Name: The Philosopher's Toolkit
ISBN: 9781405190183

The Philosopher's Toolkit

The second edition of this popular compendium provides the necessary intellectual equipment to engage with and participate in effective philosophical argument, reading, and reflection Features significantly revised, updated and expanded entries, and an entirely new section drawn from methods in the history of philosophy This edition has a broad, pluralistic approach--appealing to readers in both continental philosophy and the history of philosophy, as well as analytic philosophy Explains difficult concepts in an easily accessible manner, and addresses the use and application of these concepts Proven useful to philosophy students at both beginning and advanced levels

What Hacker News says

nextosApr 2025

I really like The Philosopher's Toolkit: A Compendium of Philosophical Concepts and Methods by Baggini & Fosl.

thread

treetalkerApr 2025

Peter Bevelin's Seeking Wisdom.

The other day someone on here recommended The Philosopher's Toolkit, and I ordered a copy based on that recommendation. I've only started to dip into various parts, but I can already confirm that it is a good introductory compendium of the basics of philosophy, logic, and argumentation. In the same vein is Daniel Dennett's Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking.

A personal favorite is Frances Yates's The Art of Memory (think: intersection of rhetoric, mnemonic systems, philosophical systems, and the occult during the Renaissance).

Matthew Butterick's Practical Typography and Typography for Lawyers. Bryan Garner's The Winning Brief.

Umberto Eco's How to Write a Thesis. Adler's How to Read a Book. Pierre Bayard's How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read.

I could go on. Book posts are my favorite posts on HN, but they always lighten my wallet and at home I'm surrounded with ever-growing piles of great material.

thread

nextosOct 2022

The Philosopher's Toolkit: A Compendium of Philosophical Concepts and Methods by Baggini and Fosl. Mathematical logic, fallacies, etc. written by two famous philosophers. It's a great textbook for undergrads.

Also Statistical Models: Theory and Practice by Freedman. I refer you to Taleb's review: https://www.amazon.com/Statistical-Models-Practice-David-Fre...

"[...] This book is outstanding in the following two aspects: 1) It is of immense clarity, embedding everything in real situations, 2) It uses the real-life situation to critique the statistical model and show you the limit of statistic."

Both cover most of what you need to know to think rigorously using logic and its extension to account for uncertainty, probability.

thread

AraceliHarkerSep 2021

The Philosopher's Toolkit by Julian Baggini and Peter S. Fosl (Wiley-Blackwell)

thread

AraceliHarkerSep 2021

The Philosopher's Toolkit by Julian Baggini and Peter S. Fosl

thread

tinybear1Dec 2020

It's not necessarily a book, but I can recommend "The Philosopher's Toolkit: How to Be the Most Rational Person in Any Room", by the Great Courses on Audible.

I decided to get it with a remaining Audible credit I had, and found it to be informative and easy to understand for someone without any previous experience in philosophy. It also comes with a 200-page PDF guidebook that includes the bulk of the content and follows along with the lectures. I think it's easier to digest then just reading through a traditional book as well.

thread