Introduction to Philosophy and Critical Thinking

[panicbird]

I am interested in learning about philosophy. What book or books would you recommend? I know a little about bits and pieces of philosophy, but I would like to go more in depth.

Also, what books would you recommend on critical thinking, the use of the mind, and logic?

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Deacon]

I really enjoy R.C. Sproul (Ligonier Ministries). When he teaches philosophy it becomes interesting AND he teaches from a distinctly Christian worldview. You may disagree with him on a few things but you need to listen to everyone critically anyway.

They have a large tape ministry, including many courses on philosophy.
http://www.ligonier.org/

Rob

 

[LaymansTermsPlease]

Here is a link where you can listen to Ron Nash from SBTS discuss a good bit about it. They have it in Windows Media Player and Quicktime.

History of Philosophy and Christian Thought

 

[gb93433]

Recently I read "The Gagging of God" by D.A. Carson. In the book he shows how we have arrived where we are today and how it has been going on for a long time. It has helped me to deal with a number of people who hold different philosophies in a church. About two years ago I pointed out to a group of church leaders how they had six different philosophies present. They were rarely unable to make decisions. Making just one decision was very difficult for them to agree on. They were shackled by their own philosophies and did not know it.

 

[Jim1999]

A very good, inexpensive introductory book (paperback) on the Philosophy of Religion is the book, A Short History of Christian Thought by Linwood Urban.Published by Oxford Press. Linwood is an Episcopal minister in Pennsylvania and taught at Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.

Cheers,

Jim

 

[John Owen]

I agree that writers like Sproul, Carson and Nash are hard to beat (probably so is the other author, just have not read him)... for Philosophy from a Christian perspective you can look at A Handbook for Christian Philosophy by Bush; Christian Apologetics by Norm Geisler, and he also has a handbook devoted to logic in particular called Come Let Us Reason, co-authored by Brooks; Both And: A Balanced Apologetic by Ron Mayers; Scaling the Secular City by JP Moreland; Classical Apologetics by Sproul, Gerstner and Lindsley; Faith and Reason by Nash, as well as Life's Ultimate Questions, and Worldviews in Conflict are all good apologetic material; Faith and Understanding by Paul Helm; from the Presuppositional camp there is, of course, anything written by Van Til (you can find him on the web), and 2 books devoted to exploring his thought, one by Greg Bahnsen and the other by John Frame, Frame has also written Apologetics to the Glory of God; James White (not of Alpha and Omega) has written critiques of several of the most important modern Christian philosopher/theologians, namely Cornelius Van Til, Francis Schaeffer, Carl Henry, Donald Bloesh and Millard Erickson, in a book called What is Truth? A Comparative Study of the Positions of... (the authors just listed); there is Varieties of Christian Apologetics by Bernard Ramm, oh, and another book from a person symphathetic to Presuppositionalists is Roberty Reymond's The Justification of Knowledge which, like several of the above, deals more specifically with the branch of philosophy called Epistemology;

there are a couple of great online sites that I use all the time in looking up Informal Fallacies, which are just indispensable for clear logical thought, they are Nizkor's list at http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/index.html#index
and Stephens Guide to Logical Fallacies at http://www.intrepidsoftware.com/fallacy/toc.php

you may also want to visit the Apologetics section of The Center for Reformed Theology and Apologetics at http://www.reformed.org/apologetics/ for a bunch of good stuff...

see also God and Logic at http://www.apologeticsinfo.org/outlines/godandlogic.html

also see http://www.drury.edu/ess/Logic/Informal/Overview.html for more on informal fallacies

there is the Philosophical Dict. of Terms and Names at http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/

the Stanford Ency. of Philosophy at http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html

FaithQuest's site is at http://www.faithquest.com/modules.php?name=Sections

The Internet Ency of Philosophy is at http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/

The Virtual Library of Christian Philosophy is at http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/virtual_library/author_names.htm

another good apologetic site is A Christian Thinktank http://www.christian-thinktank.com/

a good intro article on logic is called The Nature and the Necessity of Logic at http://www.apologeticsinfo.org/papers/naturenecessity.html

hope these help!!

blessings