Discussion Questions
1) We encountered a plethora of views on the support of the earth among the various Presocratic philosophers. Provide an exegesis of each (Thales, Anaximander, Empedocles, Democritus). Which do you find the most significant and why?
2) Explain the connection between Parmenides' hard ontological distinction between ‘What-Is' and ‘What-Is-Not' and the Megarian ‘sea-battle' argument. (You will need to provide an exegesis of both.) What is the implication of both strands of reasoning for how we should think of reality?
3) Provide an outline of Plato's ideal city in the Republic and then explain Aristotle's criticisms of it in the Politics. Does Aristotle's conception of political life differ in principle or just in degree from Plato's? Who do you agree with more? Why?
4) Explain Chalmers' ‘hard problem of consciousness' in terms of Descartes' distinction between primary and secondary qualities (e.g. the wax example). What is so strange and intractable about qualitative-subjective experience as compared to the other ‘easy problems' of consciousness? Is the problem insurmountable, or is there another explanation?
5) Describe in detail one of the arguments against the freedom of the will we covered in class (Aristotle, Skinner, Hegel) and the response of one of the defenders of the freedom of the will (Pico, Pelagius, Sartre). Which side do you agree with and why?