Artificial Intelligence by Rob Callan

Artificial Intelligence (2003), by Rob Callan, is probably one of the best textbooks around in terms of accuracy, scope, updatedness, relevance to philosophically-minded readers and value for money. It is technical but not to the point of becoming obscure; and the author always makes a sincere and often successful attempt to explain every step. I enjoyed reading it and I would recommend it. There is also a Companion Website.

Other reviewers have found it somewhat lacking in depth and technical details but, although this might be true for students and scientists in CS, for a philosophy class on the conceptual foundations of AI this book still does very well what it is meant to do. It provides a conceptual introduction to the field, comprehensible to intelligent beginners.