READING AND UNDERSTANDING

Often encountering a philosophy text for the first time is difficult. You may well know little about the author, the book may be written in a language of a bygone age, the problems unfamiliar. These difficulties beset the first reader of even beautifully written philosophical works. Almost all the works we are reading are very well written, though some are more outstanding than others.

This page links you to reading guides for most of the works you will read in class in the course of the quarter. Reading Guides are aimed to help you focus on the reading of difficult philosophical material and to get a reasonably good idea of what is there. Exercises aim to help you understand particular schools of philsophy, or a particular concept or passage.

READING GUIDES

Reading Guide for Las Casas and Other Things

Reading Guide forMeditations I and II

Reading Guide for Meditations III through VI

Reading Guide for Cottingham The Rationalists Chapter 4

Reading Guide for Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding

Reading Guide for Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding cont.

Reading Guide for Locke on Identity

Reading Guide for Locke's The Second Treatise concerning Civil Government

Reading Guide for Berkeley's The First Dialogue between Hylas and Philonous

Reading Guide for Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

EXERCISES

Talking to Descartes: --An e-mail conversation--

Exercise: Locke and Equiano on Slavery

Exercise: Berkeley on Primary and Secondary Qualities

From here you can go to to:

• PHL 302 HOME PORT
  
• THE SYLLABUS
  
• ELECTRONIC TEXTS
  
• GREAT VOYAGES TIME LINE