
    • Ross Harrison, “Transcendental arguments” (Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

A note on page numbering
You should bring your book to class, because we will frequently examine passages in some detail. I will cite page numbers from the editions above; however in many cases scholarship has settled on a standard for identifying passages in the texts, which I will also use in class. The Descartes and the Kant have marginal numberings based on early standard editions of those works (the web-published texts do not appear to have these numberings). The Locke and the Hume have chapter and section numbers. The exception is the Berkeley, which has no standard markings.

Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
NYU has a subscription to the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which contains very well-written articles on the philosophers we are studying (see the links above). It also has entries on just about all of the concepts and distinctions we’ll be covering (e.g., a priori versus a posteriori) if you feel you need to review.

You should have no problems reading the articles online if you are connected to the internet through the NYU network.

You may be unable to access the encyclopedia if you are not connected through NYU’s network. In that case, you will need to follow ITS’s instructions on how set your browser to use NYU’s proxy server.