writing essay 57
Instructions For The Second Paper Assignment
This essay is due noon Wednesday 1st August. It should be between 1000–1500 words. You must submit your paper to www.turnitin.com (Links to an external site.). The teaching assistants will provide you with the Turnitin login information. More details about how to submit your essay will follow soon. Please select one question from the list below, and make sure to clearly state the question you are answering at the start of your essay.
Questions:
(1) What is the ‘Mary’ problem against physicalism, and how effective is it?
(2) What are philosophical zombies, and what problem are they meant to pose for physicalism? How plausible is the zombie argument?
(3) What is the argument from illusion, and how is it used to motivate indirect realism over direct realism? Is it effective?
(4) What is the problem of fiction, and how do you think one should respond to it?
(5) Can the B–series capture everything there is about the nature of time? If not, what does it leave out?
(6) What are abstract objects? Are there any?
(7) What is the most persuasive mereological account of the relationship between parts and wholes? Defend your answer.
(8) What is an indispensability argument? What problems do such arguments face?
(9) How should we demarcate genuine science from pseudo–science?
(10) Critically evaluate the merits of scientific realism by focusing on what you take to be either the strongest argument in its defense or the strongest argument against it.
(11) Why is there something rather than nothing?
(12) What is the problem of evil, and how compelling is it as an argument for God’s non–existence?
(13) Is it ever rational to have faith in God?
(14) Does immortality have any essential role to play in an account of the meaning of life?
(15) Is death necessary for one’s life to be meaningful?
(16) If all that exists is the natural world, then can life ever be meaningful?
