Assignment: Philosophy Essays

QUESTIONS

You must answer each of the following questions. Each question must make use of the work of 1-2 of the philosophers discussed in the class (either to help you make your point or as an opposing view you find unconvincing) and your set of responses must make use of the work of at least 3 different philosophers discussed in the course.

1. Is it possible to go beyond-beyond our religious convictions, beyond our conception of morality, beyond our sense of who or what we are as individuals or as a community?

2. In other words, are we bound by the institutional and social structures that exist in the world in which we are born and raised? If not, what does it take to go beyond? What lies beyond? Does a deeper understanding, a truer view, lie beyond these emotional and intellectual structures if we are able to dismantle them? Or does meaning break down if we go beyond?

3. How do we best live in societies together?

Do we work together out of necessity or is it human nature? Do we have some responsibility to work together, to protect each other? If so, are we responsible to all members of our neighborhood, our society, the entire world? And what does it mean to say that we are responsible?

4. What is the most pressing philosophical question?

Which is the most important? Why? Must this question be answered in order for us to live fulfilled lives? What happens to us if that question is not answered?

ASSIGNMENT

1. Each response must be 500-600 words, for a total of 1500-1800 words for the set of questions.

2. Each part of the question must be answered.

3. Answers must demonstrate familiarity with the material and an ability to reflect critically on the theories and claims made therein.

You choose the philosopher below to write the essay:

Sextus Empiricus, Book I, chapter I-XXII, Outlines of Pyrrhonism

William James, "The Will to Believe"
Plato, "The Allegory of the Cave"

Aristotle, Book I, chapters 1-7, Nicomachean Ethics

Epictetus, Chapters I-II, Discourses

Rene Descartes, Meditations I-III from Meditations on First Philosophy

David Hume, "Moral Distinctions not Derived from Reason"

Immanuel Kant, "The Categorical Imperative"

Arthur Schopenhauer, "On the Vanity of Existence"

All of the questions from above have to be answer.

*NOTICE: It is a essay, not a dialogue.