Part 1: State your preferred mix of ontological and epistemological views (e.g., Rationalist Platonic Realist, Empiricist Berkeley Idealist, Russellian Rationalist Realist, Kantian Rationalist Nominalism, etc.) Explain your position by giving a brief description of the ontological and epistemological categories you prefer.
Part 2: Reply to yourself with what you take to be the best argument against your own view.
The goal of this discussion board is for you to discuss and consider for yourself the difficulties associated with every possible combination of these epistemological and ontological categories.
Sample Post for Part 1:
Russellian Rationalist Realist. Realism about universals and particulars seems plausible because both seem to me to be mind-independent. I was convinced by the arguments Russell gave for realism about universals (and against Kant) and I was already a realist about particulars (even though I was impressed by Berkeley). Rationalist because some general synthetic truths appear to be known independently of experience but I agree with Russell that particulars cannot be known without specific experiences. I know there are a number of objections to these views and I will address the best of those in my subsequent replies for part 2.
Sample Post for Part 2:
There are at least two serious objections to the combination I prefer:
Realism of the sort I endorse entails that relations among universals are mind-independent facts. Since pure mathematics, geometry, and logic concern such relations, then it follows that the truths of those disciplines are discovered rather than invented. This makes an explanation of the historical practice of those disciplines difficult in some areas since it appears that mathematicians are often trying out various systems that they construct rather than discover.
The second objection is that Rationalism entails that my a priori knowledge is not purely a matter of definition and experience but requires some specifically non-experiential knowledge of universals and this seems to require some special faculty of knowledge that is not easily explained. Russell gives his theory of acquaintance, which is a very interesting theory. But it entails that I am acquainted with the fundamental logical facts of the universe. I’m not sure that is required to understand basic arithmetic.
If I were to give an example reply to my own objections here is how I would start.
Mathematics (e.g., arithmetical truths such as 2+2=4) and logical principles (such as the law of identity) are indeed discovered and not invented. It appears they are invented because we came up with the names for these truths and in these examples the truths are so obvious. However, it is clear that the discovery of, e.g., the Pythagorean theorem, systematizes knowledge in such a way that can be discovered across cultures and independently.
Now this reply to my objection is open to a number of objections…but that is the point of the discussion board: to continue the discussion. Enjoy
My advice for this assignment: it can be this simple or you can add more detail but make sure it is clear which categories best describe your preferred view at this point with reference to the definitions and arguments given so far.
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