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Greg Egan's "Permutation City" for philosophy of mind, identity, and computation.

Seriously, you can't not mention that.

Whoops. Didn't notice the "short fiction" specifier and Permutation City is a novel. But it is one hell of a novel, possibly the greatest work of hard philosophical SF ever developed.

Eliezer - Thanks for stopping by. I am not familiar with that novel. It looks like it is more recent than what I normally read, but I might check it out some time. According to the Amazon summary, the plot is somewhat similar to "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank," though in "Overdrawn" the character gets loaded into the computer when his body is accidentally misplaced.

I always have to put in a plug for the sadly obscure R.A. Lafferty, who didn't write anything but fairly philosophical stories.

The nativism debate is addressed directly in "Condillac's Status (or Wrens in His Head)"

The idea of a third realm from which we get our ideas is treated in "Oh Whatta Do When the Well Runs Dry?"

The common sci-fi play on perception is done in "Through Other Eyes."

Philosophy of time is adeptly treated in "Thus We Frustrate Charlemagne" and taken in a more standard way in "The Six Fingers of Time" (and more humorously treated in "Days of Grass, Days of Straw")

Philosophy of science (specifically why we adopt theories) is considered in "All Hollow Though You Be."

Determinism and freedom is handled in "Or Little Ducks Each Day"

The idea of shared unconscious is discussed in "Dream" and "Entire and Perfect Chrysolite"

Lafferty was Catholic, and he treats pretty much every possibility for non-human sentient beings and religion at some point. A couple specifics are "Name of the Snake" and "In the Garden" ("Past Master," starring Thomas More, is good too but is a novel).

Also, although these are not directly philosophical short stories, I'd be remiss in not mentioning that he has a story called "The World as Will and Wallpaper" and a chapter of a novel ("Space Chantey," his retelling of Greek mythology) retells the Atlas story in Berkelean terms.

Everything I mentioned is bound to be at least two of these three things: dark, hilarious, and thought-provoking.

Jay - Thanks for pointing this out to me. The name sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't come up with anything of his I've read, right off. I will have to look him up.

This is an absolutely fascinating exercise.

To the Sex and Gender category, I would add "The Man Who Folded Himself."

I just read "The Last Question," which I read many years ago but did not remember. It was really good!

John - Glad you are enjoying it!

I hadn't heard of "The Man Who Folded Himself" before. I looked it up on Wikipedia. For the information of other readers, this is evidently a 1973 novel by David Gerrold. Looks like it could also go under philosophy of space and time.

Every single book by Philip K. Dick deals with the question of reality per se. What is real and what is not? Is reality and our conception of reality two entirely different things? Are there "authentical fakes" and "fake authenticity"? Dick said it best himself: "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
Some paradox, right...?

Dan Simmons in the Hyperion and Endymion series of books.

Frank Herbert's God Emperor of Dune has quite a bit of religious philosophy in it, I think. So does his trilogy including "The Jesus Incident", "The Lazarus Effect," and "The Ascention Factor" all dealing with the fallout from an AI created by man, who decides that it is god.

Altered Carbon, Broken Angels and Woken Furies all by Richard Morgan. Hardcore cyberpunk, they offer a shocking new way in which human life is lived and the value placed on that life. Highly recommended!

I don't grok why _Stranger in a Strange land_ is not on the list. Religion, spirituality, institutionalism, sexuality...

Ah, short fiction.

Yes. Stranger in a Strange Land is a favorite of mine, actually, and it raises a lot of interesting issues.

You certainly have to include "The Disposessed" by Ursula K. Le Guin. It's certainly on of the best explorations on the concept of utopian society. Her Earth Sea Trilogy, though written for young adults obviously tackles some thorny philosophical issues.

Not quite in the same literary league, but certainly thoughtful, would be the works of L.E. Modesitt Jr., which include explorations of the balance of ecological morality and personal responsibility.

ursula le guin & octavia butler *need* to be on here...

The Unincorporated man by the Kollin brothers is compared to Heinlein and talks of ethics and cryogenics.

The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke.

The Worthing Saga by Orson Scott Card for philosophy of Religion.

Chad - I did think about that one, but I thought "The Star" was a lot better. Are there some specific issues raised by "The Nine Billion Names" that you had in mind?

Starship Troopers and the Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein. The libertarian model - How should government work; what is a citizen’s responsibility? (The movie sucked)

The short story, "Wang's Carpets" by Greg Egan, since expanded into the novel Diaspora, explores concepts of solipsism and centers around two cultures of earth in the far future one of which is exploring space to search for intelligent life and the other that stays home and says, why bother we can simulate evolution on a computer and evolve intelligent life there. The space explorers discover life that may or may not fit within either philosophy.

Instead of all of Permutation City, you could read the short story "Dust" that it elaborated upon.

You asked for short stories, but I might recommend the novel "Blindsight" by Peter Watts which explores the nature and asks the question of whether intelligence necessarily requires consciousness as a team of astronauts are sent to meet a very aloof alien spacecraft before it enters the solar system.

http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm

Sticking with your old stories implies that nothing new has been said about philosophy in science fiction since the 70's or that there has been no new philosophy to be explored since then. Perhaps that is true, I doubt it. Thus your list doesn't necessarily contain the best example of a science fiction short story illustrating a given philosophical concept or even the most important philosophical concepts that you might want to illustrate using a science fiction short story.

That being said, I am only a critic, I don't create. Good luck with your task, and get out and read some newer stuff that might help you accomplish it. I suggest the Year's Best Science Fiction Volumes 1 through 26 edited by Gardner Dozois for a good summary of the best science fiction short stories of the past 26 years. It is only about 13 million words of fiction.

I don't know about The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, but Starship Troopers was strongly statist. It virtually deified the state as it called upon people to serve it unconditionally. Great novel, but not libertarian at all.

John - That was also my initial impression of Starship Troopers. However, the book is often interpreted as ironic. On this reading, the whole point is that the humans in their statist society are not really much different from the bugs after all.

I don't know if Starship Troopers or The Moon is a Harsh Mistress could be classified as libertarian. They are definitely political Starship advocates freedom through service restricting the vote to those who served. Moon on the other hand is advocating the overthrow of colonial oppression. As they write a constitution in preparation for their success it is based on the U.S. constitution and personal freedoms. The constitution is really secondary to the rebellion though.

I guess this is a short fiction list, but i have to say, Terry Pratchett (would not be sci-fi, but fantasy I guess) explores lots and lots of philosophical questions and is well known for exploring human nature and the nature of evil.

In the sci-fi section, the book "The Gumshoe, the Witch, and the Virtual Corpse" explores the nature of religious identity and religious conflict in America. In particular, it explores religious tolerance and what precursors are necessary for religious tolerance in a democratic society.

The short story compilation "The Folk of the Fringe" (1989) explores the nature of American and Mormon identity, and several stories explore what is required for a democratic society to exist (I would recommend this book to any class addressing religion and sci-fi, get the book with the forward addressing the themes if you use it).

Furthermore, the Nancy Kress short story/novella "Beggars in Spain" (and the resulting novel[s]) explores the very philosophical question about what productive members of society owe those who do not contribute anything (the beggars in spain philosophical question) and gives a very anti-libertarian answer. She also has a short story published a couple years ago which explores what would happen to society if the need to produce was taken away (can't remember what it was, but this question is also addressed in the Beggars in Spain series).

As others have said, this list is pretty short and seems to go for older fiction. There aren't a lot of women on the list (seriously, a lot of older women sci-fi writers wrote under male pseudonyms and even those pseudonyms aren't here) and it seems to ignore the fact that you could go through many sci-fi collections, magazines, and anthologies and find stories that address philosophical questions.

Ben Wood has recently started his own fiction story site called Army of Puppets.

Its an interesting way of showing a story.

http://www.armyofpuppets.com

For sci-fi and philosophy of religion:

Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow (1996)
Mary Doria Russell, The Children of God (1998)
Robert J. Sawer, Calculating God (2000)

Primordial Labyrinth by John A. Ayala explores morality, nihilism, and the post-human.