General Remarks
All papers should be typed double-spaced with one inch margins in a clear font. The first three papers should be approximately 3-4 pages (but not less than 3). The final paper should be 5-6 pages and should be somewhat more comprehensive. In each case, you should identify the specific issues involved, demonstrate an understanding of the relevant texts read in class, and develop your own approach and discussion for these issues. Please read my general discussion on writing philosophy papers.
Paper Topics
1) Rousseau or Kant --- due Friday, September 28th, 5:00 pm
Suggested topics: (Select one concept or issue; and develop its meaning and significance carefully and clearly.)
(A) Consider a central theme in Rousseau's Social Contract and explore it critically. What precisely does Rousseau mean or how does he use this theme? Is it a
useful concept for thinking through political ideas (and ideals)? You might consider the meaning of one of the basic concepts such as the sovereign, the general
will, liberty and equality as ends, government as a trust, etc.
(B) Considering Kant's concepts of judgment, analytic/synthetic, a priori/a posteriori, etc, critically explore his explanations for how our a priori synthetic knowledge of pure mathematics or of pure science is possible.
2) Kant and Mill on Moral Theory and Liberty --- due Friday, October 26th, 5:00 pm
Suggested topics:
(A) State the moral theories of Kant and of Mill as clearly as you can and compare them.
(B) Critically examine either Kant's moral theory or Mill's in terms of practicability and intelligibility.
(C) How does Kant's concept of a "realm of ends" help solve the problem of determining that a will shall be good?
(D) What is "civil liberty" according to Mill?
3) Hegel and Marx --- due Wednesday, November 21st, 5:00 pm
Suggested topics:
(A) Describe as clearly as you can the nature of "dialectical" reasoning and amplify this with examples from Hegel and Marx.
(B) How do Hegel and Marx integrate (understand) Rousseau's concept of civil society (social contract, general will, etc.) into their understandings of social and political history?
(C) Explain why Hegel believes that human history is the story of the development of freedom. What must be actualized in order to produce freedom?
(D) In Marx, why does class division occur and why will one or more classes become dominant? If there is class division in the US, today, what class(es) dominates? Do you agree with Marx that the dominant class is author of our ideology?
4) Topics in Social Theory, Politics, and Morality -- due at scheduled final-exam time, Friday, December 21st, 5:00 pm
Suggested topics: (Remember that this is a slightly longer paper assignment (5-6 pages) and that it should reflect somewhat more comprehensively on the complete course.)
(A) Various authors read during the semester argued cases or made assumptions about metaphysics (that which really is), epistemology (that which can be known and how we can know), political philosophy (esp. the founding of modern civil societies), social theory (civil liberty, natural rights, equality, etc.), or ethics (theory of morality). Consider one of these topics and develop a clear comparison of the treatments by different authors.
(B) Political revolutions combined with the Scientific Revolution and the Industrial Revolution to produce the "modern industrial state" of the 19th Century. Already by the early 1800s, the social problems caused by removal of massive numbers of people from rural life to life in industrial cities was clear. By the century's end, this process was almost complete in Europe and was well underway in America. Consider and describe clearly how the development of these problems seems to be reflected in the evolution of 19th Century philosophy. [The psychoanalyst, C. G. Jung, once said that psychoanalysis had not arisen until 1900 because it was not needed previously.]
(C) Beginning with Kant and continuing well into the 20th Century, philosophers have discarded or dispensed with the "noumenal realm" of absolute realities and absolute truths. But, being fully committed to only the "phenomenal realm," sets life on "new&shaky ground." Consider how various authors attempted to explain how life should proceed in this uncertain world.
Back to Course Home Page