INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY
V83.0001-002
Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:30am-10:45am in LC 1 Tisch
New York University
Fall 2000


Instructor: James Woodbridge
email address: jw79@is9.nyu.edu
Office Hours: Tuesday 11am-12pm, 2:30pm-3:30-pm
Office: Main Building 503-O
Office Phone: 998-8330
Dept. Phone: 998-8320

TA: Chris Towl
Email: cst211@is9.nyu.edu

FIRST PAPER ASSIGNMENT


Pick one of following topics and write a 3-4 page paper fulfilling the tasks assigned.

Your paper is due at the beginning of class on Thursday, October 12th.

Topics:

1. In "Meditation Five" from Meditations on First Philosophy, René Descartes gives a version of the Ontological Argument for the existence of God (pp. 131-132). Your task in this assignment is to reconstruct and explain this argument. This is not to offer the argument as if you are making it yourself. Your job is to talk about the argument, to describe how it works in your own words. Do not simply paraphrase Descartes. Be as clear as possible. Make sure you discuss all of the premises the argument requires and show how they are supposed to work together to lead to the conclusion. (Note: I skipped a lot of the details in what I wrote on the board in class. Pay attention to what he says before he even mentions God.) Explain what kind of argument this is, i.e., give the technical classifications that apply to it, and explain what they mean. Finally, briefly explain the objections to the argument that Descartes explicitly considers, and what he says in reply to them (this should be at most one third of your paper).

2. In "Part V" of David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, the character Philo presents a critique of the Argument from Design. Begin with a brief presentation of the Argument from Design in your own words (this should be at most one quarter of your paper). Explain what kind of argument this is, and what the classifications that apply to it mean. Next, being as clear as possible, discuss Philo's critique. Make sure you discuss the general principles behind the argument that Philo uses in his critique. Explain concisely and in your own words how Philo combines these principles with other points to derive his alternative conclusions from the argument's premises (pp. 70-71). What do these alternative conclusions add up to, and how does this function as an objection to the Argument from Design?