None of the following are required; they are merely suggestions for various ways in which you can improve your portfolio by showing initiative and serious interaction with philosophical issues. They may be as long or as short as you deem fit, and in any format you wish (as long as it's intelligible!).
I. Thought for the Day Responses: As we study the history of philosophy, I’ll occasionally put up a ‘thought for the day’, a philosophical passage from the general era we are studying. While you don’t have to do anything with them, if you do come across one that starts you thinking, don’t be afraid to put your thoughts about it down on paper (making sure it’s clear which passage it is to which you are responding) and put it in your portfolio. (You can write on any Thought for the Day at any time during the term.)
Ancient Philosophy
February 12 (Plutarch)
February 14 (Epictetus)
February 19 (Cicero)
February 21 (Epicurus)
February 26 (Philo)
February 28 (Lucretius)
Medieval Philosophy
March 4 (Augustine)
March 6 (Boethius)
March 18 (Bonaventure)
March 20 (Abelard)
March 25 (Maimonides)
Early Modern Philosophy
March 27 (Kant)
April 1 (Malebranche)
April 3 (Astell)
April 8 (Reid)
April 10 (Spinoza)
II. What the Tortoise Said to Achilles:
Read Lewis Carroll's classic work, What the Tortoise Said to Achilles, and write an essay on it. Your paper could briefly summarize the problem in which the Tortoise has mired Achilles. You could also discuss this problem, giving your own thoughts about it, with your reasons for taking the view you do. Some questions you might ask yourself as you read Carroll's story: What does the story tell us about logic and reasoning? What is the relationship between logic and real-life reasoning? Is there a solution to the problem presented in the story? If you give a valid argument and someone refuses to recognize it as valid in the way the Tortoise does, how would you go about showing that it is valid? How important is validity to actual argument? If you think Achilles makes a mistake in his responses to the Tortoise, what is it?
III. Two Apologia: Both Plato and Xenophon record a version of Socrates' speech at his trial. Read Plato's Apology and Xenophon's Apology, and compare and contrast them. ('Apology' in both cases means a defensive speech, not an apology in our sense of the term.)
IV. Socrates's Philosophical Approach: Using things Socrates explicitly says in the Gorgias as your basis, briefly describe what someone can learn from Socrates about how to approach philosophical questions.
V. Platonic Myth: Write your own philosophical myth, of the sort written by Plato, on any subject of your choice.
VI. Boethius and Plato: Using passages from each, compare and contrast the arguments of Socrates in the Gorgias and Lady Philosophy in the Consolation. What are some of the similarities? What are some of the differences?
VII. Reader Response: We suggested in class that one of the ways to view the Consolation is to see it as an attempt to heal not only the narrator but also the reader with philosophical argument, by using their sympathy with the narrator to get them thinking about their priorities in life. Discuss some of the ways in which the Consolation tries to be not only a description of Lady Philosophy's therapeutic treatment of Boethius but also a therapeutic treatment of the reader, insofar as they might agree with the narrator's view at the beginning of the work.
VIII. Boethius and Aquinas: Aquinas's Fourth Way has some interesting similarities to Lady Philosophy's argument that perfect happiness exists (in Consolation Bk. III, prose 10). Compare and contrast these two arguments.
IX. Animal Thinking: Do animals have minds? Can they think and reason? Do they feel pain and pleasure? Why or why not? What would Descartes's view of the matter be, and what reasons does he give for that view in the Discourse? Is there a problem with Descartes's argument here?
X. Machine Thinking: Descartes argues that machines cannot reason. Do you agree? Why or why not?