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After reading Descartes’ Meditations, you will engage in one of the philosophical conversations that arose from his groundbreaking work. In this assignment you will write a 4-6-page (1000-1500 word) paper on a philosophical question in which you support and defend a thesis over multiple paragraphs. In your introduction, you will discuss the philosophical question and its context, state your thesis in which you answer the philosophical question, and provide a roadmap for how you will defend the thesis over multiple paragraphs in the paper. In the body of your paper, you will need to consider the way Descartes and a second philosopher have answered the question, discussing the advantages of and objections to their views and how they shape your own answer to the question.
How to complete the Answering a Philosophical Question Paper:
Step One: Select a question from the choices below:
A. Does having faith mean you are certain of the existence of God? For this question, you will compare Descartes’ answer with the answer given by Kierkegaard using our course texts.
B. Are minds and bodies (brains) separate? For this question, you will compare Descartes’ answer with answers provided by Nagel or Chalmers from our course modules.
C. How do race, ethnicity, and/or gender shape our ways of knowing? What kinds of knowledge do we all share? Do those with non-dominant cultural perspectives have more ways of knowing than those with dominant perspectives? You will use the materials found in our final Module to answer these questions.
Step Two: After you have decided on your question, write an introduction in which you pose the question and explain why it is interesting, important, disturbing, etc. In other words, explain why it is worth investigating. Next, state your answer to this question—this answer will be the thesis of your paper. After stating your thesis, provide a brief overview or “roadmap” of how you will prove this conclusion throughout the body of your paper.
Step Three: Write the body of the paper in which you defend your thesis over multiple paragraphs. You will need to consider the answer Descartes and one other philosopher (as noted above) might give to the question. There are various ways to defend your thesis over multiple paragraphs, but you might consider using the following format:
1.. Write at least one page answering the question from Descartes’ perspective. This page will require you to summarize his perspective fairly and accurately. What do you consider to be the strengths and weaknesses of this answer? How does considering his perspective help you prove your own thesis?
2. Do the same for a second philosophical perspective.
3. Write 1-2 pages discussing your own answer to the question and making the case for your thesis.
4. Write a concluding paragraph in which you restate your thesis and summarize how you have just supported and defended the thesis in your paper. Remind us of what is at stake in accepting your thesis—in other words, why do you believe it is important that we accept your conclusion?
Step Four: Formatting
Write your paper directly into Packback Deep Dives. Papers should be the equivalent of 4-6 pages (1000-2000 words) double-spaced. Packback will automatically format the paper as such.
Step Five: Cite and Document your sources properly.
I have attatched documents of the material you can use for this paper.
Use only our course texts as your sources. Do not use Sparknotes, Wikipedia, or any other .com sources. Do not use AI such as ChatGPT to write your paper. While AI has its place, the objective of this assignment is for you to critically read, think about, and write the entire paper. Critical reading, thinking, and writing are course objectives for all philosophy courses. Provide the author’s name, the title of the work, the date, and the page numbers you are using.
Do not plagiarize even one sentence of your paper.
You must cite (use the name and page number) every idea you borrow, in every sentence. A citation only applies to the sentence in which it is found—not to the whole paragraph. You must also acknowledge and document your sources. Plagiarism will result in a MINIMUM consequence of a ZERO on the paper. Again, you may not use ChatGPT or other AI technologies to help you write this paper.
Be sure to cite and document any words, ideas, or lines of reasoning that you borrow from your classmates. These citations do not count toward your two philosophical sources.
Alphabetize your Works Cited list.
