Introductions to Philosophy.

Of Introductions to Philosophy there are many.

I am smitten by Samuelson, Scott  (2014)  The Deepest Human Life: An Introduction to Philosophy for Everyone, Chicago: University of Chicago. He’s a teacher, a word that in this context should be in Bold Caps. More on that later.

Here’s my ‘plug’ for the book :  I’d like to see everyone give this book a chance.

In fact I want to take Samuelson’s book as a guide for structuring the next many remarks I make, all aiming – in the end – as  always – at raising some questions about the minds of others.

The many ‘Introductions to Philosophy’ include those recommended by Samuelson pp. 199-200. I add two to the list, in part to illustrate their variety :  Chrisman, M. and Pritchard, D. (eds)  (2014)  Philosophy for Everyone, New York : Routledge and  Glymour, C. (2015)  Thinking Things Through, Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. The first grew out of a MOOC offered by the University of Edinburgh, and introduces philosophy through the history of philosophy; the second introduces philosophy through (under the MIT imprint – who would have guessed?) logic and mathematical style reasoning.  Neither is anywhere near as comfortably familiar as Samuelson.