Rules
1. Please do not consult materials from the Internet
2. Your essays will be graded mainly on the accuracy of your responses and the clarity and depth of your interpretations. You do not need to quote from any texts, but if you do, please cite the page number appropriately.
The Questions
Please write an essay of one or two paragraphs on one (1.) theme from each category Athrough D. (fouressays in total.)
Category A
1. According to Aristotle, why is an account of substance so important to the science of "being as being"?
2. What is a "primary substance", according to Aristotle? Make sure to explain both (a) why it is primary and (b) why it is appropriate to call it a substance. Discuss at least one example of such a substance.
Category B
1. Based on your reading of Aquinas's "Being and Essence", explain the difference between the essence of Hillary Clinton and the essence of Donald Trump.
2. In the Letter of Dedication to the Meditations, Descartes argues against a theological proof of God's existence. Explain what such a proof would be, and why Descartes thinks it would be unconvincing.
Category C
1. How does Descartes's Meditator know that he is not God? (See the third Meditation.)
2. Why is error a problem for Descartes's Meditator at the beginning of the fourth Meditation?
Category D
1. In Treatise I.I.I, Hume argues that impressions are the causes of ideas. Given his later discussion of causes and effects, what does this relation consist in?
2. Why does Kant claim that our intuitions only concern things as they appear, and not things in themselves? (See especially Prolegomena §§9-13.)
3. According to Heidegger, what is the difference between the shepherd's idea of the sun and the physicists'? What lesson can be drawn from this difference?