The Great Conversation

Now in its sixth edition, this historically organized introductory text treats philosophy as a dramatic and continuous story—a conversation about humankind's deepest and most persistent concerns. Tracing the exchange of ideas among history's key philosophers, The Great Conversation: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy, Sixth Edition, demonstrates that while constructing an argument or making a claim, one philosopher almost always has others in mind. The book addresses the fundamental questions of human life: Who are we? What can we know? How should we live? and What sort of reality do we inhabit?

The sixth edition retains the distinctive feature of previous editions: author Norman Melchert provides a generous selection of excerpts from major philosophical works and makes them more easily understandable to students with his lucid and engaging explanations. Ranging from the Pre-Socratics to Derrida, Quine, and Dennett, the selections are organized historically and include four complete works: Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito, and Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy. The author's commentary offers a rich intellectual and cultural context for the philosophical ideas conveyed in the excerpts. Extensive cross-referencing shows students how philosophers respond appreciatively or critically to the thoughts of other philosophers. The text is enhanced by two types of exercises—"Basic Questions" and "For Further Thought"—and fifty illustrations.

NEW TO THE SIXTH EDITION:

* Coverage of Taoism, Iris Murdoch, and Zen
* An expanded portrait of Jean-Paul Sartre
* A more concise, single-chapter treatment of Wittgenstein (Chapter 22)
* Key terms, boldfaced throughout and listed at chapter ends
* Brief and provocative quotations that stimulate thought and provoke questions
* A new section on how to read philosophy
* A new appendix: Writing a Philosophy Paper
* A two-color format that enhances the text's visual appeal
* A Companion Website at www.oup.com/us/melchert featuring resources for students including key points, flashcards, multiple-choice questions, and Internet resources
* A revised Instructor's Manual and Test Bank (available on the companion website and on CD) containing key points, teaching suggestions, and multiple-choice, short-answer, and essay exam questions

The Great Conversation, Sixth Edition, is also available in two paperback volumes to suit your course needs. Volume I: Pre-Socratics through Descartes includes chapters 1-13 of the combined volume, while Volume II: Descartes through Derrida and Quine includes chapters 12-25.

Norman Melchert, Professor Emeritus, Lehigh University

Norman Melchert is Selfridge Professor of Philosophy Emeritus and a former Acting Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Lehigh University. He has also taught at Virginia Commonwealth University. He received awards for excellence in teaching at both universities. Dr. Melchert is the author of Who's to Say? A Dialogue on Relativism (1994) as well as numerous journal articles.

*=New to this edition
A Word to Instructors:
A Word to Students:
Acknowledgments:
1. Before Philosophy: Myth in Hesiod and Homer
Hesiod: War among the Gods
Homer: Heroes, Gods, and Excellence
2. Philosophy before Socrates
Thales: The One as Water
Anaximander: The One as the Boundless
Xenophanes: The Gods as Fictions
Sketch: Pythagoras
Heraclitus: Oneness in the Logos
* Profile: The Tao
Parmenides: Only the One
Zeno: The Paradoxes of Common Sense
Atomism: The One and the Many Reconciled
The Key: An Ambiguity:
The World:
The Soul:
How to Live:
3. The Sophists: Rhetoric and Relativism in Athens
Democracy
The Persian Wars
The Sophists
Rhetoric:
Relativism:
Physis and Nomos
Athens and Sparta at War
Aristophanes and Reaction
4. Socrates: To Know Oneself
Character
Is Socrates a Sophist?
What Socrates "Knows"
We Ought to Search for Truth:
Human Excellence Is Knowledge:
All Wrongdoing Is Due to Ignorance:
The Most Important Thing of All is to Care for Your Soul:
5. The Trial and Death of Socrates
Euthyphro:
Translator's Introduction
The Dialogue
Commentary and Questions
Apology:
Translator's Introduction
The Dialogue
Commentary and Questions
Crito:
Translator's Introduction
The Dialogue
Commentary and Questions
Phaedo (Death Scene)
Translator's Introduction
The Dialogue (Selection)
Commentary and Questions
6. Plato: Knowing the Real and the Good
Knowledge and Opinion
Making the Distinction:
We Do Know Certain Truths:
The Objects of Knowledge:
The Reality of the Forms:
The World and the Forms
How Forms Are Related to the World:
Lower and Higher Forms:
The Form of the Good:
The Love of Wisdom
What Wisdom Is:
Love and Wisdom:
The Soul
The Immortality of the Soul:
The Structure of the Soul:
Morality
The State
Problems with the Forms
7. Aristotle: The Reality of the World
Aristotle and Plato
Otherworldliness:
The Objects of Knowledge:
Human Nature:
Relativism and Skepticism:
Ethics:
Logic and Knowledge
Terms and Statements:
Truth:
Reasons Why: The Syllogism:
Knowing First Principles:
The World
Nature:
The Four "Becauses":
Is There Purpose in Nature?:
Teleology:
First Philosophy
Not Plato's Forms:
What of Mathematics?:
Substance and Form:
Pure Actualities:
God:
The Soul
Levels of Soul:
Soul and Body:
Nous:
The Good Life
Happiness:
Virtue or Excellence:
The Role of Reason:
Responsibility:
The Highest Good:
8. Epicureans, Stoics, and Skeptics: Happiness for the Many
The Epicureans
The Stoics
The Skeptics
9. The Christians: Sin, Salvation, and Love
Background
Jesus
The Meaning of Jesus
10. Augustine: God and the Soul
Wisdom, Happiness, and God
The Interior Teacher
God and the World
The Great Chain of Being:
Evil:
Time:
Human Nature and Its Corruption
Human Nature and Its Restoration
Augustine on Relativism
The Two Cities
Christians and Philosophers
Reason and Authority:
Intellect and Will:
Augustine on Epicureans and Stoics:
11. Anselm and Aquinas: Existence and Essence in God and the World
Anselm: On That, Than Which No Greater Can Be Conceived
Thomas Aquinas: Rethinking Aristotle
Sketch: Avicenna (Ibn Sina)
Philosophy and Theology:
Existence and Essence:
Sketch: Averroës (Ibn Rushd)
From Creation to God:
The Nature of God:
Sketch: Maimonides (Moses Ben Maimon)
Humans: Their Souls:
Humans: Their Knowledge:
Humans: Their Good:
Ockham and Skeptical Doubts—Again
12. Moving from Medieval to Modern
The World God Made for Us
The Humanists
Reforming the Church
Skeptical Thoughts Revived
Copernicus to Kepler to Galileo: The Great Triple Play
13. René Descartes: Doubting Our Way to Certainty
The Method
Meditations: Commentary and Questions
Meditations on First Philosophy:
Meditation I
Meditation II
Meditation III
Meditation IV
Meditation V
Meditation VI
What Has Descartes Done?
A New Ideal for Knowledge:
A New Vision of Reality:
Problems:
The Preeminence of Epistemology:
14. Hobbes, Locke, and Berkeley: Materialism and the Beginnings of Empiricism
Thomas Hobbes: Catching Persons in the Net of the New Science
Method:
Minds and Motives:
Sketch: Francis Bacon
The Natural Foundation of Moral Rules:
John Locke: Looking to Experience
Origin of Ideas:
Idea of Substance:
Idea of the Soul:
Idea of Personal Identity:
Language and Essence:
The Extent of Knowledge:
Of Representative Government:
Of Toleration:
George Berkeley: Ideas into Things
Abstract Ideas:
Ideas and Things:
God:
15. David Hume: Unmasking the Pretensions of Reason
How Newton Did It
To Be the Newton of Human Nature
The Theory of Ideas
The Association of Ideas
Causation: The Very Idea
The Disappearing Self
Sketch: The Buddha
Rescuing Human Freedom
Is It Reasonable to Believe in God?
Understanding Morality
Reason Is Not a Motivator:
The Origins of Moral Judgment:
Is Hume a Skeptic?
16. Immanuel Kant: Rehabilitating Reason (within Strict Limits)
Critique
Judgments
Geometry, Mathematics, Space, and Time
Common Sense, Science, and the A Priori Categories
Sketch: Baruch Spinoza
Phenomena and Noumena
Sketch: Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz
Reasoning and the Ideas of Metaphysics: God, World, and Soul
The Soul:
The World and the Free Will:
God:
The Ontological Argument:
Reason and Morality
The Good Will:
The Moral Law:
Sketch: Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Autonomy:
Freedom:
17. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Taking History Seriously
Historical and Intellectual Context
The French Revolution:
The Romantics:
Epistemology Internalized
Sketch: Arthur Schopenhauer
Self and Others
Stoic and Skeptical Consciousness
Hegel's Analysis of Christianity
Reason and Reality: The Theory of Idealism
Spirit Made Objective: The Social Character of Ethics
History and Freedom
18. Kierkegaard and Marx: Two Ways to "Correct" Hegel
Kierkegaard: On Individual Existence
The Aesthetic:
The Ethical:
The Religious:
The Individual:
Marx: Beyond Alienation and Exploitation
Alienation, Exploitation, and Private Property:
Communism:
19. The Utilitarians: Moral Rules and the Happiness of All (Including Women)
The Classic Utilitarians
The Rights of Women
20. Friedrich Nietzsche: The Value of Existence
Pessimism and Tragedy
Good-bye Real World
The Death of God
Revaluation of Values
Master Morality/Slave Morality:
* Profile: Iris Murdoch
Our Morality:
The Overman
Affirming Eternal Recurrence
21. The Pragmatists: Thought and Action
Charles Sanders Peirce
Fixing Belief:
Belief and Doubt:
Truth and Reality:
Meaning:
Signs:
John Dewey
The Impact of Darwin:
Naturalized Epistemology:
Sketch: William James
Nature and Natural Science:
Value Naturalized:
* 22. Ludwig Wittgenstein: Linguistic Analysis and Ordinary Language
Language and Its Logic
Sketch: Bertrand Russell
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Picturing:
Thought and Language:
Logical Truth:
Saying and Showing:
Setting the Limit to Thought:
Value and the Self:
Good and Evil, Happiness and Unhappiness:
The Unsayable:
* Profile: The Logical Positivists
Philosophical Investigations:
Philosophical Illusion:
Language-Games:
Naming and Meaning (NEW?):
Family Resemblances:
The Continuity of Wittgenstein's Thought
* Profile: Zen
Our Groundless Certainty
23. Martin Heidegger: The Meaning of Being
What Is the Question?
The Clue
Phenomenology
Being-in-the-World
The "Who" of Dasein
Modes of Disclosure
Attunement:
Understanding:
Discourse:
Falling-Away
Idle Talk:
Curiosity:
Ambiguity:
Care
Truth
Death
Conscience, Guilt, and Resoluteness
Temporality as the Meaning of Care
The Priority of Being
24. Simone de Beauvoir: Existentialist, Feminist
Ambiguity
Profile: Jean-Paul Sartre
Ethics
Woman
25. Postmodernism and Physical Realism: Derrida, Quine, and Dennett
Postmodernism
Deconstruction: Jacques Derrida:
* Profile: Richard Rorty
Physical Realism
Science, Common Sense, and Metaphysics: Willard van Orman Quine:
The Matter of Minds: Daniel Dennett:
Afterword:
* Appendix: Writing a Philosophy Paper:
Glossary:
Credits:
Index: