Phil 107: Knowledge and Reality. Smith and Jones Case

Phil 107: Knowledge and Reality     

First Paper Draft      Dowell      Spring 2019
Due Date: 2/13, at the END of lecture
Goals:• Learn how to explain complicated philosophical material clearly and in your own words. • Improve your ability to communicate complicated material to someone not already familiar with that material, so that they could learn that material from you. • Learn how to state a novel, plausible philosophical position.• Improve your ability to state a novel position on a complex topic and provide a plausible justification for that position that a reasonable person who did not already accept it would need to consider.
Instructions:• Write an essay of approximately 750 words (no less than 730 words and no more than 770) answering ONE of the following questions.• It should be possible for an intelligent reader, who knows nothing of the material, to learn and understand the argument you have chosen to explain from reading your essay.• Be sure to explain the necessary background material in your own words.  (Do NOT simply repeat material that has been presented on lecture slides or in your recitation.)• In stating your novel position, be sure to express your ideas sufficiently clearly that a reader could understand your position from what you have written.  • Be sure to number your pages.• Be sure to cite your evidence for your attribution to the philosopher you have chosen (either giving a page number for his text or citing the date of the class lecture).• Bring a paper copy to lecture. Include your name, your TA’s name, and the day and time of your section on the BACK of the last page of your paper for anonymous review.• You must upload an electronic copy to Turnitin on Blackboard to receive credit for your paper.
1. Gettier argues that justified, true belief is not sufficient for knowledge.  Using one of his two illustrative examples, explain his reasoning for his conclusion. (Hint: You will need to explain each of the two background assumptions on which that reasoning relies.)  Then clearly state what you think is missing in that example, the addition of which would plausibly turn justified, true belief into knowledge in that case. 2. Explain Descartes’ Argument from the Indiscernibility of Identicals.  Then explain and assess the assumption underlying his justification for the first premise in that argument.  Then state what you take to be the best reason to think that assumption is NOT plausible. 3. Explain Descartes’ Conceivability Argument. Then state what you take to be the best reason to think the third premise in that argument is NOT plausible. (Be sure to identify a novel reason; do not simply restate the considerations raised in lecture.)