Category: Philosophy

Can we prove the existence of god? Please argue in the light of philosophers

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Read the Instructions Carefully- your mark depends on it!!!
What we want to see in your essay
We will be looking for the following three elements:
1. Demonstrated familiarity with assigned reading
The primary purpose of these assignments is to analyze the arguments in the reading. Papers MUST demonstrate familiarity with the assigned reading relevant to your topic. Papers must make reflective and accurate reference to the views presented in that reading. Papers that appear to be put together from class notes and slides alone are unsatisfactory (but please use your notes and review the slides as well!).
One way to demonstrate familiarity with assigned reading is to quote from it; all quotes require appropriate citation (page numbers, source title). Note that using direct quotes without proper attribution constitutes plagiarism.
This paper should be entirely in your own words (except for quotes from the primary text), demonstrating your understanding of the material. If you happened to developed an idea while reading an outside source and want to use that idea in your essay, even if your idea is not identical to what you read, you need to cite that source as well (this is not simply to avoid the appearances of plagiarism; it is also the standard practice in academic writing) You can find the Toronto guide on how not to plagiarize here: http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/using-sources/how-not-to- plagiarize
2. Critical awareness
Essays must also demonstrate critical awareness; that is, arguments and potential counter-arguments must be presented. An argument is a piece of reasoning; it is not simply a conclusion. An argument consists of a conclusion and reasons for that conclusion. Without the supporting reasoning, the argument has simply not been stated. Thus, in a philosophy essay, never say simply “So-and-so thought such- and-such (significant conclusion)”; always say “So-and-so thought such-and-such because … ” and then lay out So-and-so’s reasons.
I am assigning this essay so you can demonstrate skill and clarity in marshaling, presenting, and criticizing arguments. You are NOT expected to present “new” positions or break any new ground (please refrain from attempting to do so here). You are NOT required to “state your own views” (unless specifically noted in the particular essay topic instructions).
3. Clear writing (Reasonable, but not perfect, English skills are important)

Formal class essays must demonstrate competent English writing skills. Correct grammar, spelling, etc. are essential to communicating your thoughts. Numerous grammar and spelling mistakes make your writing less clear, and thus negatively affect your grade.
Please be especially careful to AVOID:
• Misspellings of authors’ names
• Misspellings of contractions
• Misspellings of the following words: affect, argument, believe, causal, conceive, conscious, consistency, definition, effect, empirical, existence, inherent, it’s, its, knowledge, necessary, occurrence, phenomenon (singular), phenomena (plural), philosophy, soul, supersede, than, then, their, there, they’re
• Errors in subject-predicate agreement
• Run-on sentences
• Sentence fragments
• Misuse of the apostrophe
Remember your audience!
The imaginary “audience” for your writing is a bright teen-ager, or an ordinary adult not educated in philosophy – someone who knows nothing about the subject matter but can follow an argument. Imagine you are a lawyer writing for the jury (not for other lawyers). Define all technical terms, use plain English and straightforward sentences.
Formatting & Submission Instructions
Submission:
Essay 1 is due to TurnItIn by 12:59pm (before the first Tutorial) on Friday Oct 16th.
Either bring a paper copy of your essay to your Tutorial on Oct 16th and/or send your TA an electronic copy- whichever he requests.
Late papers will be lowered 1/3 of a letter grade for each day late, unless you are in the hospital, in jail, or trapped under something heavy for days.
Formatting:
Your essay should have your student number and TA’s name in the header of every page. To make your paper readable, please stay close to the following:
• 12 point Times New Roman font.
• Margins set at 1.25” Right, 1.25” Left, 1” Top, 1” Bottom. (this leaves your TA room to
write comments on your paper.
• Double-space the text!

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Very Important:
Word limits have a purpose! Essays should be 1,250 – 1,750 wds in length (~4-6pgs). Put the word count at the bottom of your essay before the “References” section (the word count does not include the “References” section). Please be advised, your TA will stop reading your essay after the 1750th word, so be concise. This is not a joke. Your TA has approximately 10 days to read very carefully through approximately 60 of your classmates papers and give helpful, instructive, comments on each . Word counts are strictly limited to allow you ample space to answer the questions asked in the writing prompts and limit “grading fatigue” so that each student receives the best feedback possible from their TA. Students who go beyond the word count are in essence taking more than their share of their TA’s mental effort- word limits make the grading process as fair as possible for all students.
Essay 1 is worth 20% of your total grade.
Essay 1 Topics
Suggestions for how much time to spend on each part of the writing assignment are given in parenthesis [ (short), (longer), etc.].
Topic 1. Dennett, “Where Am I?”
Part 1 (short): Briefly describe Dennett’s “Where Am I?” (make sure to only include details of the story that will be relevant to decisions about the location of Dennett’s self as you will examine it in the sections below.)
Part 2 (short): Dennett entertains at least four possible locations for “himself”: a) where his brain is
b) where his body is
c) wherehispointofviewis
d) both where his brain and his body are (2 places at once)
Briefly explain (state in your own words) the reasons Dennett gives for treating each of these four places as possible locations for his “self”.
Part 3 (longer): Explain which (if any) of the views of the self that we have discussed in class would correspond or conflict with choosing each of these four locations as the location of Dennett’s self. (In part 3 your should say something about each of the locations a-d.)
Part 4 (longer): Your thoughts! Which of options a-d above do you think is the best candidate for the location of Dennett’s self? Explain why you choose that location over the others (that is, give your reasons for thinking it is the best answer). If you think all options a-d have equal merit, explain why you think that is the case.
PHL240 Fall 2015 Essay 1
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Topic 2: Williams, “The Self and the Future”
Williams’ article contains two cases:
a) First case: a machine that allows people to “change bodies”
b) Second case: an evil tyrant has you in his power, and is telling you about bad things he will do
to you soon.
Part 1: Describe both of these example cases (short), and the intuitions that Williams thinks each of them supports (medium). Be concise in your description and only include points relevant to the questions asked in the writing prompt.
Part 2: Williams points out that there is a difference between these cases, but that it doesn’t seem to be a significant difference.
State what this difference is and why Williams thinks it doesn’t matter. (medium)
Part 3 (answer in two steps- 3a &3b below): Here you will explain what you would choose (that is, which you think is the right choice) if presented with the options given in the ‘body switching’ example.
You and some lucky/unlucky individual B will be put into the machine Williams describes in the first case. Afterwards, one of the resulting people will have a moderate headache, and the other one will receive millions of dollars. The decision of which person gets which treatment is completely up to you before the procedure.
3a (very short): Before the procedure, you are in Body A. State which you would choose:
i. After the procedure, the A-body person gets the money, and the B-body person gets a
moderate headache.
ii. After the procedure, the B-body person gets the money, and the A-body person gets a
moderate headache.
3b Your Thoughts! (longer): Why do you make the choice that you make? What are your reasons?
Topic 3: Williams & Parfit- Surviving the Teletransporter
Part 1: The Standard Teletransporter:
Suppose that you enter a cubicle in which, when you press a button, a scanner records the states of all the cells in your brain and body, destroying both while doing so. This information is then transmitted at the speed of light to some other planet, where a replicator produces a perfect organic copy of you. Since the brain of your Replica is exactly like yours, it will seem to remember living your life up to the moment when you pressed the button, its character will be just like yours, and it will be in every other way psychologically continuous with you.
(Topic 3 continued on next page)
PHL240 Fall 2015 Essay 1
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(Topic 3: Williams & Parfit- Surviving the Teletransporter, continued) Do you survive the teletransportation process?
Explain how Williams and Parfit would view this problem. What would each take to be the relevant factors to decide whether or not you have survived? (medium)
Part 2 (answer in two steps- 2a & 2b below): The Slightly Delayed Teletransporter:
When you press the button, your body will not be destroyed right away. In fact, you are able to talk to the duplicate via satellites for a few minutes while they warm up the disintegrator. (The technology itself doesn’t require that your body be destroyed, you see, but it has to be destroyed for legal reasons).
2a: (longer) Would either Parfit or Williams have a different view of whether and/or in what way you survive this variation of teletransportation than they would in the non-delayed version? Explain the differences, if there are any.
2b: (medium) Your Thoughts! Explain how you would view this variation on the problem. What do you take to be the relevant factors to decide whether or not you have survived the transporter with the “slight delay”

an essay, 5-6 pages long, with 12-point font, 1.5 spacing between lines, and standard margins, in which you respond to prompts (I) — (VI) below clearly and thoroughly.. Note: In this essay, you are NOT to include any information you find online. Restrict yourself entirely to our book. You may paraphrase or quote from any portion of Stephen Law, but you may NOT bring in any information obtained from the internet to write the essay.

(I) Briefly re-tell Plato�s Allegory of the Cave (pp. 78–79 in Law).
(II) How seriously should we take Plato�s allegory? For example, Plato insists only a small number of people can become philosophers (due to genetics and personal traits). So, will one who is led out of the cave to eventually become a philosopher ever want to return to the cave to live with the unenlightened? What are some reasons Plato�s philosopher may want to return to the cave and what are some reasons he wouldn�t want to? Could he be forced to return? How would that work and what would the consequences be? Explain. (b) Even if the philosopher does return to the cave to live with the masses, how is he supposed to help the prisoners (most of whom cannot ever be led out of the cave)? Carefully speculate on these questions.
(III) In a sentence, extract from the section �The Nature of God� (p.139) Law�s definition of God (the God of the philosophers).
(IV) Law delves into religious experiences: �those experiences in which individuals feel that they are directly aware of God� (p.150). (a) Philosophers have compared someone �seeing� God to someone seeing a human judge. What are the similarities and differences between regular perception and religious experiences? (b) Law says that different people have had the same religious or mystical experience, and that this can be used to provide evidence for God�s existence. How? Explain. (c) William James denied that �seeing� or �hearing� God is a sensory perception, as seeing a car or hearing a lecture is. What, according to James, is the �heart of religious experience� (p.151)? (d) Law criticizes religious experience as good grounds to infer God exists in the section �Rare and False� (p.151). Summarize Law�s criticism.
(V) Law outlines Sigmund Freud�s diagnosis of religious experience on page 152. (i) According to Stephen Law, what is Freud�s view of religious experience? What is it and why does it arise, according to Freud? (ii) Law then provides a religious rejoinder to Freud�s view (p.152). What is it? (iii) What do you think a college psychology textbook would say if a father raised his daughter to always feel vulnerable and in need of his protection, even after she turns 50 (and he was successful, and this is how she felt)? Is this case different than the case of your creating a robot which always feels vulnerable and in need of your protection? Explain.
(VI) Law makes the case that the Problem of Evil provides excellent evidence that God, as defined by the philosophers, does not exist — in the section �No Good Reason for Evil?� (p.154). Summarize Law�s views. Person A and Person B (who each lost a beloved son in 9-11) pass away from old age at the age of 90 and awake in heaven to find themselves standing before God Himself. Create a story in which God tells A and B why He allowed 9-11 to occur. The story should provide God�s �higher purpose� explaining why He permitted it. God�s justification is then accepted by A but rejected by B. Explain why God�s higher purpose satisfies A but not B.

 

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I. Preliminary Thoughts

To begin, lets articulate the distinction between the activities of philosophy and politics.

A. What does philosophy do? What does it desire? Do you think that everyone is capable of being a philosopher? Should everyone philosophize, and philosophize about politics?

B. And, what is the nature of politics? What does politics do for us? What are its goals? Upon what do our moral, social, and political norms typically rest?

C. Bringing A and B together, tell me about the ways in which philosophy may be helpful to politics. And, in what ways may politics be dangerous to the city?

II. Getting The Facts Straight
A. In Aristophanes’ Clouds, Aristophanes argues that Socrates and philosophy (1) lead us to distort our physical natures; (2) that philosophy makes one a bad citizen (at the very least); (3) and, that philosophy is actually dangerous to the city due to its possession of, and willingness to teach, the unjust speech.

Explain what each of these charges means, and give examples.

B. Plato’s first response to Aristophanes’ accusations comes in his dialogue the Euthyphro. Here we see Plato trying to rehabilitate Socrates and philosophy. What is Plato, through Socrates, saying about the contribution of philosophy to the politics of the city?

Here, I just want you to get the story straight. For example, where does Euthyphro’s conception of piety come from? Why is Socrates suspicious of Euthyphro’s “knowledge” and his arrogance? Why is Socrates ironic with him? Is this acceptable, or just mean spirited and nasty?

Does the traditional Athenian conception of piety contribute to political stability or instability? Why does Socrates think that his idea of piety may be more useful politically?

Socrates talks about the form or idea of piety. What are the characteristics of the forms? (Here, also, you should take a few minutes to reflect on Socrates’ important question: Is it pious because the Gods love it, or do the Gods love it because it is pious. Put simply: Do we love something because it is ours [thought in terms of our city, our church, and our ethnicity…] or do we love it because it is worthy of love?).

What does Socrates’ questioning of piety do to the traditional Athenian conception of piety? Does Socrates corrupt, or help, Euthyphro?
C. Continuing our “Collection of Facts,” let’s get straight about the Apology of Socrates.

Socrates claims that he is facing two sets of accusers, one old and one new. Who are the old accusers? What are their accusations? Why does Socrates fear them more than the new accusers? How does Socrates defend himself? Do you think this is sufficient? Do you think that Socrates knows he’s a goner? What about the new accusers? What are their charges? How does Socrates defend himself?

Also, in this dialogue, we get an explanation of Socrates’ life, and an explanation of the activity of philosophy. Why does Socrates claim that he is a benefit to the city? Why does he claim that he avoided participating in the politics of the city? What does this say about the tension between philosophy and the city?

D. Finally, we must engage the Crito.

What does the very setting and opening of the dialogue symbolize? Why has Crito come to see Socrates? What are Crito’s reasons for doing this? What does this say about Crito, and his relation to Socrates? What does this indicate about the relationship between philosophy and the city? What do the Laws say to Crito? Why does Socrates have the Laws say what they do to Crito?
III. Exam Questions

With sections I and II in mind, consider the following:

A. Compare and contrast the Socrates of the Clouds, with the Socrates of the Platonic dialogues. Is he against nature, or following it? Does Socrates use the “unjust” speech? Does he invent new Gods? Does he corrupt the youth? What is your opinion? Realize that a good answer will bear witness to the truth of both sides

B. On one hand, in the Euthyphro and Apology, Socrates seems to suggest that philosophy is good for the city. Why does he claim that he is a benefit to the city?

On the other hand, the Apology and Crito seem to suggest that philosophy is unable to help the city. Why is philosophy unable to help the city? And, what does this tell us about the relationship between philosophy and politics?
C. Compare and Contrast Aristophanes’ accusation that Socrates uses and teaches the “unjust” speech, with Socrates’ treatment of Euthyphro, with his reaction to the “unjust” laws of Athens in the Apology, and with Socrates’ story of the Laws in the Crito. What is going on here?
D. During the Fifth Century BCE, there existed an intellectual and political struggle between the philosophers and the poets in Athens. What was at stake in this struggle? What was going on during this time? What does philosophy think it is responding to? How is this struggle portrayed in Aristophanes’ Clouds and Plato’s dialogues? Given what we know about the nature of politics and philosophy, which perspective seems to be more useful?

Freud’s claim that every dream is the disguised fulfilment of a wish. Is the claim true of all dreams, without exception? How does Freud explain the apparent exceptions? How plausible is his explanation?

2 Explain Freud’s theory of the dream work and examine the criticisms made of it.

There are four prescribed texts for this unit:

Choose one of the following pre-socratics; Heraclitus, Phythagora, or Democritus.

What are the main ideas of the philosopher chosen and what is their place in the history of philosophy?

Did your philosopher influence Plato?

Between 3 and 4 typed pages. double spaced.

All essays need a bibliography listing all sources used. Footnotes where appropriate. Separate sheet at end of essay no cover necessary.

 

For Peter Northouse, Introduction to Leadership, Chapter 10, “Handling Conflict”

2. In the “Leadership Snapshot” of Humaira Bachal, Northouse cites this kind of conflict as an example of Content Conflict/Regarding Goals/Substantive Conflict. What other classifications in his categories of different kinds of conflict might also help explain what accounts for the virulent differences in her experience? Why?

4.Using the ideas of Figure 10.3, explain what is meant by the Accommodating approach to handling conflict and give an example of where it would be appropriate. Explain Competing and give an example where that would be appropriate. Explain the difference between Collaborating and Compromising and give an example where Collaborating would be the best approach.

 

augustine and rousseau
Philosophy
“Justice removed, then, what are kingdoms but great bands of robbers? What are bands of robbers themselves but little kingdoms?” (Augustine)
“The first man who, having enclosed a piece of land, thought of saying “This is mine‟ and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society‟ (Rousseau).
Discuss with reference to both Rousseau and Augustine. Are they using political theory to simply justify power as it exists, or are they making a different argument? What is distinct in their philosophical questions, approaches, and potential answers? Conclude by examining why their differences matter for the way we conceive of the proper role of society and our own roles within it.