Choosing a Textbook for Problems of Philosophy

Here’s a common situation: A doctoral student or recent PhD is asked to teach a standard introduction to the problems of philosophy. No single reading list for all sections is in use, so each individual instructor is expected to decide what to assign.

The inexperienced teacher is apt to create a syllabus by choosing favorite articles that were discussed in graduate school and making these  available on line or having the bookstore collect them in a course pack. An obvious difficulty with this approach, however, is that materials appropriate for a graduate seminar are not likely to suit the needs of beginning students. If this concern is not taken seriously, then one semester of attempting to implement the plan will likely make clear its inadequacy.

Furthermore, the online or course pack options are not as free of technical difficulties as might be supposed. After all, the bookstore needs to obtain permission to reprint any copyrighted material, and the resultant fees, sometimes large, will be passed on to students in the price of their course pack. As for placing copyrighted material on line, the process needs to be carried out within a variety of legal constraints that require consultation with the school’s general counsel’s office.

Is another choice available to instructors? Yes, but it is unlikely to have been mentioned in graduate school, where thinking about such matters is at best neglected or at worst disparaged. An available option is to use an anthology in which readings are grouped by topic and drawn from historical and contemporary sources. Undergraduates thereby become acquainted with major issues in philosophy, read important past and recent writings on each subject, and think through controversial matters for themselves.

Although the numerous introductory readers differ from each other in many ways, they have in common a table of contents with 50 to 100 selections, plus a variety of pedagogical features, including introductions, study questions, bibliographies, a glossary, an index, and so on. Importantly, each collection reflects not merely the preferences of its own editors but input from numerous instructors around the country whose names are usually listed in the acknowledgments. Such assistance from those who have taught the course at institutions large and small is an invaluable resource for editors. Why not, then, have a look at their work? I have heard at least three reasons for not doing so.

First, anthologies can be expensive. True, and if the cost of a text is prohibitive, it should not be used. Yet collections at reasonable price are available.

Second, anthologies contain more material that can be covered in a single course. Again true, but an anthology displays the breadth of the subject, and students can easily explore topics of interest that the instructor might have chosen to bypass, whether from lack of time, interest, or knowledge of all the articles. A collection thus frees students from the limited  perspective of any single instructor, providing not only a range of selections but also pedagogical tools.

A third concern is that no anthology contains the exact readings any instructor wishes to assign. True again, but one or more collections are likely to fit the teacher’s preferences, offering most of what is wished as well as unexpected material that may work well. Thus the only reasonable way to decide whether an anthology might be an effective choice is to view its contents. Blanket rejection of all possibilities, sight unseen, is unjustified and most often stems from unfamiliarity with the options.

In addition, obtaining review copies of these books is simple and cost free. Any teacher can email the leading textbook publishers and request their introductory anthologies. Publishers will be pleased to provide them in the hope that one might be adopted. (Incidentally, graduate departments would perform a valuable service by obtaining the most widely used introductory readers and having them available to be perused by potential instructors.)

Each anthology should be checked not only for price and coverage but also for the difficulty of the readings. The same philosophical issue can be approached through either relatively simple selections or far more complex ones. While a demanding book may be appropriate for a sophisticated audience, assigning overly difficult readings to students unprepared to handle them is a common cause of classroom distress. Admittedly, studying philosophy is challenging, but why ask students to read material  few, if any, can understand?

One important guideline in selecting any text is never to adopt one that has not been examined personally. For students on a tight budget to be asked to buy a book, then be told during the semester that it doesn’t contain the right materials is, to put it mildly, annoying.

Some may suppose that deciding on an appropriate text is not worth much time or effort. The opposite, however, is the case. For example, in one undergraduate philosophy department, where I happen to know a member, complaints were received from students in various sections of the introductory course. None of the dissatisfaction, however, came from those who used a particularly accessible anthology. When all instructors were encouraged to adopt that book, the problems disappeared. The lesson is that success in the classroom depends not only on the quality of teaching but also on the content of readings. An unwise decision can undermine student interest, while a suitable choice can be a boon to learning.

Steven M. Cahn

Steven M Cahn is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Among the recent books he has authored are Teaching Philosophy: A Guide (Routledge, 2018); Inside Academia: Professors, Politics, and Policies (Rutgers, 2019); Navigating Academic Life: How the System Works (Routledge, 2021); Professors as Teachers (Wipf and Stock, 2022), and, most recently, From Student to Scholar: A Candid Guide to Becoming a Professor, Second Edition (Wipf and Stock, 2024).