Reference Sources in Generalities, Philosophy, Psychology and Religion - The 000's, 100's and 200's

1. Reference Sources in Generalities, Philosophy, Psychology and Religion - The 000's, 100's and 200's By: Alex Barger LIB 150

2. Reference Book Analysis • Title: Philosophical Propositions : An Introduction to Philosophy • Author: Jonathan Westphal • Publisher: Routledge • Released: 1998 • Language: English • Call Number: 100 Citation Westphal, Jonathan. Philosophical Propositions : An Introduction to Philosophy. Routledge. 1998.

3. Arrangement • It is arranged in 10 chapters • Then it is broken down into even smaller sections within the chapters • Here is an example of how the first chapter is broken down: Chapter 1: The Nature of a Philosophical Problem What is Philosophy? A) Introduction B) What Philosophy Is C) Two Model Problems of Philosophical Analysis D) Philosophical Problems and Pictures

4. Indexing • In the very back of the book is an index that has all of people mentioned in the book and topics covered. • It is all listed in alphabetical order.

5. Scope • The main subject of the book is an introduction to philosophy. • It begins with the main concepts of philosophy. • Then it begins posing philosophical questions, like for example: • Can the existence of God be proven? • What is certainty and what is certain? • How can time exist? • Finally, it asks to big question: What is the meaning if life?

6. Currency • The material is not as current as it could be since it was published in 1998. • However, I don’t think the main principles of philosophy have changed all that much in the last 11 years.

7. Intended Purpose • I think the people who are just being introduced to philosophy are expected to be the main users of this work. • They can use this book as a sort of beginner’s guide.

8. Additional Purposes Served • This book can be useful even for someone who is just casually interested in finding out more about philosophy and not necessarily enrolled in any philosophy-related classes.

9. Physical Format(s) • You can find the book in a number of different variations. • You can find it as a regular book (it is available for purchase at book chains like www.amazon.com). • You can also find it in an online format at the Highline Community College online library.

10. Special features • At the beginning of the book is a list of all of the figures shown throughout the book. This can be helpful for anyone who is looking for a specific illustrated figure and don’t want to waste their time looking through the whole book. • Another nice thing in the book is, also at the beginning, a preface by the author himself. In it he says that it is meant for a college class, but hopes that it will be helpful to anyone interested in learning about philosophy.

11. Authority or credentials of issuing body or authors • Mr. Westphal has indeed credentials to write Philosophical Propositions : An Introduction to Philosophy. • He is the Idaho State University Director of the Conservative Optical Logic Devices program (since 2004) • He also a Permanent Member of the Senior Common Room at University College, Oxford (since 1984) Mr. Westphal’s website http://www.isu.edu/english/Faculty/JonathanWestphal.html

12. Authority or credentials of issuing body or authors (Continued) • “The Future and the Truth-Value Links: a Common Sense View”, Analysis, 66, 1 (2006). • “Logic as a Vector System”, with Jim Hardy, Journal of Logic and Computation, 16, 1 (2006). • “Optical Vector Logic Theorem-Proving”, with H.J. Caulfield, Jim Hardy and Lei Qian, Proceedings of the 2005 Joint Conference on Information Systems, Photonics, Networking and Computing Division, Salt Lake, 2005. • “Conflicting Appearances, Necessity and the Irreducibility of Propositions about Colours”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, February (2005). • “The Logic of Optics and the Optics of Logic”, with H.J. Caulfield, Information Sciences, 162, 1 (2004). •  “A New Way with the Consequence Argument, and the Fixity of the Laws”, Analysis, 63, 3 (2003). • “The Retrenchability of ‘the Present’”, Analysis, 62, 1 (2002). •  “Leibniz and the Problem of Other Minds”, Studia Leibnitiana, 23, 2 (2001). • Philosophical Propositions, London and NY, Routledge, 1998. • “Colour: Physical or Phenomenal?” Philosophy73 (1998), with Russell Wahl. • Review of B. Maund, Colours: their Nature and Representation, in British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 48 (1997). • “Ernst Mach: An Immediate Joy in Seeing”, Times Literary Supplement, April 18 (1997). • Ed., Justice, Hackett, Indianapolis/Cambridge, MA, 1996. • “Sources of Error in the Metaphysics of Time”, Philosophical Investigations, 19 (1996). • Ed., Certainty, Hackett, Indianapolis/Cambridge, MA. 1994. • “A Problematic Phrase in Dylan Thomas’ ‘Do Not Go Gentle . . .”, The Explicator 92 (1994). •  “On Value and value: a Reply to Quentin Smith”, with Chris Cherry, Philosophy 4 (1993). • Colour: A Philosophical Introduction, 2nd ed., Aristotelian Society Series Vol. VII, Blackwell,  Oxford, 1991. • “Universals and Creativity”, Philosophy4 (1990). • “Is Life Absurd?” Philosophy 2 (1990). • “Black”, Mind99 (1990). • Review of David Armstrong, Universals, in Mind99 (1990), with Lenn Goodman. • “Whose Hue?” Times Literary Supplement, July 13 (1990), review of Charles Landesman, Color and  Consciousness. • “Leibniz and the Problem of Induction”, Studia Leibnitiana2 (1989). • Review of C.L. Hardin, Color for Philosophers: Unweaving the Rainbow, in Mind 98 (1989). “Reply  to Gilbert”, Mind97 (1988). •  “The Pardshaw Dialogues: Sense-Awareness and the Passage of Nature”, with R.B. Braithwaite, C. Clarke, Dorothy Emmet, Margaret Masterman and Rupert Sheldrake, Process Studies2 (1987). •  “White”, Mind95 (1986). • “The Complexity of Quality”, Philosophy54 (1984). • “Brown”, Inquiry28 (1982). • “White in All Possible Worlds”, Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, ed. P. Weingartner and C. Czermak, Vienna 1983. •  “The Logic of the Spectrum”, Times Literary Supplement, Sept. 18 (1978), review of L. Wittgenstein, Remarks on Colour. •  “Neo-Darwinism”, Theoria to Theory11 (1977), dialogue with R.B. Braithwaite, D. Charlesworth, B. Goodwin and G. Webster. • Editorials for Theoria to Theory 1977-1981.

13. Reviews • Philosophical Propositions is refreshingly free of the routine jog through the range of philosophical points of view. Jonathan Westphal takes students carefully through philosophical problems in a communicative and committed way.–John Shand, The Open UniversityTeachers and students interested in resolving philosophical puzzles by means of analysis will benefit much from this rigorous, clearly written text.–Paul K. Moser, Loyola University of Chicago

14. Personal impression • I personally like it. I think it is easy to read and understand. • It does not use superfluous language or jargon no one understands. It also clearly illustrates philosophical ideas. • I would recommend this to anyone taking an introductory Philosophy course, or are just interested in the subject of Philosophy.

15. Examples typifying reference uses • This book is best suited for answering questions such as: • What is Philosophy? • Why is Philosophy important? • It also gives good concepts about these questions many people have: • Can the existence of God be proven? • What is certainty and what is certain? • How can time exist?

16. If appropriate, try the same example, using suitable tools, on the world wide web and characterize your results • I typed the question “What is Philosophy?” into Google. According to Wikipedia, “Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty, justice, validity, mind, and language.” • In Philosophical Propositions: An Introduction to Philosophy, Westphal says that Philosophy is “the attempt by means of rational argument to resolve those problems, typically of great practical importance or theoretical interest, which depends on the analysis of the basic concepts in the propositions in which they are stated.” • I think Wesphal’s definition is better then Wikipedia’s because it is more precise.