Philosophy

Choose One

1. Summarize and evaluate Locke’s case against innate ideas. Does he successfully show that innate ideas do not exist?

2. Assess Locke’s argument that we can have knowledge of an external world despite our being directly aware only of sense data. Do you agree with him, or do you side with his critics who say that we can know only the contents of our minds?

3. Evaluate arguments for and against Berkeley’s subjective idealism. Do you accept or reject his theory? Why or why not?

4. Suppose someone claims that he can easily refute Berkeley’s idealism by simply kicking a rock or eating an apple. Does this demonstration show that Berkeley’s view is false? Explain.

5. Do you agree with Hume that any belief not based on perceptions cannot be knowledge and is completely meaningless? Give reasons for your view.

6. How is Kant’s theory of knowledge different from rationalism, empiricism, and skepticism?

7. In what way is Kant’s view a “Copernican revolution”?

8. Explain how Hume and Kant differ on knowledge of the law of cause and effect. Which view seems more plausible to you? Why?

9. Explain Kant’s distinction between phenomena and noumena. What would a skeptic say about this distinction? What would Hume say? Which of these three views is most plausible?

10. Kant assumes that our experience will always be shaped by a fixed set of fundamental concepts. But it seems possible that human nature and its innate concepts could change radically over time through evolution. What are the implications of this for Kant’s notion of conceptualized experience?

11. Some notable male philosophers have assumed that women’s reasoning ability is inferior to men’s. What conclusion about the philosophical enterprise do you draw from this? Should the theories of these philosophers be rejected out of hand?

12. Is there such a thing as a female nature ? Or is female or woman defined variously by society or culture?

13. Kant said that women are not capable of grasping principles, thus excluding women from moral reasoning. Should his theory of knowledge then be discounted, discarded, or ignored? Why or why not?

14. Are all universal statements in science and ethics suspect, as feminist postmodernists believe? Explain.

15. Feminist postmodernism has been accused of being a form of cognitive relativism. Is this charge valid? Why or why not?