Phil 100, Introduction to Philosophy
Fall 2001

Paper Assignment

Due Thursday, November 29th in your discussion sections.

You are to write a 4-5 page paper on a philosophical topic of your own choosing. Your primary aim is to present and argue for your own philosophical views about some issue. You should pick a topic that relates directly to the texts and issues covered in discussion section, but ideally only half of your paper or less should consist in explaining the views of others.

This is not a research paper. You do not need to seek sources outside what you’ve read for class.

Below is a list of recommended topics. You may choose one of these topics, or you may decide upon your own topic not on this list, but if you do, you must discuss your topic with your TA (and/or Kevin) beforehand to determine whether or not it’s appropriate.

• What sort of evidence do we need for a belief before we should regard that belief as constituting knowledge? Do we need to establish that belief beyond a doubt? What ramifications does this characterization of knowledge have upon what we are able to know and how? Compare your own views with those of Descartes and/or Berkeley.
  
  
• Can God’s existence be proven? Can God’s existence be disproven? Are any of the traditional arguments that have been given successful? Compare your own views with one or more of the following: Descartes, Berkeley, and/or Sartre
  
  
• What is the relationship between the “mind” or “soul” and the body or brain? Are they the same substance or different substances? Compare your own views with one or more of the following: Descartes, Berkeley, Sartre, Armstrong
  
  
• Consider such radical skeptical doubts as the possibility that everything you’re experiencing now may be the result of a dream, deceptions caused by an evil genius, or false signals sent into a “brain in a vat”. Do such scenarios pose a problem for what we can accurately claim to know or not know? Can these problems be overcome or avoided for sound philosophical reasons? Compare your views to those of Descartes and/or Berkeley.
  
  
• What sorts of “stuff” makes up what we think of as the physical world? Is there such a thing as material substance or does the sensible world consist only of ideas and perceptions? Compare your views to those of Descartes and/or Berkeley
  
  
• What does it mean for a person to have free will? Does the existence of free will depend upon a certain kind of interaction between the mind and the body? Compare your own views to one or more of the following: Descartes, Berkeley, Sartre, de Beauvoir and/or Armstrong
  
  
• Is the existence of God compatible with human freedom? What reasons might there be for thinking otherwise? What is your response? Compare your own position to that of Sartre (and perhaps the positions you expect Descartes or Berkeley would likely adopt.)
  
  
• What is gender? Are gender traits more a result of a choice or of biology? Are we free to be or create different genders within ourselves and/or society? Compare your own views to those of de Beauvoir and Butler and/or others.
  
  
• If existentialism is true, does this mean that there can be no such things as ethical judgments? Discuss what Sartre has to say about this issue, and present and argue for your own views.
  
  
• What does God’s existence/nonexistence have to do with the possibility of absolute codes of morality? If God did not exist, would that mean there would be no absolute right or wrong? Is there reason to think that God’s existence might actually pose a problem for the existence of morality? Discuss and argue for your own views, comparing them to those of Sartre (and perhaps those of Berkeley).

---

Return to course homepage.