Doing Philosophy: An Introduction Through Thought Experiments

Doing Philosophy inspires active learning and helps students become more accomplished critical thinkers by encouraging them to reflect on philosophical theories and the thought experiments used to test them.  The book traces the historical development of philosophical thinking on several central problems, and shows how the solutions offered to these problems inform current thinking on many social, political, and religious issues.  By introducing students to philosophical theorizing and encouraging them to formulate their own views, Doing Philosophy fosters creative as well as critical thinking and generates an appreciation for the importance of philosophical inquiry. Instructors can customize Doing Philosophy (as a print or ebook) to include selections from Discourses, McGraw Hill’s collection of more than 450 classical and contemporary philosophy readings, offering the convenience of discussing philosophical questions with the exemplars an instructor prefers.

Theodore Schick received his B.A. in philosophy from Harvard University and his Ph.D. from Brown University. He is currently professor of philosophy at Muhlenberg College where he has served as Director of Academic Computing, Director of Freshman Seminars, Director of the Muhlenberg Scholars Program, and Chair of the Philosophy Department. He is the author of Doing Philosophy: An Introduction through Thought Experiments, the editor of The Philosophy of Science: From Positivism to Post-modernism, and has published articles in several fields of philosophy including: philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, philosophy of religion, philosophy of language, meta-philosophy, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics. He has also contributed to a number of volumes in Open Court’s “Philosophy and Popular Culture” series as well as Blackwell’s “Philosophy for Everyone” series.

Lewis Vaughn is the author of numerous textbooks in philosophy, critical thinking, and ethics including The Power of Critical Thinking (2019); Concise Guide to Critical Thinking (2017); Philosophy Here and Now (2019); Living Philosophy: A Historical Introduction to Philosophical Ideas (2018); Doing Ethics: Moral Reasoning, Theory, and Contemporary Issues (2019); Beginning Ethics: An Introduction to Moral Philosophy (2015); Bioethics: Principles, Issues, and Cases (2017); and Writing Philosophy (2018).