1. The due dates for your two essays
have been revised from those given in the syllabus, and are
listed below.
2.
Before handing in your first essay,
you are to hand in an outline of it, so that I can look over
your basic plan,
and make suggestions for possible changes. Instructions for
writing this
outline are set out below. (No grade will be assigned to the
outline.)
3. No
outline is required in the case
of your second essay.
4.
Before starting to work on the
outline of your essay, be sure to read the handout, "Writing a
Philosophy
Essay," and then discuss with me any things that you are
uncertain about.
5. The
main points to keep in mind are
summarized on the "Essay Checklist and Cover Sheet". This is
to be attached
to the front of your essay, and before doing the final
draft of your essay,
you should go through your essay carefully to see whether your
essay is
satisfactory in the relevant respects.
6. Each essay should
be approximately
4 to 5 double-spaced, typewritten pages in
length (about 1000-1500
words).
DUE DATES
Outline
of Essay 1:
Friday, October 15
Essay
1:
Monday, October 27 (30%)
Essay 2:
Monday,
November 24 (30%)
Instructions for
Writing the Outline
of Your First Essay
The short outline of
your essay should
be only about one double-spaced, typewritten page in length, and
it should
consist of the following sections:
Section
1: Your Basic Thesis
In this first section,
you should
state the basic thesis that you will be defending. This should
require only a
sentence or two.
Section
2: The Structure of Your Essay
In this section, you
should describe,
in a single, short paragraph, how your essay will be divided up
into sections.
Section
3: Your Main Supporting
Argument or Arguments
In this section, you
should indicate
how you intend to argue in support of your thesis. Here you need
to indicate
what sort of argument (or arguments) you will be offering. A
detailed
description is not necessary: what you want to do here is to
give a clear
description that is sufficiently detailed so that I can see the
general thrust
of your argument, and thus be in a position to determine whether
it seems like
a generally promising line of argument, or whether there are
possible
difficulties that need to be taken into account.
Section
4: Important Objections to
Your Arguments or to Your Thesis
A crucial part
of any
philosophical essay involves considering objections, either to
the argument (or
arguments) that you have offered in support of your basic
thesis, or to the
thesis itself, or to both. The quality of an essay depends in
large measure
upon whether one has addressed the strongest and most important
objections to
one's own arguments and views, and whether one has dealt with
those objections
in a convincing fashion. In this final section, then, you should
briefly state
the main objection (or objections) that you plan to consider,
and how you will
respond. Here, too, your goal should be merely to enable me to
appreciate the
general thrust of the objection (or objections) that you will be
considering,
and of your response (or responses), so that I can determine
whether there are
any problems that you need to think about further.
ESSAY TOPICS
In your essays, you may
deal with a
fairly broad topic, or you may, instead, focus upon a narrower
issue, or upon a
discussion by a single author. Some possibilities of each sort
are listed
below. These are, however, merely some suggestions, and you can
tackle any
topic that is covered by the readings that we are doing for this
course. But if
you would like to write on a different topic than those listed
below, it would
be best to check with me first, so that I can alert you to any
possible
problems, and suggest important readings.
The topic of your
second essay should
be significantly different from the one that you
choose for your first essay.
1. Briefly state the
main thesis
advanced by William James in his essay "The Will to Belief" and
then
critically evaluate the line of argument that he offers in
support of it.
2. David Hume
maintained that the wise
man proportions his belief to the evidence. What exactly does
this mean? How
does William James's view differ from that of Hume's? What is
the correct view,
and why?
3. Carefully set out,
and then
evaluate, any one of St. Thomas Aquinas's arguments in
support of the
existence of God.
4. Can there be
infinite causal
regresses?
5. Set out in a step by
step fashion,
and then evaluate, Samuel Clarke's argument from contingency.
6. Is Richard Taylor's
defense of the
cosmological argument sound?
7. Carefully set out
and then discuss,
a version of the teleological argument that focuses upon the
presence in the
world of complex ordered structures - such as, for example, that
set out by
William Paley.
8. Critically evaluate
Richard
Swinburne's recent formulation of the argument from design.
9. What is the most
plausible view
concerning the relevance of theistic proofs to religion?
10. Evaluate the views
of Michael
Scriven as set out in his essay "The Presumption of Atheism."
11. What are the main
claims advanced
by David Hume in the selection "Against Miracles"? How does he
support those claims? How successful is he?
12. Can one
successfully appeal to
miraculous events as reasons for accepting some particular
religion?
13. There are a number
of different
types of religious experiences - such as visions, various
emotional
experiences, mystical experiences, and so on - that have been
held by different
people to provide one with good reason for believing in the
existence of God. Focus
upon one particular type of religious experience, and
discuss carefully
what can be said for and against the claim that experiences of
that type
provide good reason for believing in the existence of God.
14. Do mystical
experiences provide
one with objective knowledge of reality?
15. What can be said
for and against
the claim that a satisfactory naturalistic explanation can be
given of
religious experiences? What view would you defend, and why?
16. Discuss Louis
Pojman's critique of
Gary Gutting's version of the argument from Religious
Experience? Does Pojman
show that Gutting's argument is unsound?
17. What is the most
promising
theistic response to the argument from the hiddenness of God?
Discuss carefully
whether that rely succeeds in rebutting the argument.
18. How successful is
the argument
from evil as an argument for atheism? If you think that it is
successful,
carefully discuss the most important relies to the argument, and
indicate why
you think they fail. If, on the other hand, you think that the
argument is
unsuccessful, carefully set out what you take to be the crucial
response to the
argument, and defend it against possible objections.
19. Briefly set out,
and then
carefully evaluate, John Hick's soul-making theodicy.
20. Can it be plausibly
maintained
that all the evil in the world is logically necessary,
either to avoid
some greater evil, or for some greater good that outweighs the
evil in
question?
21. Carefully evaluate
the free will
defense.
22. It is sometimes
said that the
argument from evil, regardless of what force it may or may not
have with
respect to a deity of unlimited power, knowledge, and goodness,
has no bearing
at all upon belief in a finite deity. Carefully discuss
this issue.23.
Are there good reasons for thinking that a human being has an
immaterial soul
that survives the destruction of his or her body, and that is
the bearer of
personal identity?
24. Bertrand Russell
argues that it is
likely that death is the final end of a person's existence. What
reasons does
Russell offer for this view? Is he right or not, and why?
25. If human beings do
not have
immaterial souls, is it possible for a human being to be
restored to life via
resurrection?
26. Briefly explain
what is meant by a
divine command theory of morality, and then carefully discuss
what can be said
for and against such a theory. What view would you defend on the
question of
whether such a theory is tenable, and why?
27. Briefly outline,
and then
evaluate, the central thesis that is advanced by George Mavrodes
in his essay
"Religion and the Queerness of Morality."
28. Does the existence
of objective
moral values presuppose the existence of a divine creator?
29. Briefly set out,
and then
critically evaluate, the main contentions advanced by Patrick
Nowell-Smith in
his essay "Morality: Religious and Secular."
30. Is the
doctrine of hell a good reason for rejecting Christianity?
31. Critically evaluate
either St.
Thomas Aquinas's defense of the doctrine of hell in his Summa
Theologica,
IIII,question 99, or St. Augustine's defence in his City of
God, book
21.
32. Briefly set out,
and then
carefully discuss, the main criticisms of the character and
outlook of Jesus
advanced by Walter Kaufmann, as set out either in his Faith
of a Heretic,
or his Critique of Religion and Philosophy,
or his Religions
in Four Dimensions.