Descartes and Leibniz on the Relationship between Substances.
Descartes
Descartes provided an a priori argument (an argument not dependent on observational evidence) to prove that God exists. Present and evaluate Descartes’ argument along with explaining how it fits in with the rest of his philosopher (for example, his dualistic view of human nature, and how he escapes the trap of his own skeptical arguments). Are you convinced by Descartes’ reasoning? Recommended Essay structure: intro – present the proof of God’s existence – explain the connection to the rest of his philosophy – critically reflect on his reasoning in the proof as well as his reasoning that depends on God’s reality – consider how Descartes would respond to your criticism if you criticized, or consider an objection to your view if you supported Descartes (and defend yourself against that objection – consider the practical implications of Descartes’ success/failure in proving the existence of an infinite and perfect creator. Note that you may not write on this topic if you wrote on Descartes’ proof of God for Response Paper 7 General Instructions for Writing Essays Formatting All papers must be submitted in .doc, .docx, or .txt file format. If you submit your paper in another format, Blackboard can’t read it, and it won’t count. The essay should be double spaced, have 1 inch margins, and be 12 point font in Times New Roman, Arial, or Calibri. Length Your essay must be at least 4 full pages double spaced, not including the title, bibliography, cover page, or anything other than the text of the essay itself. Style and Substance All the papers for this course fall in the genre of persuasive essays. The purpose of the essay is to convince the reader of a single, central thesis. You must have a thesis statement, a 1 sentence statement of the ideas that your essay supports that includes only that one idea, not the reasons supporting it. Put your thesis statement in bold. What’s a good thesis? Any sentence that clearly states the position you’re defending. If you want to play it safe, start your thesis statement with “I will argue that ______.” You should support your thesis with reasons, but that part comes later. Your thesis should be in the first paragraph, before you start explaining why you believe it. Your paper will be better, and easier to write, if you organize it around the main reasons supporting your thesis, with a paragraph devoted to each main issue. In addition, be sure to devote sufficient space to explaining the philosopher’s ideas (while still devoting a significant portion of the essay to your own thinking) and demonstrate your objectivity on the subject by considering the best reasons to both support and oppose your thesis. Finish by telling the reader why it matters. Take this one last opportunity to make it clear that she didn’t just waste a bunch of time reading your thoughts. Citing Sources You must include at least 3 in-text citation to one of the articles assigned for this course. All in-text citations should take the form of the author’s name and the page number in parentheses at the end of the sentence, like this (Plato 17). If a PDF article doesn’t have page numbers, cite the page of the PDF document. If you’re citing a Youtube video, cite the approximate minute:second where you got the ideas. If citing a website, just do your best to make it easier for me to retrace your steps to find the info (this is probably best done with a footnote). I don’t care whether you’ve done any research beyond doing the assigned reading, and in many cases doing extra research actually hurts you, because you use others’ thoughts as a crutch to lean on rather than doing your own thinking. Also, a lot of info on the Internet is garbage, but that’s not the main problem; the real problem with doing the research is that you relieve yourself of the burden of thinking, but thinking is the whole point of these assignments in the first place. So, I don’t encourage doing any extra research. BUT if you did look at some website to get some ideas, you absolutely need to cite it as a source. Please don’t make me give you a zero for plagiarizing just because you were too lazy to reference your sources. If you only cite materials that I’ve provided through the course website (assigned readings, lecture videos, or supplemental resources), then you do not need a works cited page (bibliography). However, you must have a works cited page if you used any external resources
Descartes and Leibniz on the Relationship between Substances