The Paradox of Philosophy

instructions Purpose: This assignment is designed to give you the opportunity to address the course student learning outcomes by demonstrating your ability to: Explain the nature and assess the value of philosophy as a practice. Describe and distinguish key concepts in the main subfields of philosophy. Discuss core philosophical problems in an informed and thoughtful manner. Analyze and interpret philosophical literature of various types, from various time periods and traditions, at a collegiate level of competency. Compare and contrast divergent approaches to philosophy from ancient, pre-modern, and modern times, and from various cultural perspectives. Articulate and defend a position on a philosophical topic, using appropriate reasons or evidence. In other words, you are to take what you have learned and do your own thinking about it. Product: Please write an essay that defends one of the listed theses using the method below in 3-5 pages (double-spaced, readable 12-point font such as Times New Roman, 1-inch margins.) Your essay does not need a title page, nor should you include your name on your paper. The essay is to be submitted as a .doc, .docx, .pdf, or .rtf file in the Assignments (located under Assessment) area of PAWS by the due date and time. Background: In our readings from Plato and Russell, both authors present us with an interesting paradox or seemingly self-contradictory account of philosophy. On the one hand, both philosophers suggest that the purpose of philosophy is to lead us to what Russell calls abstract and universal knowledge (Value of Philosophy, 160) and Socrates describes as the world of true being (Allegory of the Cave, 9), which for both of them is an unchangeable absolute truth that extends far beyond anything that comes from our ever-changing material and historical circumstances. On the other hand, when Socrates says that he is considered wise because I do not think I know what I do not know (Apology, 21d) and when Russell states that the value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very uncertainty (Value of Philosophy, 156), both of them are suggesting that the study of philosophy fosters an intellectual modesty that makes it impossible to answer the questions that philosophers like to ask. Thus, the paradox is that philosophy’s goal is to lead us to the truest truths, but at the same time, it repeatedly shows us that we can ask profound questions about those truest truths but cannot answer any of them conclusively. In this essay, you are going to have to cut through this paradox by taking a stand and developing an argument about the true purpose of philosophy. Is philosophy supposed to lead us to the ultimate truth, or is it supposed to teach us that ultimate truth is unattainable? Topic: For this essay, you shall defend one of the following theses with a coherent set of arguments: The purpose of philosophy is to lead us to knowledge of the universal truths that extend far beyond the limits of our particular material and historical circumstances. The purpose of philosophy is to develop within us the intellectual modesty that comes from engaging with a multitude of logically compelling yet contradictory solutions to philosophy’s perennial questions. Method: After you choose one of the thesis statements above, your analysis should proceed through the following basic stages: In your first paragraph, Make the thesis statement that you chose the first sentence of the first paragraph of your paper. Copy and paste it. You may not make any changes to this thesis sentence! The second sentence of your first paragraph will present a question that someone might ask and which could be answered with the argument that your essay presents in support of your thesis. For example, your second sentence could begin, This thesis is the conclusion to an argument that answers the question . . . (Its an ugly start to a sentence, so you dont have to use this exact phrasing, but because it gets the job done effectively, you do have permission to use it.) This is a tricky paragraph to write because it requires some careful thought. The assumption that underlies this portion of the prompt is that people don’t just come up with philosophical ideas. Rather, people ask questions about the real-life problems that they face, and as they think about answers to the questions that bother them, they come up with arguments that lead to bold new ideas that change the way that they see the problem that they are thinking about. For example, Descartes tells us that he was bothered by the fact that he found out as an adult that many of the things he learned in school were completely wrong. He wants to find a way to ensure that he will only know true things and will be able to keep false ideas out of his mind. It is while he is trying solve that problem that he has his realization that he must know his own mind better than he can know anything about the physical world around him. This leads him to realize that there is something fundamentally different between physical things in the world and ideas in the mind. Therefore, Descartes’s claims about dualism are the conclusion to a set of arguments that are trying to establish how we can tell truth from falsehood. In this case, Descartes told us what problem he was trying to solve on his way to his big idea, but most of the time, it is not that explicit, and we need to figure out on our own the relationship between the argument and the problem that it is trying to solve. After you present the question, the rest of your first paragraph should explain why answering this question matters to you. The next few paragraphs of your essay will present in your own words either Socratess or Russells argument in the reading that supports your thesis. You should focus on expressing just one philosophers argument as clearly and precisely as you can, quoting only the most important short phrases and technical terms, and citing the assigned text properly as you explicate the argument found in one of the readings! The following paragraph (or two) of your essay should offer your own argument for your thesis. Remember to illustrate your points with specific examples whenever you can, and the type of evidence or the reasons you offer should respond to the question that you presented in 1b. This part of the paper is where you should be doing your own original thinking! In the next paragraph, you will consider the opposing viewpoint by repeating what you did in section 2, but this time, for the thesis that you did not select. Your goal in this paragraph is to identify an objection to your thesis by showing why someone who accepts the other thesis would argue that your thesis is incorrect. Please note that you do not need to write about the same philosopher in this step as you did in section 2. If you wrote about Socrates and Plato in section 2, you may write about Russell here, or vice-versa. After you have presented an objection to your argument in section 4, the following paragraph will contain your refutation of the objection with a compelling counterargument. The counterargument may originate in the assigned readings, or you may develop your own counterargument. If you are unsure how to present and refute an objection to your argument, you will find that each chapter of Kormans Learning from Arguments contains objections and refutations that you can model your work on. The final paragraph of your paper should: Conclude your essay by summarizing what you have accomplished, and Close your paper with a final sentence that begins, Therefore, and then repeats exactly the thesis statement with which you began your paper. Sources: You do not need and should not use any sources other than the course materials to write this essay, but all regular academic standards will be enforced regarding the originality and use of sources in your papers. You are strongly discouraged from using any outside material or text-generators when writing this paper, and it will be submitted to TurnItIn.com and other AI-writing detectors to be reviewed for plagiarism, originality, and academic integrity. Hint: if the only quotations from the readings that you provide are those that already appear in the “Background” section above, that will be regarded as not having used any sources at all. Quotes from the reading should be kept as short as possible, preferably under ten words. Quotes do not speak for themselves, but require explication, which is typically twice the length of the quote. When quoting statements from the readings, you should identify the original source material that is presented. The titles of Platonic dialogues, of other ancient works, and of books should be in italics, and names of individuals should be presented as they appear in the readings. Include quoted words in quotation marks, and then after the closing quotation mark place a parenthetical note that includes an abbreviated title of the source that is either underlined or in italics, followed by a comma, and the page number. Note that punctuation is placed outside the parentheses, so that it looks like this: In the Apology, Socrates says that he is attached to this city by the god . . . [as] a kind of gadfly (p. 8, sec. 30e). You may refer to the assigned videos, but it is not required. If you do so, you should follow the statement drawn from the video with a parenthetical note that includes at a minimum the title of the video as well as a notation of where in the video I can find the material to which you are referring. For example, Marc Nelson claims that most of Epicuruss ideas are more useful today than they ever have been (Epicureanism: Ancient Answers to Modern Questions, TEDxOgden, video, at 2:50). Grading Criteria: (Total 120 Rubric Points; Up to 150 Course Points) You must use the thesis that you selected as the first sentence of the first paragraph and the last sentence of the last paragraph of your paper. (10 points) You must defend your thesis effectively throughout the essay. You must be respectful of those who might disagree with you, but you must consistently take the position that your thesis represents the best solution for virtually all people under almost all circumstances. (10 points) You must explain, in the introductory paragraph, what question your thesis answers and why you care about finding a solution to that problem. (10 points) Your argument in support of your thesis must be presented in a coherent, logical, and convincing order that leads to your conclusion. (10 points) Your argument must demonstrate a solid comprehension of the argument in support of your thesis that is presented by one of the philosophers that we have studied in this unit, and you must attribute the argument to the correct philosopher. (10 points) You must quote and cite sources properly as you use them. Full credit cannot be awarded if no sources are quoted or cited. (10 points) You must provide additional coherent reasons or compelling evidence to support your thesis. (10 points) You must present at least one objection to your argument that emerges from the opposing arguments found in the assigned reading. (10 points) You must refute the presented objection to your argument, using either reasons found in the reading or your own original reasons. (10 points) You must write a coherent essay that reads well as prose, not a checklist. (10 points) You must proofread your essay well. (10 points) You must submit your essay on time. (10 points for on-time submission, 6 for submission within 48 hours of due date, and 2 points for exceptionally late submission)