Essay #1. Due in class #7
Topics for First Paper
Your first paper is due in class #7 and should consist of five typed pages (250-300 words/page). Your paper should be double spaced and printed. Be sure to give it a title.
The topics below are meant to be suggestive. Feel free to modify them or to invent a topic of your own. The object of your paper should be to discuss one or more of the texts we have read so far this term. Your paper should deal with issues relevant both to the text and to the subject matter of our discussions in class.
Please remember that you are writing an essay, not a book-report. An essay should furnish some reminder of the book's contents in the context of an argument about those contents. The evidence you use to back up your arguments should be quotations from the works you have read.
Your essay should have an introductory paragraph with a thesis or problem statement and an overview of the scope of the essay. This introductory paragraph should be followed by a series of paragraphs that develop your thesis. Each paragraph should have a major topic and series of supporting sentences. Your sentences should be written in a clear, direct, and economical style.
Suggested Topics
1. Many commentators on Hume's Dialogues have held that Philo, the skeptic, wins the debate, despite the fact that the narrator says that Cleanthes spoke best. Of the three main characters, whom do you think has the most convincing arguments? Outline your reasons for thinking this way.
2. In Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey, Nature is imagined as being in a deeply sympathetic bond with the poet, and, by extension, all sensitive individuals. But, in Candide, Nature is destructive and unyielding. Comparing and contrasting specific elements in the two works, decide whose version of nature you feel is most authentic.
3. The Dialogues begins with a discussion of the appropriateness of the dialogue form in certain topics. What is gained or lost by Hume not addressing his reader in his own first person ("I think that . . .")? Some commentators have compared the dialogue form with experimental prose? Can you build a case for the Dialogues as an experiment in philosophical speculation?
4. A related question may be raised about Candide. Voltaire is obviously a satirist, pushing a point of view on a number of topics, yet he chooses to write a narrative rather than speak directly in his own person ("I think that . . ."). Develop a thesis on what is gained or lost by Voltaire's using a narrative to state his position? Can you state what Voltaire's own position is?
5. Pangloss and Philo each speak extensively on 'the problem of evil' (i.e., Where did evil come from? How is it to be understood?) Develop a thesis that compares and/or contrasts the views of the two philosophers on at least one point related to this issue.
7. After exploring Aristotle's reasons for claiming that nature is 'telic,' evaluate how well Alice in Wonderland and Candide demonstrate worlds in which nature is telic.
8. Compare Alice and Candide as books about education. What Rules does the novice in Wonderland need to learn? What rules does the novice in Candide need to learn? Develop a thesis and discussion on the role and status of learning in the two works.
9. Using Hume's Dialogues as your model, develop a philosophical discussion between Alice and Candide that explores Philo's four circumstances of evil. Be sure that Alice and Candide use examples from their own worlds to buttress their respective arguments.
10. A theodicy is an argument confronting the view that evil exists with the view that the universe was created by an omnipotent, benevolent deity. Develop a thesis that compares the theodicy of Cleanthes with the view of the Turkish philosopher at the end of Candide.
Topics for Second Paper
Your second paper is due in class #10 and should be 5 typed pages (figure 250-300 words/page). The following topics and questions are meant to be suggestive. Feel free to modify them or to invent a topic of your own. The object of your paper should be to discuss one or more of the texts we have read so far this term. Your paper should deal with issues centrally relevant both to the text and to the subject matter of our discussions in class.
Please remember that you are writing an essay, not a book-report. An essay should furnish some reminder of the book's contents in the context of an argument about those contents. The evidence you use to back up your arguments should be quotations from the works you have read. Your essay should have an introductory paragraph with a thesis or problem statement and a overview of the scope of the essay. This introductory paragraph should be followed by a series of paragraphs that develop your thesis. Each paragraph should have a major topic and series of supporting sentences. Your sentences should be written in a clear, direct, and economical style.
Suggested Topics
1. Adam Smith argued that the general interest of society was better managed by just letting things happen, without conscious direction of economic policy, than when philanthropic or benevolent interests were put deliberately to work. In other words, Smith believes that the best motivation is enlightened self interest. Develop a thesis about Smith's principle of enlightened self interest and test your thesis in the context of Malthus's Essay, Hume's Dialogues, or Voltaire's Candide.
2. Malthus applied the principle of population (p. 20 of our edition) both to plants and to animals. But the bulk of his argument seems to apply only to humankind, since it is humans who increase geometrically, while their food supply (plants and animals) increases only arithmetically. Develop a thesis and argument about whether or not there is a contradiction in Malthus's views?
3. According to Adam Smith, when everyone tries to serve his or her interests, the result is that the actions of all, taken together, necessarily enhance the annual revenue of the society; to use his famous metaphor, one is "led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of one's intention," namely, the good of society, and to do this better than if one actually tried to do it. How does Adam Smith account for this?
4. David Hume, in the person of Philo, may have anticipated and disposed of Paley's argument from design more than a quarter of a century before Paley offered it. On pp. 28-30, Paley offers an account of God as the mechanic or (as we would say) engineer, who designs things by acting in accordance with laws that he didn't discover. Does it matter that in Paley's argument, God the mechanic is also the creator of such laws? Discuss the pros and cons of Paley's view.
5. Which is more appropriate as the set of principles that underlies the world of Candide: Philo's four circumstances of evil or Cleanthes' discussion of the great machine of the universe? Develop a thesis and defend it with examples.
6. Adam Smith, writing twenty-two years before Malthus, seems to be saying something very like Malthus on pp. 181-83 (Penguin edition; the chapter entitled "The Wages of Labour") when he says that no species can multiply beyond its means of subsistence and that scarcity of means regulates the production of men as it does any other commodity. Yet Smith does not reach Malthus's gloomy conclusions. How does he avoid them? Is there anything about the 'division of labor' (which Malthus never mentions in the first edition of his Principles) that makes a difference to the argument?
7. To what extent, if any, do you think Malthus's concept of the 'Natural Inequality' holds in an age of advanced technology? Does technology have the potential to eliminate the Malthusian predicament?
8. According to Adam Smith, self-interest drives the development of an economy that benefits everyone by providing more opportunity. This self-interest could be argued to be 'instinctual,' un-selfconscious behavior. In Malthus's system, instinct, which may lead to the development of an economy, leads also to the production of excess population. Develop a thesis about whether or not the views of Smith and Malthus can be reconciled?
9. Develop a thesis and then compare and contrast Philo's example of the the vegetative principle with Adam Smith's ideas of the development of an economy.
Topics for Third Paper
Your third paper is due in class #18 and should be 5 typed pages (figure 250-300 words/page). The following topics and questions are meant to be suggestive. Feel free to modify them or to invent a topic of your own. The object of your paper should be to discuss one or more of the texts we have read so far this term. Your paper should deal with issues centrally relevant both to the text and to the subject matter of our discussions in class.
Please remember that you are writing an essay, not a book-report. An essay should furnish some reminder of the book's contents in the context of an argument about those contents. The evidence you use to back up your arguments should be quotations from the works you have read. Your essay should have an introductory paragraph with a thesis or problem statement and a overview of the scope of the essay. This introductory paragraph should be followed by a series of paragraphs that develop your thesis. Each paragraph should have a major topic and series of supporting sentences. Your sentences should be written in a clear, direct, and economical style.
Suggested Topics
1. Darwin writes: "I use the term 'Struggle for Existence' in a large and metaphorical sense . . . " (pp. 62). What are some of the ways he uses this phrase? Does Darwin's view of struggle differ from that of Malthus? Develop a thesis and write about what Darwin's phrase implies about Darwin's concept of nature?
2. How strong is the analogy between Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' and the description of natural selection given on p. 84 of the Origin, where we are told that natural selection "is daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working . . . at the improvement of each organic being . . . "? Develop a thesis and examine some of the ways in which Darwin's idea of design in nature resembles (or differs from) Smith's idea of design in the economy.
3. Compare the theodicies (i.e. the justifications of God's goodness) in Malthus and Darwin, showing how they elevate the idea of a designed universe.
4. Taking a direct cue from Paley's discussion of the eye and the telescope (pp. 14-30 in Natural Theology), Darwin examines "organs of extreme perfection" in the Origin, including the eye (pp. 185-89, 201-206). Examining the two texts, develop a thesis about the views of Paley and Darwin with regard to the eye. One of the issues here is the idea of perfection.
5. Taking up the taxa chart on pp. 514-15 of the Origin as your start, examine some of the ways this scheme of upward branching is used to conceptualize evolutionary process (see pp. 116-126, 331-333, 420-422). Develop a thesis about Darwin's visualization of evolutionary processes, and then discuss Darwin's taxa chart scheme in terms of the tree metaphor that Darwin invokes as an image of life (pp. 129-130).
6. Examine the emphasis given to accidental causes in the world of Candide and The Origin. Develop a thesis about how ideas of causality are expressed in these different worlds. What do Voltaire's and Darwin's ideas of causality tell us about the way that reality may be designed or constructed?
7. From Darwin's The Descent of Man
The advancement of the welfare of mankind is a most intricate problem: all ought to refrain from marriage who cannot avoid abject poverty for their children; for poverty is not only a great evil, but tends to its own increase by leading to recklessness in marriage. On the other hand,... if the prudent avoid marriage, whilst the reckless marry, the inferior members tend to supplant the better members of society. Man, like every other animal, has no doubt advanced to his present high condition through a struggle for existence consequent on his rapid multiplication; and if he is to advance still higher, it is to be feared that he must remain subject to a severe struggle. Otherwise he would sink into indolence, and the more gifted men would not be more successful in the battle of life than the less gifted. Hence out natural rate of increase, though leading to many and obvious evils, must not be greatly diminished by any means. There should be open competition for all men; and the most able should not be prevented by laws or customs from succeeding best and rearing the largest number of offspring.
Darwin deals here with the issues raised by Malthus. Develop a thesis and compare Darwin and Malthus in some detail on their social views. Darwin seems to advocate a laissez-faire (leave things alone) policy, unconstrained by legal or moral principles, in the production of offspring. Is Darwin's view more sensible than or simply the same as Malthus's?
8. Erewhon is 'nowhere' spelled backwards, with a slight concession ease of pronunciation. To what extent is the social system of Erewhon a Darwinian system? What are some of the targets and how well does Butler's the technique of satirical reversal Butler work? In what ways do Butler and Voltaire differ as satirists?
9. The judge in Butler's Erewhon speaks in condemnation of the man whose wife had died: "You have suffered a great loss. Nature attaches a severe penalty to such offenses, and human law must emphasize the decrees of nature." In the same way, Erewhonians regard luck, health, success (or their opposites, ill-fortune, disease, failure), as if they were ethical attributes, and criminality as non-ethical, something that can be pitied or ameliorated. What is the underlying distinction between the ethical and the non-ethical at work here? Is the Erewhonian system of justice consistent?
10. If the object of society is the establishment of a stable, predictable code upon which individuals may depend, what are the comparative merits of Voltaire's Eldorado and Butler's Erewhon? What does the principle of Yudgrun contribute to stability in both these worlds?
11. Butler presents two views of mankind's relation to machinery in "The Book of the Machines". In one view, humans and machines are separate 'organisms' and therefore in competition for the same resources and spaces. In another view, machines are extensions of human functionality and therefore incorporated as part of humankind. Are these two views of machines opposed? Can you think of examples in our day to illustrate your views?
12. Like Paley, the writer of Butler's "Book of Machines" compares the eye to the microscope and the telescope (the little and big "see-engines"). He writes: "What is man's eye but a machine for the little creature that sits behind in his brain to look through?" The word 'machine' here should not disturb us; it means 'contrivance'. But what of the "little creature"? If there is a little creature that uses the eye to look through, what does the little creature see with? Starting with this question, compare the various papers on computer intelligence distributed this term. Does a machine or contrivance always serve a purpose? If human beings are composed of machines or contrivances, and if the human brain is also a contrivance (as Butler hints in the paragraph after the one just cited), what is the entity to which it performs a function or a service?
Topics for Fourth Paper
Your fourth paper is due in class #22 and should consist of five typed pages (250-300 words/page). The following topics and questions are meant to be suggestive. Feel free to modify them or to invent a topic of your own. The object of your paper should be to discuss one or more of the texts we have read so far this term. Your paper should deal with issues centrally relevant both to the text and to the subject matter of our discussions in class.
Please remember that you are writing an essay, not a book-report. An essay should furnish some reminder of the book's contents in the context of an argument about those contents. The evidence you use to back up your arguments should be quotations from the works you have read. Your essay should have an introductory paragraph with a thesis or problem statement and a overview of the scope of the essay. This introductory paragraph should be followed by a series of paragraphs that develop your thesis. Each paragraph should have a major topic and series of supporting sentences. Your sentences should be written in a clear, direct, and economical style.
Suggested Topics
1. Like Paley, the writer of Butler's "Book of Machines" compares the eye to the microscope and the telescope (the little and big "see-engines"). He writes: "What is man's eye but a machine for the little creature that sits behind in his brain to look through?" Is there a little creature that uses the eye to look through? If human beings are composed of machines or contrivances, what is the entity that they serve? Is that entity the same entity that drives an automobile down Massachusetts Avenue?
2. Wells's The Time Machine seems to accept Huxley's viewpoint in Evolution and Ethics. Hardship and struggle, foster the human capacity for intelligence (recall Malthus, too). To put this in Huxley's terms, natural selection, in producing humans, has produced something that opposes the work of natural selection in favor of cooperation and the use of natural forces for the benefit of the human species. Paradoxically, however, intelligence, by removing the need for struggle, may remove the selective advantage of intelligence. Hence, the existence of Eloi and Morlocks, neither of which are very intelligent or cultured. Has intelligence thus led to the victory of the cosmic process over intelligence and culture, which seem to be missing in Wells's futuristic world? Develop a thesis and then comment.
3. "All the ethical points made by Huxley are present in The Time Machine but translated into vision." This statement (by the critic J. P. Vernier) is a commonplace of observation about Wells's "scientific romance". Comment by comparing selected aspects of the two books.
4. Both Wells and Stevenson write stories about self-division, in which two sides of human nature are conceived as separable. In one case (Stephenson), the separation is effected at a social, perhaps organismic, level; in the other (Wells), the two sides are given independence of the composite self that is humankind. In both, however, the active, creative side of the self is associated with darkness and evil. Develop a thesis and then comment.
5. In various ways, Huxley and Wells modify the idea of 'perfection,' a term used in various ways by Darwin. As Huxley points out (and Wells implies), although the process of natural selection may be said to perfect things, it does so only in relationship to the particular situation of a given species--its particular conditions of existence. Can you imagine conditions in our contemporary times, therefore, under which 'perfection' by the standards of natural selection would be 'degeneration' by human standards of ethics or culture? That is, can conditions arise in contemporary society in which non-ethical, anti-cultural norms of human behavior are adaptive?
6. Using one or more of the books we have read, develop a thesis about the relationship of 'progress' and 'evolution.'
7. Compare the integrative role of convention in Erewhon, Dr. Jekyll, and Evolution and Ethics. Develop a thesis and then comment.
8. The question, "Can computers really think?" may be regarded as another version of the question, "Does nature really select?" Is the parallel valid? How far does the parallel go?
9. In his God and Golem, Norbert Wiener discusses the problem of 'Homeostasis' in terms of the relationship between humans and the machine (see Chapter 6). Is this problem related in any way to the problem of the human-machine relationship alluded to in Wells's The Time Machine?
10. Discuss the problem of magic, operationalism, and cybernetic control, as it is developed in God and Golem. How does this problem relate to problems of social and instrumental design? The tale of The Sorcerer's Apprentice is relevant here.
11. From God and Golem
No, the future offers very little hope for those who expect that our new mechanical slaves will offer us a world in which we may rest from thinking. Help us they may, but at the cost of supreme demands upon our honesty and our intelligence. The world of the future will be an ever more demanding struggle against the limitations of our intelligence, not a comfortable hammock in which we can lie down to be waited upon by our robot slaves.
Comment. Does Wiener's observation support Huxley's conclusion in Evolution and Ethics?
12. From God and Golem: "A hen is merely an egg's way of making another egg." (p. 36). Discuss.
13. Write about evolution as a learning process.