Sample Course Readings

Tips for Building Your Library:

• Many philosophers’ books were translated more than once. Don’t worry so much about having the same translation as the rest of the class: sometimes the differences between two texts can give you more insight than just on text alone. However, if you do have a different publisher or translation, you may not be able to follow along during class because the text will have different page numbers. If possible, look for texts including reference numbers. This way if your text is different you can still easily find your place while reading along in class.

• When buying books, look on Half.com, eBay, Amazon, and book stores online for used copies. The majority of the texts used in philosophy have been published a number of times. You can find slightly older or used texts for under five bucks in good condition. Almost all of the books for philosophy and other classes will be cheaper online.

• Save some money and buy the complete works of authors who have compilations available, like Plato and Aristotle. These are usually core texts in philosophy. Even if you’re reading one piece now, you’ll have to read the rest eventually as you take more classes.

• Throughout your courses listen to who the professors reference. They have a habit of mentioning relating philosophers and authors other than the ones you read in class. Jot these names down on the inside of a folder or have a list ready. Other books are great for reading on the side and give you an edge in the subjects you’re studying. Books can be found in the library or for free online as well. Professors will take advantage of this by giving hand outs for things not listed in books to buy.

• Some classes are only offered once a year or every two years! Make sure you take them when they come around in regards to special topics listed as 3930 and 3931. This is not a list of all the classes offered, so be sure to search for classes by PHI and PHH when signing up. If anything, ask the professors what they’ll be teaching; they are more than willing to help.

• Check out the professors’ crucial and recommended book list for extra reading in certain topics.

Class & Book list:

*These books are not the same for every semester so please do not go out and buy them thinking you will be getting ahead!
*This is not a list of all the classes so be sure to check the schedule search for all available philosophy classes.

Introduction to Philosophy, PHH 2000
    Professor: Dr. Aho (Fall 2006)
        Charles Guignon, The Good Life
    Professor: Dr. Sean Kelly (Summer 2007)
        Weil, Simone - The Need for Roots (0-415-27102-9)
        WUB-E-KE-NIEW – We Have the Right to Exist (0-9628181-4-3)
        Foucault, Michel – Discipline and Punish
        Berkeley, George -- Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
        Aristotle – Nichomachean Ethics

History of Philosophy: Texts and Methods I & Lab, PHH 3050 & 3050L
    Professor: Dr. Sean Kelly (Spring 2008)
        A Logic Book (0-495-00672-6)
        Aristotle - The Basic Works of Aristotle (0-375-75799-6)
        Descartes, Rene – Philosophical Essays and Correspondence (0-87220-502-9)
        Plato – Complete Works (0-87220-349-2)

Self in Eastern Philosophy, PHH 3801
    Professor: Dr. Ehman (Fall 2007)
        Hesse, Herman – Siddhartha (0-8112-0068-X)
        Miller, Barbara Stoler - The Bhagavad-Gita translated by Barbara Stoler Miller (0-553-21365-2)
        Rahula, Walpola - What the Buddha Taught (0-8021-3031-3)

Hume, Kant and Rousseau, PHH 4450
    Professor: Dr. Sean Kelly (Fall 2007)
        Kant – The Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (0-06-131159-6)
        Kant – Political Writings (0-521-39837-1)
        Hume – An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding
        Hume – Selected Essays (0-19-283072-4)
        Recommended: Dupre, Louis - The Enlightenment and the Intellectual Foundations of Modern
            Culture (0-300-11346-3)
        A Kant Dictionary, Howard Caygill Publishing (0-631-17535-0)

Philosophy of Human Communication, PHI 3223
    Professor: Dr. Kevin Aho (Spring 2007)
        Martin Buber, I and Thou
        Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy
        Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit
        Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilych
    Professor: Dr. Sean Kelly (Spring 2006; Fall 2007)
        Buber, Martin – I and Thou (0-684-71725-5)
        Kant – Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime (0-500-24078-2)
        Thoreau – Walking (0-06-251113-0)
        Irigaray, Luce – I Love to You
        Barthes, Roland – Mythologies
        Derrida, Jacques – The Monolingualism of the Other
        Heidegger, Martin – Poetry, Language, Thought
        Mauss, Marcel – The Gift

Existential Psychotherapy, PHI 3930
    Professor: Dr. Kevin Aho (Spring 2008)
        Loy, David – Lack and Transcendence (157392720-1)
        Yalom, Irvin - Existential Psychotherapy (0-465-02147-6)

Philosophy of Human Rights, PHI 3930
    Professor: Dr. Sean Kelly (Fall 2005)
        Ishay, Micheline R. - The History of Human Rights: From Ancient Time to the Globalization
            Era (0-520-23497-9)
        The Oxford Amnesty Lectures 1993 - On Human Rights (0-465-05224-X)
        The Oxford Amnesty Lectures - Human Rights, Human Wrongs (0-19-280219-4)

Marx, Freud and Other Heretics, PHI 3930
    Professor: Dr. Sean Kelly (Spring 2005)
        Freud – Beyond the Pleasure Principle (0-393-00769-3)
        Freud – The Ego and the Id (0-393-00142-3)
        Freud – On Dreams (0-393-00144-X)
        Foucault – Herculine Barbin (0-394-73862-4)
        Marx - The Marx-Engels Reader (0-393-09040-X)
        Nietzsche – Thus Spake Zarathustra
        Sacher-Masoch, Leopold Von – Venus in Furs (0-14-044781-4)

American Philosophy: From the Enlightenment to WWI, PHI 3931
    Professor: Dr. J. Fishbane (Spring 2008)
        Dewey, John - The Philosophy of John Dewey, Two Volumes in One (0-226-14401-1)
        Edwards, Jonathan - Selected Writings of Jonathan Edwards (1-57766-331-4)
        Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Essential Writings (978-0-679-78322-0)
        Franklin, Benjamin - The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (0-486-29073-5)
        James, William – Pragmatism (0-486-28270-8)
        James, William – The Will to Believe and other essays in popular philosophy Human
            Immortality both books bound as one (0-486-20291-7)
        Royce, Josiah - The Philosophy of Josiah Royce (0-915145-41-3)
        Thoreau - Walden and Civil Disobedience (0-14-039044-8)

History of Philosophy: Texts and Methods II, PHI 4051-0 & PHI 4051-L
    Professor: Dr. Kevin Aho (Spring 2007)
        David Hume, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding
        Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason
        G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit
        Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols/The Anti- Christ
        Edmund Husserl, Phenomenology: Encyclopedia Britannica

Capstone Seminar in Philosophy & Lab, PHI 4938 & 4938L
    Professor: Dr. Kevin Aho (Spring 2008)
        MacIntyre, Alasdair – After Virtue (0-268-00611-3)
        The lab session for this class read five books from the recommending reading complied
            by Kelly and Aho, listed here, arranged by topic:

            Metaphysics

Aquinas – Summa Theologica available online
Ayer, AJ – Language, Truth and Logic (0141186046)
Derrida – “Plato’s Pharmacy” available in Dissemination (9780226143347)
Descartes, Rene – “Meditations of First Philosophy” in Philosophical Essays and Correspondence (0-87220-502-9)
Hegel – Introduction to The Philosophy of History (0-8130-1458-1)
Heidegger – “What is Metaphysics?” in the Basic Writings (0060637633)
Hume – An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (0-87220-229-1)
Kant – Prolegomena of Any Future Metaphysics (0521535352)
Merleau-Ponty – “What is Phenomenology?” the preface for Phenomenology of Perception (0415278414)
Nietzsche – Twilight of the Idols (0-140-44514-5)
Plato – “Protagoras” and “Phaedo” in the Complete Works (0-87220-349-2)
Wittgenstein, Ludwig – The Brown Book (0061312118)

            Ethics

Aristotle – “The Nichomachean Ethics” from The Basic Works of Aristotle (0-375-75799-6)
Heidegger – “The Question Concerning Technology” in the Basic Writings (0060637633)
Heidegger – “What Calls for Thinking?” in the Basic Writings (0060637633)
Irigaray – Je, Tu, Nous (0415905826)
Levinas – “Substitution” in Otherwise than Being (0820702994)
Mill – On Liberty
Plato – “Protagoras” in Complete Works (0-87220-349-2)
Rawls – “The Law of Peoples” from The Politics of Human Rights, 1993
Rorty, Richard – “Hope in Place of Knowledge: A Version of Pragmatism” in Philosophy and Social Hope
Sacher-Masoch, Leopold Von – A Light for Others
Tolstoy – “The Kreutzer Sonata” in The Death of Ivan Ilych and Other Essays

            Self Identity

Descartes, Rene – “Meditations of First Philosophy” in Philosophical Essays and Correspondence (0-87220-502-9)
Dostoevsky – Notes from the Underground
Heidegger – “What is Metaphysics?” in the Basic Writings (0060637633)
Hume – An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (0-87220-229-1)
Irigaray – Je, Tu, Nous (0415905826)
Kant – Prolegomena of Any Future Metaphysics (0521535352)
Kierkegaard – “The Concept of Anxiety” in A Kierkegaard Anthology
Marx – “The Communist Manifesto” available in the Marx-Engels Reader (0-393-09040-X)
Sartre, Jean-Paul – Transcendence of the Ego

            Philosophy and/of Religion

Descartes, Rene – “Meditations of First Philosophy” in Philosophical Essays and Correspondence (0-87220-502-9)
Freud – Civilization and its Discontents
Hume – Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
Hume – “Of Miracles” in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Kant – Prolegomena of Any Future Metaphysics (0521535352)
Nietzsche – Twilight of the Idols (0-140-44514-5)
Plato – “Phaedo” in the Complete Works (0-87220-349-2)

            Social and Political Philosophy

Adorno and Horkheimer – “The Concept of Enlightenment” in the Dialect of Enlightenment
Dostoevsky – Notes from the Underground
Hegel – Introduction to The Philosophy of History
Heidegger – “The Question Concerning Technology” in the Basic Writings (0060637633)
Irigaray – Je, Tu, Nous (0415905826)
Marx –“The Communist Manifesto” available in the Marx-Engels Reader (0-393-09040-X)
Mill, John Stewart – On Liberty
Nietzsche – Twilight of the Idols (0-140-44514-5)
Rawls – “The Law of Peoples” (1993) from The Politics of Human Rights (0674005422)
Rorty, Richard – “Hope in Place of Knowledge: A Version of Pragmatism” in Philosophy and Social Hope

            Freedom and Determinism

Descartes, Rene – “Meditations of First Philosophy” in Philosophical Essays and Correspondence (0-87220-502-9)
Dostoevsky – Notes from the Underground
Hegel – Introduction to The Philosophy of History
Hume – An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (0-87220-229-1)
Kant – Prolegomena of Any Future Metaphysics (0521535352)
Marx –“The Communist Manifesto” available in the Marx-Engels Reader (0-393-09040-X)
Mill, John Stewart – On Liberty
Rorty, Richard – “Hope in Place of Knowledge: A Version of Pragmatism” in Philosophy and Social Hope
Sartre, Jean-Paul – Transcendence of the Ego
Tolstoy – “The Kreutzer Sonata” in The Death of Ivan Ilych and Other Essays