Week 7 · Readings & resources

Week 7 — Readings & Resources

Introduction to Philosophy Free sample edition

Your primary reading is Chapter 7 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 11 items (5 readings and 6 videos). Allow 77–98 minutes for everything. Each group points back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more depth, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.

Pick-one quick path (19–22 min total)

① What stays the same when every part changes?

Chapter 7, Section “Test a ship: the ship of Theseus” · Session 1, Segment 1, “Two senses of same and the ship of Theseus” · Remember: identity over time asks about one and the same thing, not about looking exactly alike.

The Ship of Theseus (Metaphysics of Identity) — Philosophy Vibe — an animated conversation between two speakers who walk the ship from one replaced plank to all of them, ask at what point it stopped being the same ship, and set a principle that things survive change against a principle that a thing is its parts. It places the ship in a museum and credits the rebuilt-ship twist to Thomas Hobbes; the course pins neither detail and labels that twist as its own variation, so treat both as the video's own. Use it while working through the Week-7 module overview. (video, 8 min) (captions: automatic)
Personal Identity, section 1.a: Criteria and the Identity Relation — Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy — a short reference section that separates being one and the same thing from being exactly alike, the chapter's numerical and qualitative identity, and says personal identity is a question of the first kind. This builds on Week 6's question of what a mind is, now asked across time. The later sections, on fission and on whether identity matters, go beyond this week. (reading, 5–8 min)

② Memory, no-self, and the chariot

Chapter 7, Section “Turn to persons: Locke's memory theory” · Session 1, Segment 2, “Personal identity: memory and no-self” · Remember: the memory theory links a person to the past by memory, and no-self denies a permanent self, not persons.

Personal Identity: Crash Course Philosophy #19 — CrashCourse — an episode that sets a body theory against Locke's memory theory, explains how a chain of memories links you to an earlier self, and then presses the theory with the years no one remembers, memory loss late in life, and false memories. It adds a body-swap thought experiment the course does not pin and some facts about cell replacement that are the episode's own; skip those and keep the memory theory and its objections. (video, 9 min) (captions: creator)
A Buddhist Story About No-Self — SEEKER TO SEEKER — a five-minute retelling of the chariot dialogue between the monk Nagasena and King Milinda: the king objects that without a self no one could give, act, or be blamed, and the monk answers by asking whether the pole, the axle, the wheels, or the pile of parts is the chariot. It reads lines from an unnamed translation; the course quotes none of them, so describe the teaching in your own words, and notice that it denies a permanent self, not that persons exist. (video, 5 min) (captions: creator)
King Milinda's Chariot — Turning Wheel Buddhist Temple — a Buddhist temple's own retelling of the chariot story, in its own terms, followed by a reflection that the teaching denies a separate self while keeping a functioning person, with a water molecule and a missing chariot part as examples. Its dates for the king and the text and its closing quotation from a Zen teacher are the page's own and are not pinned in this course. (reading, 6–10 min)

③ Caused, free, or both?

Chapter 7, Section “Meet the three positions: hard determinism first” · Session 2, Segment 3, “Determinism, fatalism, and the three positions” · Remember: determinism is not fatalism, and compatibilism takes no stand of its own on whether determinism is true.

Determinism vs Free Will: Crash Course Philosophy #24 — CrashCourse — an episode that sets libertarian free will, which it separates from political libertarianism, against hard determinism, with agent causation as the libertarian's way out and the question of whether an uncaused choice would be random. Its opening story about Oedipus is about fate, which the chapter calls fatalism, so check it against the domino line; and its closing lean toward hard determinism is the episode's view, since the course keys no verdict. (video, 10 min) (captions: creator)
Free Will and Determinism — Philosophy Vibe — a two-speaker debate that starts from a choice between a chocolate bar and an apple, builds the hard determinist case from cause and effect, raises praise and blame, and then states soft determinism, another name for compatibilism, as acting from internal rather than external causes; the speakers end still disagreeing. Its quotations from earlier thinkers come with no pinned source, and its turn to God's foreknowledge goes beyond this week, so skip that part. (video, 10 min) (captions: automatic)
Compatibilism, section 1: Free Will and the Problem of Causal Determinism — online Encyclopedia of Philosophy (reference entry) — read section 1 and its three short parts for how determinism seems to threaten both the ability to do otherwise and being the source of your own actions, and how compatibilists reply in different ways; section 3.2 returns to Frankfurt's challenge if you want more. Skip the later sections on particular contemporary theories. (reading, 10–15 min)

④ Responsible without alternatives?

Chapter 7, Section “Run a Frankfurt case: responsibility without alternatives” · Session 2, Segment 4, “Frankfurt's cases and responsibility” · Remember: a Frankfurt case asks whether you can be responsible for an act even when you could not have done otherwise.

Moral Responsibility and Frankfurt Cases - Philosophical Arguments in a Nutshell — Philosophical Questions — a short explainer that states the principle of alternative possibilities, credits the counterexample to Harry Frankfurt in 1969, and walks through one Frankfurt case in which a hidden chip that would have forced a decision is never switched on. Its example involves a crime; the course's own variation uses a late report, and the shape of the case is the same. (video, 3 min) (captions: automatic)
Frankfurt cases — Wikipedia — a reference article. Read the sections on the principle of alternate possibilities and on Frankfurt's objection, where an observer would intervene only if the agent were about to choose otherwise and never has to. The later sections on criticism and responses name many later philosophers and go beyond this week. (reading, 6–10 min)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

Theseus, by Plutarch, translated by John Dryden — The Internet Classics Archive — Plutarch's whole Life of Theseus in Dryden's English, free to read online. Search the page for the word planks to find the passage the course quotes, about two-thirds of the way down, and read the sentences around it, where the ship becomes an example for philosophers; then say whose English words you are reading. The rest of the Life, Theseus' adventures, goes beyond this week. (reading, 5–10 min)

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell your instructor and use the reference above in the meantime.

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