Final Paper Topics




Choose one question from each set. Write at least 3 pages for each question. Show me what you've learned by not only explaining positions, arguments and concepts, but by critiquing them.

Set #1 Metaphysics

1. The premoderns considered metaphysics to be "first philosophy." What does this mean? Explain in detail, paying particular attention to Heraclitus, Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle and St. Thomas. What difference does it make to hold this position? How did Descartes challenge it?

2. If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? Explain and evaluate Berkeley's answer.

3. Discuss the notion of substance, as understood by Aristotle, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Evaluate their positions. What kinds of substances do you think there are? Why? Or do you reject the notion? Why? If you reject it, how do you explain what is real?

3. Is change real? Which philosophers denied it, and how did they argue against it? Which philosophers accepted it, and how did they argue for it? In other words, can something be the same thing over time? If so, how? If not, why not?

4. Consider an apple. Take away its redness, its smell, its texture, its shape… (i.e. all its properties). Is there anything left? Can there be a “bare particular”? Explain the bundle theory. Why would someone adopt it? Give some arguments against it, and show how substance theory is an alternative to the bundle theory. Which theory do you think is more plausible? Why?

5. Discuss the realism/anti-realism debate. What is realism? What are some arguments for realism? Against realism? Explain the various anti-realist positions. What are the arguments for and against them? Articulate and defend your own position.

6. What is a Transcendental? Discuss the Thomistic doctrine of transcendental truth. How would Kant respond to the Thomistic idea of transcendentals? Which view most closely matches your own? Why?

Set #2: Epistemology

1. What is knowledge?(Give the standard account and explain it). How does the Gettier problem impact this definition?

2. What is the best definition of truth? Critically examine the three theories we looked at. When people say, "This is true for me, but not necessarily for you," what do they mean?

3. Discuss the relation of justification to knowledge. What is the difference between classical and contemporary foundationalists? Why have contemporary foundationalists modified the classical position? Be sure to explain Sosa's images of raft and pyramid; the details of the internalist-externalist debate; reliabilism and virtue ethics.

4. Discuss the differences between rationalism and empiricism, with reference to at least one philosopher representing each position. What are the strengths and weaknesses of each position? How would you characterize yourself?

5. Discuss the differences between a priori and a posteriori knowledge, with reference to at least one philosopher for each source. Do we have innate ideas? Evaluate the empiricist's critque against innate ideas. Explain how Quine rejects the analytic/synthetic distinction, and the result of this for a priori knowledge. What is at stake if we accept or reject a priori knowledge?

6. What is skepticism? Distinguish Descartes' skepticism from Hume's skepticism. Which type does more damage to us as knowers? Can you refute the skeptic? Which arguments against skepticism seem most plausible to you? Hume said that we cannot live as skeptics. If this is so, then what is the lesson-- if any--of skepticism?

7. Discuss the three theories of perception: direct realism, representationalism, and idealism/phenomenalism. (Be sure to include the major philosophers who held these positions, and why they did so.) What are the strengths and weaknesses of these theories? Which theory makes the most sense? Why?

Sir John Tavener





Have you ever heard Sir John Tavener's Akathist of Thanksgiving? Tavener wrote this ethereal piece in 1988, after his conversion to Russian Orthodoxy. A choral work, it features repetition, chimes, and a tremendous continuous droning bass line.Andrew Marr, OSB writes, at http://andrewmarr.homestead.com/files/music/tavener.htm

One of Tavener's characteristics is use of the ison, a drone--usually pitched very low--that sounds throughout a piece, even at the risk of wearying a performer who is assigned this task. Tavener refers to this as the "eternity note," the note that attests to the presence of God. This note does not anchor a piece the way a tonic note does by exerting a gravitational pull on the other notes. Rather, the drone offers a sense of underlying stability that allows other musical voices to move all over the place without becoming unhinged. Theologically, the drone portrays God's sustenance of creation without God exerting a suffocating control over it. That is, God does not pull creatures to the Godhead, God holds all of them in being. But for all this freedom of movement, there is no escape from the underlying divine presence.

At last! I finally understand why Orthodox church music has always captivated me. Tavener describes his music as an icon, except using tones instead of paint. If the Akathist of Thanksgiving is any indication, Taverner's music does indeed provide us a window to God. I must explore more of it.

Schedule for Remainder of Term

Monday, November 20

VIRTUE EPISTEMOLOGY
Wood, Ch.6.2, "Virtue Epistemology and the Internalism-externalism Debate"
K and R: Sosa, Knowledge and Intellectual Virtue" p. 146

Wednesday, Nov. 22
NO CLASS - Thanksgiving travel

Friday, Nov. 24
NO CLASS - Thanksgiving break

Monday, Nov. 27

QUINE'S NATURALIZED EPISTEMOLOGY
handout

Wednesday, Nov. 29

EPISTEMOLOGY AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF
Wood, Ch. 7-7.2

Friday, December 1

Wood, ch. 7.3 Reformed Epistemology

Monday, December 4

EMOTIONS AND KNOWLEDGE
Wood, Ch. 8, "The Role of Emotions and Virtues in Proper Cognitive Functioning"

Wednesday, December 6

Final Remarks:
Living the truth: Omnes ens est verum (All that is real is true)

Squashed Philosophers


This is a very interesting site...

http://www.btinternet.com/~glynhughes/squashed/index.htm




ABOUT THE 'SQUASHED PHILOSOPHERS' SERIES

There is no taking-part in the 'Great Debate' of Western civilisation, the debate about who we are, how we should be governed, how we think and how we ought to behave, without some familiarity with the, remarkably few, thinkers in whose language and idiom the talk is conducted.

Unfortunately, life is rather short, the little storeroom of the brain doesn't have extensible walls and the greatest of thinkers seem to also be among the worst, and the lengthiest, of writers. So, most knowledge of Plato or Hume or Aristotle tends to come second-hand, unfortunately too often through masters more filled with pompous pleasure in their own mastery of complexity than with knowledge of their subject. Which is a pity, because your Prince, whether they call themselves President or King or Prime Minister, has almost certainly read Machiavelli. Your therapist is steeped in Freud, your divines in Augustine. Lawmakers take their cues still from Paine, Rousseau and Hobbes. Science looks yet to Bacon, Copernicus and Darwin.

So, here are the most used, most quoted, the most given, sources of the West. The books that have defined the way the West thinks now, in their author's own words, but condensed and abridged into something readable.

I'd like to say that the selection was far from arbitrary; that thousands of papers and essays and articles were scanned to find which great works were most commonly cited, which prescribed to students, which have the most published editions. The shades of these authors were invoked no less than 588 times in the last decade in the British parliament. Plato's Republic, and assorted commentaries, has 1722 editions, and that's just in English, and just in print at the moment. Machiavelli gets mention in just over a quarter of a million websites. Thomas Paine's name has appeared 186,526 times to the US House of Representatives. And so on. It is true that all this research has been done, but, the choice has, ultimately, to be a personal one.

There's nothing new in making condensed versions of the classics. What is different here is that these are neither the opinion of one person nor mere extracts. Instead, each has begun with a very wide analysis of quotations, citations and, especially, past examination papers (including UK A-Levels back to 1976), to establish which passages, which phrases, which lines, which words and which ideas, are generally considered the most important. Those essential parts have, as far as is reasonable, been left complete and untouched in the authors' or translators' original words. It is just the stuff between which has been squashed up, except when it is really interesting- like St Augustine's mother's alcoholism, Hobbes on Angels or Adam Smith on why Irish prostitutes are so very beautiful.

And there's something more. By compressing these books to a tenth or so of their original size it becomes possible to read the whole thing as a single narrative, as the story of Western Thought, the story of how we got where we are now, the last chapter still waiting to be written. Is it cheating? Perhaps, but if it is, then so is reading Plato in anything other than unical Attic on papyrus.


Glyn Hughes
Adlington
October 2003
glynhughes@btinternet.com

Red pill or blue pill?

The question of which pill to take illustrates the personal aspect of the decision to study philosophy. Do you live on in ignorance (and potentially bliss) or do you lead what Aristotle called 'the examined life'...

The Matrix is a film filled with religious and philosophical symbolism. The plot supposes that humans live in vats many years in the future, being fed false sensory information by a giant virtual reality computer (the Matrix). The perpetrators of this horror are machines of the future who use humans as a source of power. Humans are literally farmed.

The central character of the film, Neo, is presented to us in the opening part of the film as a loner who is searching for a mysterious character called Morpheus (named after the Greek god of dreams and sleep). He is also trying to discover the answer to the question "What is the Matrix?"

Morpheus contacts Neo just as the machines (posing as sinister 'agents') are trying to keep Neo from finding out any more. When Morpheus and Neo meet, Morpheus offers Neo two pills. The red pill will answer the question "what is the Matrix?" (by removing him from it) and the blue pill simply for life to carry on as before. As Neo reaches for the red pill Morpheus warns Neo "Remember, all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more."

The film as a whole and especially the choosing scene is deeply compelling. Why is the choice between what you believe you know and an unknown 'real' truth so fascinating? How could a choice possibly be made? On the one hand everyone you love and everything that you have built you life upon. One the other the promise only of truth.


The question then is not about pills, but what they stand for in these circumstances. The question is asking us whether reality, truth, is worth pursuing. The blue pill will leave us as we are, in a life consisting of habit, of things we believe we know. We are comfortable, we do not need truth to live. The blue pill symbolises commuting to work every day, or brushing your teeth.

The red pill is an unknown quantity. We are told that it can help us to find the truth. We don't know what that truth is, or even that the pill will help us to find it. The red pill symbolises risk, doubt and questioning. In order to answer the question, you can gamble your whole life and world on a reality you have never experienced.

However, in order to investigate which course of action to take we need to investigate why the choice is faced. Why should we even have to decide whether to pursue truth?

The answer in short, is inquisitiveness. Many people throughout human existence have questioned and enquired. Most of them have not been scientists or doctors or philosophers, but simply ordinary people asking 'what if?' or 'why?' Asking these questions ultimately leads us to a choice. Do you continue to ask and investigate, or do you stop and never ask again? This in essence, is the question posed to Neo in the film.

So what are the advantages of taking the blue pill? As one of the characters in the film says, "ignorance is bliss" Essentially, if the truth is unknown, or you believe that you know the truth, what is there to question or worry about?

By accepting what we are told and experience life can be easier. There is the social pressure to 'fit in', which is immensely strong in most cultures. Questioning the status quo carries the danger of ostracism, possibly persecution. This aspect has a strong link with politics. People doing well under the current system are not inclined to look favourably on those who question the system. Morpheus says to Neo "You have to understand that many people are not ready to be unplugged, and many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it."

The system also has a place for you, an expected path to follow. This removes much of the doubt and discomfort experienced by a trailblazer.

Another argument on the side of the blue pill is how does anyone know that the status quo is not in fact the truth? The act of simply questioning does not infer a lack of validity on the questioned. Why not assume that your experience is innocent until proven guilty? Just accept everything?

So if the arguments for the blue pill are so numerous, why take the red pill? Why pursue truth even though it may be unpalatable and the journey to it hard? In the film, Neo risks death to escape the virtual reality and discovers a brutal reality from which he cannot return. As he discovers the trouble with asking questions is that the answers are not necessarily what you want to hear.

To justify taking the red pill we might ask what is the purpose of an ignorant existence? Further still, what is there in merely existing? Simply existing brings humans down to the level of objects; they might have utility or even purpose, but where is the meaning? Existence without meaning is surely not living your life, but just experiencing it. As Trinity says to Neo, "The Matrix cannot tell you who you are."

The question of which pill to take illustrates the personal aspect of the decision to study philosophy. Do you live on in ignorance (and potentially bliss) or do you lead what Aristotle called 'the examined life'...

The Matrix is a film filled with religious and philosophical symbolism. The plot supposes that humans live in vats many years in the future, being fed false sensory information by a giant virtual reality computer (the Matrix). The perpetrators of this horror are machines of the future who use humans as a source of power. Humans are literally farmed.

The central character of the film, Neo, is presented to us in the opening part of the film as a loner who is searching for a mysterious character called Morpheus (named after the Greek god of dreams and sleep). He is also trying to discover the answer to the question "What is the Matrix?"

Morpheus contacts Neo just as the machines (posing as sinister 'agents') are trying to keep Neo from finding out any more. When Morpheus and Neo meet, Morpheus offers Neo two pills. The red pill will answer the question "what is the Matrix?" (by removing him from it) and the blue pill simply for life to carry on as before. As Neo reaches for the red pill Morpheus warns Neo "Remember, all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more."

The film as a whole and especially the choosing scene is deeply compelling. Why is the choice between what you believe you know and an unknown 'real' truth so fascinating? How could a choice possibly be made? On the one hand everyone you love and everything that you have built you life upon. One the other the promise only of truth.


The question then is not about pills, but what they stand for in these circumstances. The question is asking us whether reality, truth, is worth pursuing. The blue pill will leave us as we are, in a life consisting of habit, of things we believe we know. We are comfortable, we do not need truth to live. The blue pill symbolises commuting to work every day, or brushing your teeth.

The red pill is an unknown quantity. We are told that it can help us to find the truth. We don't know what that truth is, or even that the pill will help us to find it. The red pill symbolises risk, doubt and questioning. In order to answer the question, you can gamble your whole life and world on a reality you have never experienced.

However, in order to investigate which course of action to take we need to investigate why the choice is faced. Why should we even have to decide whether to pursue truth?

The answer in short, is inquisitiveness. Many people throughout human existence have questioned and enquired. Most of them have not been scientists or doctors or philosophers, but simply ordinary people asking 'what if?' or 'why?' Asking these questions ultimately leads us to a choice. Do you continue to ask and investigate, or do you stop and never ask again? This in essence, is the question posed to Neo in the film.

So what are the advantages of taking the blue pill? As one of the characters in the film says, "ignorance is bliss" Essentially, if the truth is unknown, or you believe that you know the truth, what is there to question or worry about?

By accepting what we are told and experience life can be easier. There is the social pressure to 'fit in', which is immensely strong in most cultures. Questioning the status quo carries the danger of ostracism, possibly persecution. This aspect has a strong link with politics. People doing well under the current system are not inclined to look favourably on those who question the system. Morpheus says to Neo "You have to understand that many people are not ready to be unplugged, and many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it."

The system also has a place for you, an expected path to follow. This removes much of the doubt and discomfort experienced by a trailblazer.

Another argument on the side of the blue pill is how does anyone know that the status quo is not in fact the truth? The act of simply questioning does not infer a lack of validity on the questioned. Why not assume that your experience is innocent until proven guilty? Just accept everything?

So if the arguments for the blue pill are so numerous, why take the red pill? Why pursue truth even though it may be unpalatable and the journey to it hard? In the film, Neo risks death to escape the virtual reality and discovers a brutal reality from which he cannot return. As he discovers the trouble with asking questions is that the answers are not necessarily what you want to hear.

To justify taking the red pill we might ask what is the purpose of an ignorant existence? Further still, what is there in merely existing? Simply existing brings humans down to the level of objects; they might have utility or even purpose, but where is the meaning? Existence without meaning is surely not living your life, but just experiencing it. As Trinity says to Neo, "The Matrix cannot tell you who you are."
Randomness
My understanding of 'learning', 'unemployment', or 'technology', for example, will not be exactly the same as yours. There will be meanings, images and details associated with these concepts which are particular to me, and a product of my personal history and educational experience. Even so, there will be ideas and feelings whjich are generally associated with these terms, and a core of meaning in common which enables me to communicate with others about them

Mary Thorpe - in Open University learning guide - Article: Concepts between Wittgenstein and NLP...

about randomness

Given the potential disadvantages of choosing the red pill, the motivation for discovering the truth must then be very strong. The film makes much of this point. Trinity says to Neo "It's the question that drives us, Neo." and Morpheus compares the motivation for Neo's search to "a splinter in your mind - driving you mad." The motivation for answering the question is obviously strong as the answer will help us to find the meaning in our lives.

What we are looking at here is the drive to answer a question, but the key to this is what drove the question in the first place. The asking of questions about our environment our experience and ourselves is fundamental to the human condition. Children ask a seemingly never-ending stream of questions from an early age. It is only with education and socialisation that some people stop asking these questions. However, we remain, as it were, hard-wired to enquire.

This is an inevitable consequence of consciousness. A being with a mind, conscious of itself and its existence, experiencing a reality, needs to organise the data that it receives from its senses. Simply observing and recording does not allow for consciousness. It is what we do with that information that allows us to think. In order to process and store the vast amount of information received, the human brain attempts to identify patterns in the data; looking for the patterns behind what is experienced. This is asking questions of the sensory information, and requires reasoning. By definition a conscious mind seeks to know. Knowing something requires more than just data, but intelligence or reasoning applied to that data. To attempt to obtain knowledge we must therefore question the data our mind receives; thus, consciousness questions.

So the metaphor of the journey to truth that Neo takes is complete. The journey starts with a question, there is a search for the answer and the answer may be reached. This shows us that the journey does not start with Neo choosing between the pills, or with ourselves deciding whether to question. The act of asking the question is itself the starting point as the aim of asking the question is to seek truth and knowledge.

We have established that consciousness is aware and seeks knowledge and that thus the conscious mind must question. To question is to seek the truth and start on the journey to knowledge. Therefore the choice between the pills is surely made for us. The fact that we are conscious appears to require us to take the red pill.

However, this can be simply countered by someone who would prefer to take the blue pill. They may wish to seek the truth in a different way, or in a less mind jarring set of circumstances. They can choose the blue pill and not deny their consciousness, but to stop seeking the truth entirely would be to deny their consciousness.

Thus we are philosophically driven to seek the truth and the act of questioning whether to seek it is in itself seeking the truth. As conscious minds we will always seek the truth. However, the choice over the red or blue pills is not solely a choice between whether to question or not, it is a personal choice on the method of discovering the truth.

--From http://www.arrod.co.uk/essays/matrix.php

Plato's Divided Line

http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/rhatch/HIS-SCI-STUDY-GUIDE/0019_platoDividedLine.html

“Lost in Wonder, Love and Praise”


Part of the business of being human is wondering. That pagan Greek, Aristotle, recognized that wonder was the root of both philosophy and poetry. Philosophers wonder about; poets wonder at. In my classes, we called the first kind of discursive wondering “ratio;” the second kind of intuitive wondering “intellectus.”

But as Christians, we know that wonder is also the root of all praise. Christ calls us to use our minds to wonder about the world, ourselves, and Him. From that springs science, philosophy, theology. How old is the universe? What is the structure of DNA? If a man dies, will he live again? When are we justified in believing something is true? How can Christ be fully human and fully God at the same time?

To wonder about these questions is to engage our “ratio,” our discursive reason. We look for arguments, for conclusions and proof. And as Christians, when we finish this kind of wondering, we are left to praise the Lord for the way His power, creativity and order have been displayed to our wondering minds. Speculative wonder is one of the roots of praise, and it is a tragic reality that scholars who do not know the Lord are cut off from their intellect’s true end: praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation, who is our health and salvation. I hold that the natural end of discursive wonder is to praise Him who creates and sustains.


(Moreover, as we reflect that He is the one who created and redeemed all creation, the end of this speculative wondering leads us to praise.)

Yes, as Christians, we know that wonder is the root of all praise. But Christ calls us not only to use our minds to wonder about but at the world, ourselves, and Him. Many have marvelled at the beauty of Crater Lake; or at the miracle of birth. Perhaps you have been “lost in wonder” at the smoothness of a child’s cheek, or at the taste of Oregon blueberries, fresh off the bush.

Some of us have been “lost in wonder” at the good news that Christ emptied Himself and took the nature of a servant, becoming one of us—“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!” If you have ever sung that song and seriously thought about what you were singing, you too know this kind of wonder. And as Christians, when we follow this kind of wonder to its end, we are left breathless and trembling, praising the Lord for what we have been priviliged to receive. I hold that the natural end of intuitive wonder is to praise Him who creates, sustains, and redeems.

So, praise is the end, the telos of all Christian wondering.

I thank God for the students who have wondered with me, in both ways, throughout the years.

Charles Wesley wrote:

Finish then thy new creation, pure and spotless let us be.
Let us see thy great salvation perfectly restored in thee.
Changed from glory into glory,
Til in heaven we take our place
Til we cast our crowns before thee, lost in wonder, love and praise.

May 25, 2000

Here are some good spots to find used books:







Book Finder
http://www.bookfinder.com/

Fetchbooks
http://www.fetchbook.info/

Powell's
http://www.powells.com/

Abebooks
http://www.abebooks.com/

Alibris
http://www.alibris.com/

Amazon
http://www.amazon.com