INSTRUCTIONS<\/p>\n
you will practice constructing good\u00a0explanations\u00a0of philosophical theories. Please explain\u00a0two\u00a0theories or arguments from some of the pragmatist philosophers we\u2019ve read this week (you can pick two theories from the same reading). The theories\/arguments must come from the Peirce, James, Medina, or Rorty readings. Your writing exercise should be\u00a0500 words total, 250 words to each explanation.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s fairly standard model for a good explanation of a philosophical theory. Your explanations should follow the model, but feel free to innovate or tweak to your writing style). \u00a0<\/p>\n
-(1) Start by explaining the main point of the theory. Your explanation should be brief and informative. Aim for a 2-3 sentence paragraph.<\/p>\n
-(2) Give an example that illustrates the main point really well. Get creative. Aim for a 3-5 sentence paragraph because you\u2019ll want to explain the example.<\/p>\n
-(3) Explain some of the author\u2019s reasons for the theory. What answers the question \u201cwhy does the author think their theory is true?\u201d. One reason per paragraph. 3-5 sentence paragraphs for this exercise.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s an example response for Hume\u2019s idea that all of our interesting ideas are\u00a0a posteriori\u00a0or\u00a0known without experience.<\/p>\n
David Hume argues that all of our interesting thoughts are known\u00a0a posteriori. Interesting thoughts are thoughts that are informative, meaning they tell us something we didn\u2019t already know. Hume thought all of these thoughts were known on the basis of experience. Meaning that, for any thought, the reasons we think the thought is true has to do with our experience.<\/p>\n
To illustrate, according to Hume, my interesting thoughts that \u2018war is bad\u2019 or \u2018the oceans are getting warmer\u2019 or \u2018PHIL 11 students are good writers\u2019 are all known via experience (along with all of my other interesting thoughts). The reason I think they are true has to do with experience. I experience, in one way or another, that war is bad, that the oceans are getting warmer, or that PHIL 11 students are good writers, and so believe those thoughts to be true.<\/p>\n
One reason Hume thinks his theory is true has to do with his account of human psychology. David Hume thinks that all of our thoughts come from experience. Even our complex imaginings of things we\u2019ve never seen just break down into amalgamations of things we\u2019ve experienced before. It follows that all of the reasons we have for thinking a thought is true would have to do with experience or come from experience, so Hume\u2019s theory that our interesting thoughts are\u00a0a posteriori\u00a0is true.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Details:<\/p>\n
Writing a philosophy paper involves\u00a0assessing\u00a0philosophical theories. But! Before you\u00a0assess\u00a0a philosophical theory, it\u2019s very important to give a good\u00a0explanation\u00a0of the theory. It\u2019s easy to see why!<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s pretend that I criticize Descartes\u2019s\u00a0ontological argumentLinks to an external site.\u00a0for the existence of God because Descartes was religious. I say something like \u201cOh that Descartes! He just assumed God\u2019s perfection because he was a Catholic! The argument is totally wrong.\u201d. My criticism might point to something true about Descartes, but there\u2019s still a major problem with it. Descartes doesn\u2019t just assume God\u2019s perfection because of his religious commitments; he argues for it! And so, the criticism I give of his ontological argument is a bad one. In fact, it doesn\u2019t even\u00a0target\u00a0Descartes\u2019s ontological argument since Descartes argues for God\u2019s perfection in his actual argument. I really missed the mark!<\/p>\n
I fell into a\u00a0reasoning mistake\u00a0called\u00a0a\u00a0fallacy,\u00a0and you can fall into them too\u00a0if you\u2019re not careful about explaining a theory. Here are two you can fall into:<\/p>\n
Straw Man Fallacy\u2013 the Straw Man Fallacy involves representing someone\u2019s argument as weaker than it really is. To illustrate, suppose that Sam tells Ace to wear their seatbelt because it will significantly reduce the likelihood of serious injury. Now suppose that Ace responds by saying \u201crelax Sam, just because there\u2019s a chance I will avoid injury doesn\u2019t mean I should wear my seatbelt\u201d. What Ace has done is commit the Straw Man Fallacy; Ace has misrepresented Sam\u2019s argument. Sam argued that there is a\u00a0significant\u00a0reduction in the likelihood of serious injury. Ace misrepresents the probabilities in his reply so that the argument is weaker than it really is.<\/p>\n
Hollow Man Fallacy\u2013 the Hollow Man Fallacy involves responding to arguments or reasons that no one actually holds. To illustrate, suppose again that Sam tells Ace to wear their seatbelt because it will reduce the likelihood of serious injury. Ace responds by saying \u201cthe reason people wear seatbelts is so that they can feel good about enforcing other people to wear seatbelts\u201d. Ace has, again, misrepresented Sam\u2019s argument. In fact, Ace seems to be responding to an argument that no one actually holds!<\/p>\n
Rubric:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
INSTRUCTIONS you will practice constructing good\u00a0explanations\u00a0of philosophical theories. Please explain\u00a0two\u00a0theories or arguments from some of the pragmatist philosophers we\u2019ve read this week (you can pick two theories from the same reading). The theories\/arguments must come from the Peirce, James, Medina, or Rorty readings. Your writing exercise should be\u00a0500 words total, 250 words to each explanation. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10],"class_list":["post-105967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research-paper-writing","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105967\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}