1 Essay assignment Due: last class of semester I am looking for some competence in employing the philosophical language and applying the philosophical techniques that we have been working on. You should do some analysis of the main concepts or ideas that you are using, and you should formulate and advance some pieces of reasoning. The main thing is to make a reasoned case for and/or against the position or positions you consider. Length: 3-4 pages, machine-produced (i.e., not handwritten): 1000-1500 words. Set the issue up, supply the relevant conceptual clarifications and analyses, assess the views you refer to by looking at the reasoning, by formulating better pieces of reasoning, etc., come to some (however tentative) conclusion. A philosophical exploration is not just an occasion to express opinions. You must back up what you say with reasons; and criticize what you criticize in the same way. That is: you must try to convince the reader. (Please: no plastic covers, etc. Just staple the pages of your essay together.) Here are a few topics. A critical response to Descartes’s attack on everyday knowledge in the Meditations (especially Part I). The relevant texts are Sober’s lectures 12 and 13 and the first two parts of Descartes’s Meditations. For the purposes of the paper, you should ask yourself whether what Descartes says about everyday claims to know is convincing. He says, incidentally, that no everyday claim based on perception is known to be true. He says this because he requires certainty as a condition of knowledge. You should spell out why he says what he says. What are his reasons? You should raise objections, anticipate responses to the objections, and so on. What Descartes is doing, among other things, is providing, in a somewhat dramatized way, an analysis of the concept of knowledge; that is, he is saying what conditions must be satisfied in order for someone to be able to say that they know something. And he is saying that these conditions are rarely satisfied. Specifically, then, Descartes has some problem with the senses (the eyes, ears, touch, etc.) as sources of knowledge. It is on this issue that you should concentrate most of your attention. What is Descartes’s criticism of the senses? Is it convincing? You can use the parallel with the court system to develop and deepen your account. You can also use it as a basis for criticizing Descartes’s view. Sex differences and society or Justification for criminal conviction and legal practice The project here is to take the material that you produced a month or so ago (about one of these two topics) and work it up into a philosophical essay. Go back to the primary material, set it our carefully. Then use your results to evaluate the practices in society. So far as the first goes: You could look at the implications of what we have learned (through science) about the difference between male and female for sporting2 competition, for social arrangements like the family, etc. With respect to the second (this we have discussed several times), you could take a specific case, discuss it, and explain how what we have learned might influence our attitudes towards the justice system and the penal system. REMEMBER: both of these cases are cases like that of Pluto and the planets; only, they are both more interesting than that one, and more significant with respect to the way in which we live our lives. The Design Argument for God Using as your basis (i) Sober’s discussion in chapter 4, and, if you find it useful, (ii) David Hume’s Dialogues concerning natural religion, and relying on what we have learned about the nature of philosophical arguments and the assessment of them in our treatment of the cosmological argument, work up a critical account of the design argument. (I’ll distribute the reading from Hume electronically.) You might pay some attention to Sober’s claim that the argument is not just (as Hume takes it) an argument by analogy. The issue is whether the world, as we perceive it, is structured in a way that supplies some ground (not conclusive of course) for believing in n intelligence behind it. The issue here is, in part, whether the (natural) world really contains things whose structure speaks of a design. You need to think carefully about what ‘design’ means. Observe that we can distinguish between a well-designed and a poorlydesigned table (the table that does not remain stable is poorly designed). But this depends on knowledge of what the table is for. What are elements of the natural world for? Could we make the distinction between good and poor design here? If yes, how? If no, then why speak of design in the first place? If you can say a few intelligent things about Darwin’s theory (which explains increasing complexity without making us of the idea of purpose), that would be good too. (Sober also discusses this matter.) Plato on Philosophy and Piety This project is to describe and critically examine Plato’s discussion/analysis of piety or holiness in the dialogue Euthyphro. The dialogue is a kind of introduction to philosophy. In it Plato explains, indirectly, (a) the importance of philosophy (he does this by showing how confused Euthyphro is), and, more directly, (b) he introduces some of the main techniques of philosophical analysis—mainly by raising questions about Euthyphro’s understanding. Your task is to explain both (a) and (b). You should also make some moves towards assessing, from your own point of view, what Plato says about holiness. I’d be interested to hear what you think of the notion, whether your inclinations are religious or secular. (Holiness is a complex and difficult idea. Observe, though, that Plato links it with morality, which is somewhat less difficult.) .