Knowledge and Skepticism

You are discouraged from using additional sources.
If you do choose to use an outside source, be sure to cite your source,
just as you do when you use the course texts. If you use a quotation or
an example from a website, cite the website’s url and the date accessed.

Once you are ready for your classmates to read it, post the thread
containing your essay. Then go to the TurnItIn dropbox section here in
Blackboard and post your Word document into the dropbox. You do not need
to include your response to another student in the file that you upload
to TurnItIn.

Finally, read your classmates’ posts. A complete assignment includes your written response to at least one essay besides your own–part
of your score is based on your reply to at least one of your
classmate’s posts. It should be a meaningful reply that continues the
discussion, points out something good about the post, and makes a constructive suggestion for improvement.

Topics for your Essay, Choose A or B

Essay Length tips–To answer these topics completely, it takes
about 2 pages—8-10 paragraphs. Use the topic questions and the scoring
rubric to see if your draft responds fully to all parts of the question.
A complete, thoughtful answer is more important than word count.

Topic A

In this essay you will address the controversy between free will
and determinism. You will go deeper into the problem of determinism by
choosing whether it is the predictability or the unpredictability
of our actions that poses a bigger threat to free will. Using passages
from the textbook, explain in detail what determinism is and why
determinism threatens the idea of free will.

Now consider these two opposite points of view about our ability to predict behavior:

Everything you do is predictable to
those who know you well. This predictability means your life is
determined by choices beyond your control—Paraphrase from Vaughn, p.258
“He sat a long time and he thought about his life and how little of it he could have foreseen and he wondered for all his will and all his intent how much of it was his doing.”—Cormac Mc Carthy (reprinted in Vaughn, p.255)

Explain what these two points of view mean and then give your own
reasoned opinion about which point of view is correct. Defend your
answer.

Topic B

Describe the theory of knowledge called skepticism. Consider the skeptic’s charge that we can never be
confident about the reliability of our normal sources of knowledge
(perceptions, memory, introspection, and reasoning.) Describe why and
how, for each of the 4 sources mentioned, the source is unreliable. Use
examples to show your understanding.

If a source of knowledge is unreliable, it means these sources can
trick us into believing falsehoods. Does it follow from the fact that we
are sometimes mistaken when we rely on these sources that we are always mistaken? In other words, once we admit is possible that we are mistaken, does that mean that we need to admit that we might never be correct? How would you respond to the skeptic?

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