The Final Essay is worth 25% of your final grade.
Background: In Section 125, Nietzsche uses “The madman” passage to argue that God is dead and, furthermore, that the idea or concept of God has become unbelievable. The consequences of the loss of faith in God is that there are no more objective values or fixed reference points. This could mean many things: for theology, ethics, morality, politics, art, religion, etc. We want to focus on how Sections 108, 110-112, and 343 provide the context for Section 125 insofar as Nietzsche is arguing that the causal reasoning involved in science is not rational or intelligible if there is no divine foundation of the universe and no purposes (“teleology”) in nature.
The theoretical physicist Paul Davies sees, like Nietzsche, that the intelligibility of science is at risk if there is no God, especially because there would be no reason to think that there is any purpose in nature or purposeful behavior by human beings. So it seems that if God is dead, there is no (divine) guarantee for the explanatory success of the sciences. You are encouraged to think of the causal reasoning that underlies scientific explanations in particular in the so-called “hard sciences” of physics, chemistry, and biology. You may limit your attention to the quotations from Paul Davies, The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1992) in “Handout on Nietzsche The Gay Science” in Canvas Module for Week 13.
First part of the essay (explicative, like an Argument Summary): Begin by stating the conclusion of the argument that you’ll explain. For example, you might begin like this: “Nietzsche’s famous passage on the death of God may imply that science and scientific explanations are unintelligible because science, as well as religion, requires a divine foundation.” Your work in the remainder of this first part of the essay is to set out the premises or reasons that Nietzsche offers to support this conclusion, and to show how they fit together. How is the conclusion supposed to follow from the premises?
Second part of the essay (evaluative): Write your own conclusion that defends one of the following views:
(1) Scientific reasoning is not rational or intelligible because the divine foundation of all reasoning has been undermined due to the death of God. That is, the success of scientific explanations depends on the existence of God.
or
(2) Scientific reasoning is rational or intelligible despite the death or absence of God. That is, the success of scientific explanations does not depend on the existence of God.
Feel free to articulate how there may be evidence for the partial truth in both (1) and (2).
***
Your essay should not draw, in any way, on the contributions of a generative AI like ChatGPT. The purpose of this essay is to assess your understanding of the ideas in the texts, and your ability to think and write clearly about them. These are valuable skills to develop, not only for the study of philosophy, but for your life as a person, professional, and citizen at the university and beyond. Like with any skill or habit, the only way to acquire them is through practicing them. And you won’t have that practice if you rely on an AI.
Before submitting your essay to Canvas/Turn-It-In, make sure you can confidently check off each of these points.
_____1. Have you prepared by reading Lewis Vaughn’s Writing Philosophy: A Student’s Guide to Reading and Writing Philosophy Essays, especially pp. 68-87 (“Writing the Essay: Step by Step”)?
Does the Essay have . . .
_____2. Between 3 full-5 double-spaced pages? A page is double-spaced in 12-point, Times New Roman, with 1-inch margins all around, and no extra spaces between paragraphs. “Full” means that, for example, if you use a quarter of page 1 for your name and a title, your text will need to extend to at least a full page 3.
_____3. italics for the title of any book, journal, or foreign word?
_____4. page numbers?
_____5. name, date, class, all in top left-hand corner of first page? No title page is necessary.
Have You. . .
_____6. made sure the paper is both explicative–that is, it is a clear and concise summary of Nietzsche’s argument–and evaluative–that is, it assesses the soundness of the reasoning in Nietzsche’s argument?
_____7. proofread the paper frequently? Pay particular attention to the following issues:
_____a. grammatical errors (especially noun and pronoun agreement, run-on sentences, sentence fragments)
_____b. avoid phrasing such as “I feel” or “He feels.” Philosophers don’t feel; they claim, they argue, they state, etc.
_____c. The standard of clarity in academic writing is higher than that in ordinary conversation or email. Avoid awkward phrasing and slang.
_____8. set aside the paper for a period of time and come back to it for a better proofread? Writing is always re-writing. Things will not become clear until you’ve re-written your paragraphs over and over again.
_____9. made the paragraphs flow well? Each paragraph should be about one main idea and should explain this main idea starting from the more general to the more specific. Avoid repetitiveness in an essay, that is, covering the same point in two different paragraphs. Focus on tight, concise writing. Avoid fluff and vague language that does not move your reader to an understanding of their own about the topic.
_____10. Any quotation over 2-3 lines within the same paragraph is likely to make your reader question, “Why don’t I just read the book myself?” It is up to you to make sense of the text largely in your own words.
_____11. While borrowing from themes in class discussion is at times inevitable, make sure your reader doesn’t “Why don’t I just take the class myself?”
_____12. Included Chicago Manual of Style Notes and Bibliography? You can consult the library’s website here. Links to an external site.You can also see pp. 104-5 and Appendix B in Vaughn’s Writing Philosophy.
