The Philosophical Journey: An Interactive Approach

by William F. Lawhead

The Philosophical An Interactive Approach is a text with readings that enhances comprehension of philosophical study by encouraging students to ponder, explore, and actively participate in the learning process. Philosophy becomes a personal journey for students through Lawhead’s unique pedagogy that introduces philosophical concepts through practical application in the form of primary sources, interwoven exercises, and sections that encourage critical thinking and further exploration of core concepts.

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Genres: Philosophy, Textbooks

704 pages, Hardcover

First published December 24, 1999

Reviews

[Lou Rocama · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tedious and not particularly well written, though not badly written either. The parts of the text summarizing basic concepts rather than actual philosophical works contained endless statements I found irritating, shallow, and in one case inaccurate (namely the definitions of logical reasoning). Most of the margins ended up full of comments, questions, and corrections as I read. While it's possible this shallowness was intentional and meant to encourage readers to think, it seems unlikely considering the way my classmates approached the book. Nor did the two friends with backgrounds in philosophy I showed the book to seem impressed.

The descriptions of philosophical works are adequate, although not engrossing. I fear I got more use out of "Action Philosophers!" in that respect.

Generally, it's okay for a class you're taking to fill a requirement, but I found it rather disappointing and took very little away from my reading aside from irritation. In all cases, be sure to read actively and genuinely consider the material as you go, because it's not nearly as cut and dried as the text makes it seem. While this fluidity is part of philosophy, the book did not touch on it that I recall, even peripherally.

[Eileen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this for my Introduction to Philosophy Course that I finished this year. I enjoyed it. I think it is interactive like it claims, and covers a large ground of subjects. I personally would revisit it outside the course solely because I like contemplating its themes and questions. I recommend it to anyone looking to journey into philosophy and learn about its history.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great overview of philosophy.

[Moderated · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The problem is that too often we acquire our ideas, beliefs, and values the way we catch a cold. Like the cold virus, these ideas, beliefs, and values are floating around in our environment and we breathe them in without realizing it. The cold belonged to someone else, and now it is our cold. The beliefs and values were those of our culture, but now they are our own. It could be that they are true beliefs and excellent values, but how are we to know if we have internalized them unthinkingly?"

"We have the same problem with words such as God, meaning, freedom, or moral goodness. However, because these words are so familiar (unlike filmdoggal), we often assume that we understand the corresponding concepts. Yet the concepts that philosophy analyzes are those that we dare not leave unclarified."

"To paraphrase Socrates' view, we can choose to be like driftwood, floating on the surface of life, passively turning this way or that as each wave or gust of wind influences our motion. In this case, we are allowing ourselves to be vulnerable to the effects and harm produced by others. On the other hand, we can choose to be like the captain of a sailboat who sets his or her own direction with the rudder and the sails."

“On the one hand, we can allow ourselves to be like objects, buffeted about by the forces acting on us (personality dispositions, peer pressure, cultural influences), or, on the other hand, we can strive to rise above those influences and take charge of who we are and what we do.”✨

"How do we know the laws of logic are correct? How could we ever prove the laws of logic, since all proofs assume them?"

“According to Nietzsche, if most people suddenly realized that what they considered to be most real and true was just a subjective perspective, they could not bear this shattering of their illusions.”

“We “see” what our conceptual frameworks or perspectives allow us to see or what they direct us to see.”

"How we see things is affected by our past experiences, including the knowledge, training, conceptual frameworks, and expectations that we bring to observation."

“To argue that “inductive reasoning has always worked in the past, so it will always work” is like saying “all swans that have been observed in the past have been white, so all swans we observe in the future will be white.”

“Descarte’s view claims that the properties of matter could never produce something as mysterious and marvelous as consciousness or self-awareness, because these qualities could come only from a type of reality that is nonmaterial.”

"Now this conception of activity, and of an agent who is the cause of it, involves two rather strange metaphysical notions that are never applied elsewhere in nature. The first is that of a self or person—for example, a man—who is not merely a collection of things or events, but a self-moving being. For on this view it is a person, and not merely some part of him or something within

"...bad faith can result when I deny my transcendence and refuse to acknowledge that I am continually faced with possibilities and choices. For example, I can say, “I am a coward” and view this fact as an unalterable feature of my identity. In this way I can seek to escape the burden of being responsible for my actions and suppose that they are determined by my nature just as iron fi lings are necessarily drawn to a magnet."

"...from the instant of my upsurge into being, I carry the weight of the world by myself alone without anything or any person being able to lighten it."

“The word “theory” comes from a Greek word whose root is related to the word “theater”. When we are in a theater, we are spectators viewing the action on stage from a distance. Similarly, Kierkegaard complained, many people go through life as detached spectators, theorizing about it but never really becoming engaged with it.”

“…only if we have passion will we know the truth.”

"Hume’s rigorous empiricism led to skepticism concerning a continuously existing self.
He bases his argument on the fact that we do not find anything enduring within experience,
only fleeting, fragmentary sensations. But could we even know this fact if there was no such
thing as a continuous self? If we know we are experiencing a succession of loose and separate
impressions, as Hume claims, don’t we as experiencers have to be something more than a
series of loose and separate states ourselves? According to Hume’s theory, the self is nothing
more than “a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which . . . are in a perpetual flux
and movement.” But if this theory were true, wouldn’t each moment of time seem as though
it was our first conscious experience, and wouldn’t we lack awareness of what preceded it?"

“Was there ever a time when you experienced suffering (emotional or physical) that seemed meaningless, but you found out later that the suffering ultimately served some good purpose?”

"What is the self? If you look inward, you will find nothing but a changing kaleidoscope
of sensations, feelings, thoughts, and psychological states. Is the self something more
than these changing phenomena? Does some permanent, unchanging “super-self,” or soul,
exist beneath this passing flow of psychological states? Or is there nothing there, nothing
permanent beyond the stream of consciousness you experience?"

"Your feelings, sensations, thoughts, and desires are fleeting, ephemeral, transitory phenomena. One day you are depressed because things are not going your way and the whole world looks gloomy. The next day you get an A on your calculus test or you receive a letter from a close friend, and you are now buoyant and elated. But what is it that stays the same, what is it that is the real you throughout all the mood swings, changing psychological states, and passing thoughts? You not only experience tiredness, anger, doubt, joy, but you are also aware of and reflect on the feelings you are experiencing. It is almost as though what exists is the self that is having the experiences and a higher self that is observing the lower self and its experiences."

"Hinduism says that the changing, temporal self, jiva, is the self that you experience most
directly and immediately, but it is insubstantial, for it changes and dissipates with each
passing moment. The real you, that which endures throughout all changes, is atman.
Atman is that part of you that allows you to be an ongoing, continuous being through
time; atman is that part of you that is eternal and indestructible."

"Have you ever been so caught up in the whirl of your daily life, rushing from one event
to another or always trying to be what others expect you to be, that you felt as though
you were losing contact with the deep, inner core of who you are? Or perhaps you
have asked, “Who am I?” That question is easy enough to answer by giving your name or by defining yourself in terms of your academic major, relationships, or affiliations. But
this response is not really adequate, for these circumstances could have been different
or they could change, and you would still be you. People sometimes say, “I am trying to
find myself.” But what is the self that it is capable of getting “lost”? Are you nothing
more than your outward activities or your physical location and properties or just the
changing flow of your inward psychological states, or is there something more to you—
something that can’t be pinned down, defined, or studied scientifically? If these questions
make sense to you, then you are trying to sort out the jiva from the atman. You
are trying to find that true self that stands behind all the outward appearances and
activities."

"When have you been most miserable? It probably has been when you were totally absorbed in yourself. You were nurturing emotional hurts or feeling sorry for yourself. Perhaps you were in a situation in which you were painfully self-conscious, worrying about how you looked, how you were dressed, what people thought of you. On the other hand, you probably can remember times during which you experienced the joy of being totally absorbed with others or with some project. You “came out of yourself” because you were immersed within someone else’s joy or with their suffering. You found happiness in your total involvement with others or with something larger than yourself because you were no longer focusing on yourself and your petty concerns. This experience of self-abandonment is but a glimpse of the experience of nirvana."

“Making myself the best person I can be, whether athletically, musically, intellectually, or morally, is a matter of fulfilling my long-term, deep self-interests.”

“The most spectacular illustrations of the extent to which normality may be culturally defined are those cultures where an abnormality of our culture is the cornerstone of their social structure.”
“…the most valued traits of our normal individuals have been looked on in differently organized cultures as aberrant. Normality, in short, within a very wide range, is culturally defined. It is primarily a term for the socially elaborated segment of human behavior in any culture; and abnormality, a term for the segment that that particular civilization does not use.”

“These illustrations force upon us the fact that normality is culturally defined.”

"The diversity thesis does not imply ethical relativism, because it merely describes
what people do but does not address the issue of what they ought to do. If we found out,
for example, that the majority of parents sexually abuse their children, this discovery would
not mean that their actions were right. But ethical relativism makes the claim that if the
majority of people in a culture believe something is right, then that belief or action is
morally right for them."

"Imagine what it would be like for a society to place no value at all on truth telling. When one person spoke to another, there would be no presumption at all that he was telling the truth—for he could just as easily be speaking falsely. Within that society, there would be no reason to pay attention to what anyone says. (I ask you what time it is, and you say “Four o’clock.” But there is no presumption that you are speaking truly; you could just as easily have said the first thing that came into your head. So I have no reason to pay attention to your answer—in fact, there was no point in my asking you in the first place!) Communication would then be extremely difficult, if not impossible. And because complex societies cannot exist without regular communication among their members, society would become impossible. It follows that in any complex society there must be a presumption in favor of truthfulness. There may of course be exceptions to this rule: there may be situations in which it is thought to be permissible to lie. Nevertheless, these will be exceptions to a rule that is in force in the society."

"...the principle that “ought” implies “can.” In other words, I cannot have a moral obligation to do something if it is impossible to do it."

"...the “paradox of hedonism.” If we pursue pleasure (or more generally, happiness) as our all-consuming goal, we’ll probably have a hard time finding it."

"...Isn’t the primary reason for being honest, keeping promises, and fulfilling the other demands of morality the fact that it will be in your best interests to act this way? Isn’t egoism really the basis of our commonsense morality?"

"...if there remained only the good will (not as a mere wish but as the summoning of all the means in our power), it would sparkle like a jewel in its own right, as something that had its full worth in itself."

"I say, man and, in general, every rational being exists as an end in himself and not merely as a means to be arbitrarily used by this or that will."

"Kant explicitly claims that we should treat ourselves with respect and not merely as a means to some end. Many ethical theorists (the utilitarians, for example) believe that ethics governs only our
relations with others. Kantian ethics implies that we have moral duties to ourselves and not just to others. For this reason, Kant condemns suicide. If I decide to terminate my life in order to escape my pains and disappointments, I am treating myself as though I were a thing that is determined by external circumstances. Instead, I should respect the dignity and worth of my own personhood and treat it as having a value that transcends every other consideration."

"According to Socrates and virtue ethics, being moral boils down to being successful at the art of living."

"...the claim of virtue ethics is that the notion of virtue is neither a supplement to moral rules nor dependent upon them because virtue is the primary moral category."

"...a benevolent person will be inclined to want and hope that others prosper even when she realizes that she cannot by her actions help them and she will be inclined to be pleased with others’ good fortune and displeased with their bad fortune when their fortune is, again, unrelated to her own action. In short, the virtue of benevolence cannot be simply a disposition to action, because it consists, not in action, but in various forms of mental response, which may or may not be expressed in action."

"Moral virtue on the other hand is the outcome of habit, and accordingly its name, ethike, is derived by a slight variation from ethos, habit."

"Aristotle thinks that the moral virtues are habits that we acquire such that moral behavior becomes an ingrained, natural response."

"Locke insisted, however, that some rights are natural, human rights that cannot be taken away by the government. These rights are sometimes said to be indefeasible (cannot be made void) or inalienable (cannot be taken away). According to Locke, we possess these rights in the state of nature, before government came on the scene. Among these natural, moral rights are the preservation of our life, health, liberty, and possessions."

“Marx said that the vision of hell in Dante’s Inferno paled in comparison to the inhuman degradation of the industrial England of his time.”

"The German writer Gotthold Lessing (1729–1781) said, “If God set forth before me
the Eternal, unchangeable Truth in his right hand and the eternal quest for Truth in his left hand and said, ‘Choose,’ I would point to the left hand and say, ‘Father, give me this, for the Eternal unchangeable Truth belongs to you alone.’”

"In one of his journals Søren Kierkegaard said, “There are many people who reach their
conclusions about life like schoolboys: they cheat their master by copying the answer out
of a book without having worked the sum out themselves.” In philosophy as in arithmetic, using someone else’s answers may work in the short run, but it doesn’t help you get through
life in the long haul. You can model yourself after the great minds in philosophy, but in the
end, you have to work out the “sum” for yourself. Kierkegaard said there is a difference between knowing the truth and being in the truth. Similarly, he once noted that there were two kinds of people, those who suffer and those who become professors of suffering. His comment explains the difference between knowledge that can be gained only by participating in life and knowledge that is approached in a detached, academic sort of way. For Kierkegaard “the professor” is not just an occupation, it is an attitude toward life. His point was reflected in the words of a little-known author, Friedrich Hebbel, who once said:
The hell-fire of life consumes only the select among men.
The rest stand in front of it, warming their hands."

"Take the standpoint of one who is down on the fi eld engaged with the game and not that of a spectator."

"...keep one thing in mind: philosophy is hard, but the labor involved in a personal philosophical journey is always rewarded by the realization that you have taken charge of your life and are navigating your own course."


“What would ever make me think my belief was mistaken if I am unable to apprehend a reality that is independent of my opinions about it?”

“My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will… I will go a step further with my will, not only act with it, but believe as well; believe in my individual reality and creative power… Life shall be built in doing and suffering and creating.”

“Suppose you have a friend who claims she has a certain belief. But suppose that all her actions seem contrary to that belief. Would her actions be evidence that she did not really hold the belief she thought she did? Could we say that genuinely held beliefs will always make some sort of actual or potential difference in our actions?”

“The pragmatists have pointed to the intimate relationship between belief and action. Our actions demonstrate what we truly believe as opposed to what we think we believe or say we believe.”

“The great anguishes of the soul always come upon us like cosmic cataclysms. When they do, the sun errs from its course and the stars are troubled.”

“Life’s mystery wounds and frightens us in many ways.”

"It seems likely that our psychological makeup did not spring up spontaneously from nowhere. The determinist would insist that your choice of a particular course of action and your possession of certain values and desires are facts about the world that need explaining just as much as the fact that you were born with a certain hair color or that you
have the flu.”

“Aristotle said that “the man who does not rejoice in noble actions is not even good… Hence we ought to have been brought up in a particular way from our very youth, as Plato says, so as both to delight in and be pained by the things that we ought; for this is the right education.”

[ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this textbook for an intro to Philosophy course. My favorite textbook this semester (I mean the subject matter was pretty damn great so hey). Really great for understanding the basics of philosophy, provides good examples and analogies, as well as lots of interactive questionnaires and mini-assignments you can do to increase your understanding & figure out your philosophical positions. As easy to read as complicated content can be; sections are broken up neatly and everything flows pretty well. Kinda wanna buy one just so I can study it more.

[Stacey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this book did take an interactive approach as the title indicates. The thought experiments were very useful in acquiring comprehension of the concepts and in making them memorable as well. The book reminds you to "stop and think" along the way--a vital part of the philosophical journey.

[Hilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, so I didn't completely finish it. As a class we skipped some parts, but it was pretty good.

[Lyca Abogatal]

jh