Chapter 4- Who Am I? My Mind, Other Minds, and the Nature of Reality
1. Compare and contrast the views of John Searle and Rene Descartes on dualism.
2. Compare and contrast the views of George Berkeley and Thomas Hobbes on the mind.
3. Does the materialist position imply a determinist position on the possibility of free will? Explain.
4. Explain what David Hume means by saying that we have no evidence of the self. How is Hume's view related to Milarepa's on this subject?
5. If a computer app beats you every tune you play chess, is the computer smarter than you? You're your computer think?
Chapter 5: Free will and Determinism
6. Is free will possible if there is such a thing as God's plan?
7. Explain the paradox of Buridan's donkey, and what Spinoza makes of this paradox.
8. In what sense does Alyosha Karamazov realize that he is free in Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov?
9. For existentialists from Dostoyevsky to Sartre, in what sense are human beings outside determinism?
Chapter 6: What about God? Philosophy of Religion in the Western Tradition
10. Explain, compare and contrast the views of Anselm and Gaunilo regarding the Ontological argument.
11. Explain and evaluate the views of Freud and Nietzsche, on the rationality of religious belief.
12. Explain and evaluate the views of Tolstoy and Kierkegaard, on the rationality of religious belief.
13. Explain and evaluate Pascal's Wager. Would belief based on such an argument get you into heaven?
14. Does believing in an afterlife affects the meaning of life for you? What about not believing in an afterlife?
15. Do you know anyone who believes in God because he or she saw a good proof?