PHIL5001M
Module Reading List

PHIL5001M Analytic Philosophy A 2021-2: Topics and Reading List

The Philosophy of the Individual

*  = Core Reading

 1. What is an individual?

*Eli Hirsch, ‘Peter van Inwagen’s Material Beings’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 53 (3), 1993, pp. 687-91  

*E.J. Lowe, ‘Non-Individuals’, in Thomas Pradeu and Alexandre Guay, eds., Individuals Across the Sciences (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016)  

 *Subrena E. Smith, ‘Organisms as Persisters’, Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology 9 (14), 2017, pp.1-16  

 2. The essence of the individual

Stephan Blatti, ‘Animalism’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/animalism/

*Campbell, Scott, ‘The Conception of a Person as a Series of Mental Events’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 73 (2), 2006, pp. 339-58  

Mackie, David, ‘Personal Identity and Dead People’, Philosophical Studies 95 (3), pp. 219-42

*Eric Olson, ‘What Are We?’, Journal of Consciousness Studies 14 (5-6), 2007, pp. 37-55  

 3. The fictional individual

*Daniel Dennett, ‘The Self as a Center of Narrative Gravity’, in: F. Kessel, P. Cole and D. Johnson (eds.) Self and Consciousness: Multiple Perspectives. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum  

*Richard Menary, ‘Embodied Narratives’, Journal of Consciousness Studies 15 (6), 2008, pp. 63-84  

Eric Olson, ‘There is No Problem of the Self’, Journal of Consciousness Studies 5 (5-6), 1998, pp. 645-57

William Simpson, ‘The Mystical Stance: the experience of self-loss and Daniel Dennett’s “Center of Narrative Gravity”’, Zygon 49 (2), 2014, pp. 458-75

4. The embodied individual

Kenneth Aizawa, ‘Understanding the Embodiment of Perception’, Journal of Philosophy CIV (1), 2007, pp. 5-25

Barry Dainton, The Phenomenal Self (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), Chapter 7: ‘Embodiment’ 

*Monica Meijsing, ‘Real People and Virtual Bodies: how disembodied can embodiment be?’, Minds and Machines 16, 2006, pp. 443-61  

*Daniel Dennett, ‘Where Am I?’, in Brainstorms (Bradford Books, 1981), pp. 310-323; https://www.academia.edu/36649303/Dennett_Brainstorms    

Eric Olson, ‘Why I Have No Hands’, Theoria 61, 1995, pp. 182-97. Available online: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/962/

 5. The individual as thinker

*Jane Heal, ‘Second Person Thought’, Philosophical Explorations 17 (3), 2014, pp. 317-31  

Guy Longworth, ‘You and Me’, Philosophical Explorations 17 (3), 2014, pp. 289-303

Christopher Peacocke, ‘Interpersonal Self-Consciousness’, Philosophical Studies 170, 2014, pp. 1-24

*Léa Salje, ‘Thinking About You’, Mind 126 (503), 2017, pp. 817-840  

 6. The individual as agent

Donald Campbell, ‘Downward Causation in Hierarchically Organized Biological Systems', in F.J. Ayala and T. Dobzhansky (eds) Studies in the Philosophy of Biology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974)

*Jaegwon Kim: ‘Making Sense of Emergence’, Philosophical Studies 95, 1999, pp. 3–36.  

Markus Schlosser, ‘Agency’, Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/agency/

*Helen Steward, ‘Action as Downward Causation’, Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 80, 2017, pp. 195-215  

 Helen Steward, A Metaphysics for Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), Chapter 8: ‘Agency, Substance Causation, and Top-Down Causation’

7. The moral individual

John Doris, Stephen Stich, Jonathan Phillips, Lachlan Walmsley, ‘Moral Psychology: Empirical Approaches’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-psych-emp/

*John M. Doris, ‘Persons, Situations and Virtue Ethics’, Nous 32 (4), pp. 504 – 530  

Susan Wolf, ‘Moral Saints’, Journal of Philosophy 77 (8), 1983, pp. 419-39

*Susan Wolf, ‘Moral Psychology and the Unity of the Virtues’, Ratio 20 (2), 2007, pp. 145-67  

 8. The amoral individual

Gwen Adshead, ‘Psychopaths and Moral Identity’, Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology 20 (4), 2013, pp. 339-43

Shaun Gallagher, ‘Phronesis and Psychopathy: the moral frame problem’, Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology 20 (4), 2013, pp. 345-48

*Shaun Nichols, ‘How Psychopaths Threaten Moral Rationalism’, The Monist 85 (2), 2002, pp. 285-303  

*Lei Zhong, ‘Internalism, Emotionism and the Psychopathy Challenge’, Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology 20 (4), 2013, pp. 329-37  

 9. The artificial individual

Luciano Floridi and J.W. Sanders, ‘On the Morality of Artificial Agents’, Minds and Machines 14, 2004, pp. 349-79 

*Vincent C. Muller, ‘The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,Section 2.9: ‘Artificial Moral Agents’ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-ai/  

Thomas W. Simpson and Vincent C. Muller, ‘Just War and Robots’ Killings’, Philosophical Quarterly 66 (263), pp. 302-22

*Robert Sparrow, ‘Killer Robots’, Journal of Applied Philosophy 24 (1), 2007, pp. 62-77  

 10. The happy individual

*Alan H. Goldman, ‘Happiness is an Emotion’, Journal of Ethics 21 (1), pp. 1-16  

*Daniel M. Haybron, ‘On Being Happy or Unhappy’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 71 (2), 2005, pp. 287-317  

Daniel M. Haybron, ‘Happiness’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/happiness/

Edward Skidelsky, ‘Happiness, Pleasure and Belief’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 95 (3), pp. 435-46

 11. The individual faces death

*Kathy Behrendt, ‘Reasons to be Fearful: Strawson, Death and Narrative’, Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 60, 2007, pp. 133-53  

*Fred Feldman, ‘Some Puzzles About the Evil of Death’, Philosophical Review 100, 1991, pp. 307-26  

Steven Luper, ‘Death’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/death/

Aaron Smuts, ‘Less Good but Not Bad: in defense of Epicureanism about death’, Philosophy & Phenomenological Research 93 (2), 2012, pp. 197-227

This list was last updated on 05/08/2021