Note: In addition to carefully reading every question before providing your answer, please make
sure that you also read (and understand) the description and the instructions at the beginning
of each section before you begin.
SECTION A:
Critical Analysis Question
(Word Length – between 700 and 900 words – for each answer) Number of
Questions to Be Answered are 2 Answer- The Value: 7 points each.
Instructions: Beginning with a yes or no answer, provide a detailed response as to whether (or not)
you agree with each of the following statements (e.g. Yes, because…, Or No, because…).
Be sure
to compose your answers in the first person voice (to reflect your own critical thinking) and include
specific references to ideas and concepts that we have covered in the course throughout the semester. I will provide you with the specific document to reference it from.
Question 1:
According to Descartes, it is possible that a perfect being (like God) might not actually
exist.
Question 2:
According to Thomas Reid, there are no conditions that could result in a person’s
empirical senses giving them false information.
SECTION B:
Text Analysis Essay Question (Word Length – between 800 – 1000 words)
Number of
Questions to Be Answered is only one here- Answer Value: 16 points.
Instructions: your response to the question you choose to answer in this section (see above) is to be
in the form of a short essay (not an outline, not point form, etc.). Be sure to compose your answers in
the first person voice (to reflect your own critical thinking) and include specific references to ideas and
concepts that we have covered in the course throughout the semester. I will provide you with the reference.
Question 1:
Explain the significance of the following passage from J. Wesley Robbins’ article:
Epistemological behaviorism accepts the commonplace, referred to earlier, that inquiry and
epistemic evaluation require some beliefs that are accepted at face value without further
question. But it sees this epistemic privilege as a function of social practice, what people let one
another get away with thinking and saying without any further question or argument.
On this view there is no way to determine independently, or in advance, of such practices which
beliefs are permanently or naturally entitled to epistemic privilege. And even those beliefs that
are privileged have their epistemic value in relation to other beliefs.
… [… Plantinga’s] remarks about the communal relativity of epistemically privileged beliefs
indicate he is, to all intents and purposes, an epistemological behaviorist. He has given up on
the idea that, for example, belief in God is naturally identifiable as epistemically privileged
independently of the fact that members of the theistic community typically accept specific forms
of this belief from one another without question in certain circumstances.
(from J Wesley Robbins’ article, “Is Belief in God Properly Basic?”)
