Paper 1 Prompts
- Much of what we have read so far appears to idealize rationality. How valid is this idealization? Are humans indeed naturally rational or does rationality have to be learned?
- Discuss the effectiveness of Hume's critiques of natural religion as outlined in Dialogues.
- Hume said "A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence" (p. 108). Discuss..
- Critically evaluate Hume's arguments in "Of Suicide" or "On Miracles". Do not just summarize his ideas or offer unsubstantiated assertions.
- Read Galileo's "Letter to the Grand Dutchess" (here). How effective is his separation of science and scripture? Can his ideas be used today for interactions between religion and science?
- Develop your own thesis using our readings so far. Be sure and run your ideas past me before you begin writing.
Remember, these are prompts to get you thinking about your thesis (argument) for the first paper. They are not theses that you can defend. See here for guidelines on how to move from a prompt to a paper.
While the papers are to be grounded in discussion of the texts we have read so far this semester, you can use works read in HON 171 as needed. The only requirement is that you concentrate on the works we are reading.
The paper is worth 15% of your final grade and should be 1500 to 1750 words in length and no longer. Your paper must present a clearly organized and persuasive
argument relating to the material we have read. You must develop an opinion about the work
and use evidence from the text to substantiate your claims. As this course aims to have you
think critically about primary sources, i.e. our assigned readings, no secondary material may be
utilized in your papers, as you are being judged on the quality of your ideas, the form in which
you present those ideas, and your use of textual evidence.
Some easy ways to lose grade points on a paper:
- Submission of a paper that is above the length requirement loses one letter grade.
- Submission of a paper that is below the length requirement will result in failure of the
assignment (0%).
- Excessive grammatical and spelling errors (including misspelling author names, places or
the title of works) will be punished to varying degrees depending on severity.
- Late papers will not be accepted and will receive a zero grade (0%).
See the syllabus for further comments on paper grading.