For use in my courses, additions to my Texts in Philosophy page.
Frédéric Bastiat, The Law (1850).
Charles Darwin, “On Evolution” (1859). Darwin summarizes the evidence for evolution by natural selection.
Carl Hempel, “Semmelweis and Childbed Fever” (1966). How Dr. Semmelweis discovered the cause of childbed fever.
Murdoch Pencil, “Salt Passage Research: The State of the Art” (1976). A lampooning of social science research.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, excerpt from Émile: “Children Should Not Be Reasoned With” (1762).
John Wigmore, “The Borden Case” (1893). Professor Wigmore summarizes the evidence presented in the notorious Lizzie Borden double-murder trial.
I’m a bit of a heretic with regard to evolutionary theory…I don’t see Darwin’s greatest achievement as his presentation of evolutionary theory. Many before him had considered the topic, and at least one other person came to a nearly identical conclusion as Darwin. His grandfather looked at the evidence and came to a similar conclusion, but chose to publish poetry rather than science. Further, Darwin didn’t present a full theory. He never explained how diversity arose; that was left to Mendel and de Vrise.
What Darwin’s greatest achievement was, is how he presented it. Darwin examined the arguments against evolution carefully and rigorously, and presented them faithfully–to the point where his opponents couldn’t formulate their arguments better than Darwin himself had. Darwin then addressed these arguments with equal care and rigor. This left the opposition with very little room to continue opposing the arguments Darwin presented. Darwin countered many arguments against his theory well before anyone proposed them!
This is a particularly important lesson in today’s world. Today, ignorance of the opposition is considered a virtue–to read what the other side says is viewed as being contaminated by the opposition. So we’re left with alleged intellectuals and people in high office genuinely puzzled as to why they can’t reach across the aisle. We have people who remain honestly surprised to meet someone who voted for Trump (never mind the fact that nearly half the voters in the country did so). And so on. The result is that in pretty much every “debate” today each side is screaming as loudly as they can and neither side is hearing the other. It’s a genuine epistemological crisis.