-- Possible Topics for Paper #1 --

Paper Due:
October 8, 2014 at 6:00pm

Choose one paper topic from the list and write a 3-4 page paper on the topic.

-- Use Standard MLA Formatting --

Sources: You may use other sources besides the textbook, Reason and Responsibility, and lecture notes for this paper,
but it is neither required nor expected.

Don't use footnotes or endnotes to reference sources. Source notes should appear in the paper immediately
following the material you want to reference: "Blah blah blah blah" (Radin 1997: 225).

Your list of sources should follow this example:

Carroll, Robert T. (2003). The Skeptics Dictionary: A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and
Dangerous Delusions. Wiley & Sons.

Christopher, Milbourne. (1970). ESP, Seers & Psychics. Thomas Y. Crowell Co.

Format: Use a title page and try to center it on the page. It should include the paper title, your name, your teachers
name, the title of the course, and the date. Do not include your name anywhere else on the paper.

How is my paper graded?
1. How well do you understand the issues you're writing about?
2. How good are the arguments you offer?
3. Is your writing clear and well-organized?
I apply the following criteria as well.

Whether your paper is about a philosophical topic dealt with in the class presentation or in the texts.
Whether the position or the argument you provides is not a mere copy of someone else (the instructor,
a character in the text etc.), but has its place of origin in you.
How difficult your task is. See the section The difficulty of the task below.
Whether you have narrowed a scope of your paper sufficiently for you to provide an adequate
examination of the issue.

The difficulty of the task:
Let me quote Joel Feinberg for making clear what I mean by the difficulty of the task.

It does not take very much talent to argue cogently for a thesis, just any thesis. One might actually prove an
important though obvious thesis, quite conclusively, with little effort at all. Consider for example the following
perfectly valid argument for a conclusion that I, for one, regard as important:

1. All men are mortal.
2. Feinberg is a man.
3. Therefore, Feinberg is mortal.

The student whose thesis is that easy to prove has not shown much originality, and deserves very little credit. The
harder the task, the greater is the ingenuity required, and the credit to be gained. (Joel Feinberg, Doing Philosophy 3
rd

ed., 2005, pp.18-9.)

1. Does Socrates make any philosophical assertions, and if so, of what kind are they? On one hand, he
denies having any kind of specialized knowledge, and on the other hand, he makes assertions such as
"the unexamined life is not worth living" and "no one ever knowingly does wrong." Can we reconcile
these two positions?


2. Socrates says there are three things that might be meant by account. Should any other meanings be
added to those that Socrates considers? If so, would any of them bear on the conclusion that Socrates
reaches at the end of the dialogue?


3. In Meditation I, Descartes says that he cannot even be certain that squares have four sides because
God (or an evil demon) might simply deceive him each time he considers how many sides a square
has. Does it seem plausible that God could do something like this? Given the concept of four and
given the concept of square, could it possibly be that squares have any number of sides other than
four?


4. Descartes claims that he can clear and distinct idea of himself as a thinking non-physical thing. Do
you have a clear and distinct idea of yourself as a non-physical thing? If you do, does this confirm
that you could exist as a non-physical thing? If you do not, does this disconfirm Descartes theory of
dualism?


5. What are some things (other than Lockes examples) that we claim to know, but which Locke would
maintain that we do not? Would Locke say that we know that the flame heats the kettle? That it is 12
oclock? That 2+3=5? Why or why not?