An essay upon the relation of cause and effect

Essays on the perception of the external universe

Her essay criticizing Hume on miracles begins on page 325 of the latter work.

Kant on the Web

 Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Immanuel Kant — Metaphysics

Immanuel Kant — Aesthetics

 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Kant’s Philosophical Development 

Kant’s Account of Reason

Kant’s View of the Mind

Kant’s Critique of Metaphysics

Kant’s Philosophy of Science

Kant’s Aesthetics and Teleology

Kant and Hume on Morality

Kant’s Philosophy of Religion

Kant and Hume on Causality

Kant’s Social and Political Philosophy

Kant’s Moral Philosophy

Kant’s Theory of Judgment

Kant and Leibniz

 * Saint Thomas Aquinas (SEP)

 * St. Thomas Aquinas (Catholic Encyclopedia)

 * Thomas Aquinas (IEP)

 * Thomas Aquinas in English: A Bibliography

 * Jacques Maritain, St. Thomas Aquinas

 * G. K. Chesterton, St. Thomas Aquinas

Chesterton’s book is especially good for a light introduction.

 (1) Who are the characters of this dialogue?

 (2) This dialogue has an unusual format. What is it? Why might someone choose to use this format?

 (3) What is the narrator doing at the beginning of the dialogue?

 (4) What is the disease with which Lady Philosophy diagnoses Boethius?

 (5) What does Lady Philosophy  mean by "the victory of an unjust death" in Book I, Prose 3?

 (6) What is Boethius’ complaint in Book I, Prose 4? What is it in Book I, Meter 5?

 (7) What procedure for treatment does Lady Philosophy suggest in Book I, Prose 6?

 (8) Judging by Book I, what do you think the general argument of the Consolation will be?

For those who are interested in learning more about Aristotle, one of the greatest of the Western philosophers, here are a few resources. Because of Aristotle’s importance, there are a great many; for those who are interested primarily in the Aristotle’s views on change and causation, I have put an asterisk * by resources that are especially useful for understanding Aristotle on that particular topic.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Aristotle*

Aristotle on Causality*

Aristotle’s Psychology

Aristotle’s Political Theory

Aristotle’s Ethics

Aristotle’s Metaphysics

Aristotle’s Logic

Aristotle’s Categories 

Aristotle’s Rhetoric

Aristotle’s Natural Philosophy*

Aristotle’s Biology

Aristotle on Non-contradiction

Aristotle and Mathematics

Commentators on Aristotle

Aristotelianism in the Renaissance

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Aristotle Overview*

Aristotle: Biology

Aristotle: Ethics

Aristotle: Metaphysics

Aristotle: Motion and Its Place in Nature*

Aristotle: Poetics

Aristotle: Politics

Philosophy Bites

Myles Burnyeat on Aristotle on Happiness

 
Various things I’ve come across online that are related to the Platonic myths we discussed in class. 

The Divided Line

* A handout on the metaphor of the sun and the divided line (PDF) 

* An analysis of the Divided Line passage.

* Another analysis of the Divided Line. 

* Peter Losin, Plato’s Analogy of the Divided Line. A proposed interpretation of the Divided Line analogy, well worth reading for those who want an advanced discussion of it.

 
Allegory of the Cave

* Some notes on the Allegory (second page)from a lecture by Simone Weil (an interesting philosopher in her own right).

* Here is an animated version of the Allegory (slightly adapted), narrated by Orson Welles:

* The sun, the divided line, and the cave are found in Books VI and VII of Plato’s Republic, which can be found online. 

The Myth of Thoth

The myth of Thoth (or Theuth) is less widely known and considered, although interesting in itself. The most famous (and controversial) discussions of it are by Jacques Derrida in his essay, "Plato’s Pharmacy," which is summarized here by Tim Spurgin.

I also recommend Thomas Szlezak’s book Reading Plato [Routledge (New York: 1999)] as well.

The myth of Thoth can be found in Plato’s Phaedrus, which can be found online.

Other Myths 

With regard to the myth of the afterlife in Gorgias itself, I recommend that you take time to reflect about the analogies and disanalogies between the myth, Callicles’s description of Socrates on trial, and Socrates’s real-life trial and punishment.

Plato uses many other myths. J. A. Stewart’s The Myths of Plato is a handy (although somewhat out of date) online starting point for looking at them. Arguably the most famous myth other than the Allegory of the Cave is the myth of Atlantis, which we owe to Plato. It is first mentioned in the Timaeus (which is primarily about the nature of the world) but only developed in the Critias (which is incomplete); both the Timaeus and the Critias can be found online.

(Obviously all the editions of Plato that are available online will be older, usually nineteenth-century editions. There are newer and easier to read editions of every dialogue.) 

 Conjunction

And and but usually indicate conjunction. For instance,

I went to the store and I did not buy anything.

I went to the store but I  did not buy anything.

 Disjunction

Or often indicates disjunction (but not always). For instance:

I went to the store or I went home.

Either…or also usually indicates disjunction, although sometimes it indicates both a disjunction and conjunction. For instance:

Either I went to the store or I went home

 is a disjunction if it is possible for both to be true. If it is not possible for both to be true it’s really an abbreviation for:

Either I went to the store and did not go home or I went home and did not go to the store.

This uses both conjunction and disjunction.

Conditional

If is the most common word indicating a conditional. For instance,

If I go to the store, I will buy milk.

 Only if is also a  common indicator. For instance:

Tom likes Mary only if Mary is smart.

 You have to be careful about if and only if, because they are in a sense the reverse of each other. The following sentences do not represent the same conditional:

Tom is tall if Mary is short.

Tom is tall only if Mary is short.

 The first says that if it is true that Mary is short, Tom has to be tall. The second says that if it is true that Tom is tall, Mary has to be short.

The Algebra of Logic Tradition

Gottlob Frege

Frege’s Logic, Theorem, and Foundations for Arithmetic