The final paper will be due on the last day of class (April 13), and will be worth 30% of your final grade. It should be a maximum of five pages in length, with double spacing and a reasonable font. You should number pages, and should have the topic you are addressing clearly indicated on the cover of the paper. If you are unclear about how to write a philosophy paper, you can find a very good online guide here.
Papers handed in late will be subjected to a late penalty of 4 points/day. Weekends count as days.
You are welcome to come up with your own topic, though you must get my approval first. If you do this the question that I approve should be on the first page of your essay.
Below are five topics I suggest.
1. Explain the argument from illusion. Is it convincing? Develop and evaluate a response to the argument.
2. Wittgenstein claims that there is a connection between the possibility of representing the world and the structure of the world. Explain and evaluate one of his arguments for this claim.
3. Both Wittgenstein and Ayer state principles which place a limitation on what can be meaningfully said. Both face a resulting paradox: the principles they state seem not, by their own lights, to qualify as meaningful. How do they respond to this problem? Is it a serious problem for their views? If so, how should they modify their views in response to it?
4. Russell claimed that his theory of descriptions solved the problem of negative existentials. Explain his solution to the problem, and explain why that solution requires analyzing ordinary proper names as disguised descriptions. State and evaluate at least one objection to the view that ordinary proper names can be analyzed via the theory of descriptions.
5. Russell claimed that material objects are logical constructions out of sense data. Explain some of the views which motivated this claim, and explain how one might analyze a claim about material objects in terms of sense data. Consider and evaluate one or more objections to this view.