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Advanced Introductory Texts in Philosophy: Recommendations?

Brian Leiter

A student writes:

I was wondering if you could ask your readers for what they think is the best advanced introductory texts in their respective sub fields. I am thinking of something akin to Miller's excellent 'Introduction to Contemporary Metaethics' or Kymlicka's 'Contemporary Political Philosophy'. I found Miller's book to be very helpful and it would be nice to know what other advanced introductory texts are widely considered top notch (I'm most interested in suggestions for epistemology, philosophy of science, and normative ethics, but I suspect readers might be interested in advanced introductions for other areas too). 

Miller's book is indeed an excellent example of the genre in question.  (I have not read Kymlicka's, though have often heard it recommended.)  In epistemology, I will note that I learned a lot in grad school from Laurence BonJour's The Structure of Empirical Knowledge, which was an important scholarly monograph in its own right, but hugely instructive about the state of the art in epistemology in the 1980s.  Richard Miller's Fact and Method was similar in philosophy of science, but again also a bit dated now.  Frederick Suppe's long introduction to the old The Structure of Scientific Theories was a terrific overview of main currents of twentieth-century philosophy of science through the early 1970s.  I'm sure readers will have more current suggestions.

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28 responses to “Advanced Introductory Texts in Philosophy: Recommendations?”

  1. Dennis Whitcomb

    I like Goldman and McGrath's epistemology textbook. Carl Hempel's *Philosophy of Natural Science* is a truly outstanding intro philosophy of science text (but also very dated).

    Reply
  2. Yao Lin

    Peter Goldfrey-Smith's 2003 Theory and Reality is a good intro to phil of science.

    Reply
  3. Miles

    Richard Joyce's The Myth of Morality gives a good, accessible overview of the main menu of metaetical options. It needs to be taken with a grain of salt, but it was very helpful to me when I was an undergrad well into my philosophy degree.

    Reply
  4. James

    Steup, Turri and Sosa's Contemporary Debates in Epistemology (either edition) will whet one's appetite.

    Reply
  5. james

    Check out Oxford Short Introductions. While not a single book, maybe a help.

    BL COMMENT: These vary hugely in quality, some are borderline incompetent. Approach with caution!

    Reply
  6. Andrew Sepielli

    I very much liked Shelly Kagan's *Normative Ethics*, which is part of a Westview Press series.

    Reply
  7. Peter Alward

    I've always liked Kim's Philosophy of Mind

    BL COMMENT: I would second that recommendation, I often send beginning grad students to it.

    Reply
  8. Aldo Antonelli

    Everybody should read Russell's Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy.

    Reply
  9. CCprof

    I was considering using books from the Oxford Short Intro series for my CC courses, and if anyone has any idea which are good and which are not, it would be greatly appreciated. (classes like: intro, ethics, and crit. think./logic primarily, but also phil. of religion, world religions, ancient/modern phil., etc.)

    Reply
  10. Felix Sadeli

    For epistemology I found Jack Crumley's "An Introduction to Epistemology" and Duncan Pritchard's "What Is This Thing Called Knowledge" very useful as starting points, though I am not sure if they met the "advanced" criterion of the asker.

    For an excellent – and I think this one is indeed "advanced" – introduction to logic I would recommend "Possible Worlds" by Raymond Bradley and Norman Swartz.

    Reply
  11. alexander stingl

    A lot of people like Alan Chalmer's 'What is this thing called science' as an intro to the problems for Philosophy of Science. It's really rather a simple book in some terms, but I find it accessible. I feel, however, that it should be complemented by Ian Hacking's book 'Representing and Intervening', which is the more exciting read.

    As for problems of ethics and justice, I actually found that with regard to learning to think about these problems and to get a good gist on the important Western philosophical approaches from Modernity, Susan Neiman's book on 'Evil in Modern Thought' works really well. It's not like a text-book, but very helpful.

    As for moral and political philosophy, Rawls lectures on both are actually quite good and rich in material.

    As for decolonial philosophy, Enrique Dussel's Ethics of Liberation is very good and covers a broad series of Western literatures its 'taking down'.

    Reply
  12. David

    I first learned some of the basics of contemporary epistemology from Bonjour's extended piece "A Version of Internalist Foundationalism" in his and Sosa's 2003 book "Epistemic Justification."

    Reply
  13. Matt

    I think that Jo Wolff's _An Introduction to Political Philosophy_ is really great. (I think there's a second edition out now, though I read the first one several years ago.) It has a more historical focus than does the Kymlica book, in case that matters to anyone, but does a great job of introducing many of the most important topics in political philosophy in a very accessible way. There have been several introductions to the philosophy of law recently, but I both enjoyed and had some success in teaching Mark Murphy's _Philosophy of Law: The Fundamentals_. (It's very good on analytic jurisprudence and, while fair all around, especially good on natural law theory. It has some good coverage of particular areas of law, including constitutional law, criminal law, and tort law (though not international law or contract law, in case those especially interest someone.)

    BL COMMENT: I second Murphy, he is the best contemporary writer on natural law theory, and the book as a whole is fair and argumentatively rigorous.

    Reply
  14. Jason Raibley

    I am surprised that no one has mentioned Michael Loux's _Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction_ or (though it's a bit older) Devitt and Sterelny's _Language and Reality_. These are similar to the Miller and Kymlicka books. If supplemented with some more recent material (some choice SEP articles?), both would be quite valuable to advanced undergraduates. For whatever it's worth, I also endorse the recommendation of the Kim book.

    Reply
  15. John Tilley

    Peter Van Inwagen's Metaphysics (Westview Press) is first rate.

    Reply
  16. Gareth

    Stewart Shapiro's 'Thinking about Mathematics' is a really fantastic introduction to the philosophy of mathematics.

    Reply
  17. Thornton Lockwood

    Appiah's Thinking it Through: An Introduction to Contemporary Philosophy (2003) seems to me to bridge the gap between "introductory" and "advanced introductory for a subfield." It covers many areas–but with a good deal of sophistication (more than I think most non-majors could handle).

    Reply
  18. Logan

    I highly recommend Jc Beall's *Logic: the Basics* as an advanced introduction to logic. It's accessible to beginners, but manages to cover classical, non-classical, modal, and free logics.

    Reply
  19. Jean

    Susan Haack, Philosophy of Logics

    Reply
  20. Mark S

    I always thought Susan Haack's "Evidence and Inquiry" serves as a great overview of epistemology.

    Reply
  21. Clayton

    For an advanced introduction to epistemology, I think Pritchard's Knowledge is in a class of its own. (It's much more advanced than his other text, What is this Thing Called Knowledge?, which is also perfectly good but not advanced.) It focuses on knowledge to the exclusion of everything else, so you might pick up Jennifer Nagel's short introduction to fill in some of the gaps.

    I'm looking forward to Mike Titelbaum's introduction to formal epistemology. I've seen bits and pieces of it and it's very well done. I think it should be out from OUP within the year.

    Reply
  22. Craig

    For beginning students in Metaphysics I've always found Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics particularly useful…

    Reply
  23. JPM

    I haven't read Miller's "Introduction to Contemporary Metaethics" but his "Philosophy of Language" intro text is exceptionally clear and systematic. Pap's "Elements of Analytic Philosophy" is, while old and old hat, still a nice read and intro to some basic issues that are still around. Buy it used!

    Reply
  24. John

    I agree Miller's Contemporary Introduction to Metaethics is very good. Another good introductory metaethics text, a little more accessible than Miller's, is Andrew Fisher's Metaethics: Introduction. In addition to covering much the same ground as Miller, Fisher provides a concise yet comprehensive glossary.

    Reply
  25. V. Alan White

    It's a bit dated on the empirical and X-Phi side, but Robert Kane's A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will (2005) is an excellent accessible work in the area of free will and action theory.

    Reply
  26. Craig

    I'm currently reading Jose Bernadette's 'Metaphysics: The Logical Approach', and finding it excellent. I think it's not good as a first intro. to metaphysics, as he sometimes assumes background knowledge, but it's still pretty introductory stuff. It's great because it gives a real sense of the excitement of the subject, shows how it can be applied, mixes historical with modern approaches (OK, not that modern any more – it was written in the '80s) and has some entertaining asides.

    Reply
  27. JPM

    José A. Benardete is who you mean

    Reply
  28. Craig

    JPM – yes, that's the guy! Found his book for £1 in a charity shop years ago, and the recent online publication of Quine's letter to him piqued my interest. He writes so much better than most philosophers.

    Reply

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