Sixth Form Recommended Reading

Philosophy

“ The more you know, the more you don ’ t know. ” Aristotle

The Philosopher’s Toolkit by Peter S. Fosl & Julian Baggini

Whether used as a guide to basic principles or a resource for key concepts and methods, The Philosopher's Toolkit equips readers with all the intellectual ‘tools’ necessary for engaging closely with philosophical argument and developing fluency in the methods and language of philosophical inquiry. Featuring accessible explanations, practical examples, and expert guidance, this text empowers readers to understand traditional philosophical thinking and to engage with new ideas.

Philosophy Bites by David Edmonds & Nigel Warburton

In recent years, some of the world's leading philosophers have held forth on their favorite topics on the immensely popular website philosophybites.com. This remarkably popular site has had to date some 12.5 million downloads, and is listened to all over the globe. Philosophy Bites brings together the twenty-five best interviews from this hugely successful website. Leading philosophers-including Simon Blackburn, Alain de Botton, Will Kymlicka, Alexander Nehamas, and more than twenty others-discuss a wide range of philosophical issues in a surprisingly lively, informal, and personal way.

Here Peter Singer argues forcefully for vegetarianism, Anthony Appiah discusses cosmopolitanism, and Stephen Law shows why it is unreasonable to believe in an all powerful, all-good deity. Time, infinity, evil, friendship, animals, wine, sport, tragedy-all of human life is here. And as these bite-sized interviews reveal, often the most brilliant philosophers are eager and able to convey their thoughts, simply and clearly, on the great ideas of philosophy. Publishers Weekly called the volume "thoughtful and highly readable," concluding that "these bite-size dialogues add up to a surprisingly substantial whole."