2 Pages Exploration Paper

Suggested Topics for Exploration Papers, Phil 1301 (Just a few)

Pre-Socratics: Their Arguments for Hedonism, Their Arguments for Skepticism

Socrates: The Socratic Method, The Ethics of Socrates, Socrates and the Gods, The Epistemology of Socrates, The Metaphysics of Socrates, A Socratic Thanatology

Plato: The Allegory of the Cave, The Epistemology of Plato, Plato’s Anthropology, Plato’s Understanding of Justice, Plato’s Political Theory, Plato’s Feminism, Plato’s Understanding of Love, Plato’s Understanding of the Forms, Plato’s Argument for the World of Ideal Forms

Aristotle: Aristotle’s Physics, Aristotle’s Epistemology, Aristotle’s Ethics, Aristotle’s Logic, Aristotle’s Disagreement with Plato, Aristotle and the Development of Science, Aristotle’s Poetics, Aristotle’s Political Thought, Aristotle’s Understanding of Friendship, Aristotle’s Understanding of and Argument for the Prime Mover, The Four Causes, Aristotle’s Aesthetics

Epicurus: Epicurus’ Metaphysics, Epicurus’ Ethics, Epicurus and the Question of Death

Augustine of Hippo: His Argument for the Existence of God, His Philosophy of Mind, His Understanding of Time, His Synthesis of Christian Thought with Platonism, His Free-will Theodicy (How he accounts for the presence of evil in a world created by a good God)

Anselm: The Ontological Argument for the Existence of God

Thomas Aquinas: The Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God, His Understanding of Natural Law

Renee Descartes: How Does He Come to the Conclusion, “Ergo Sum Cogito?” His Understanding of the Mind/Body Problem, His Argument for the Existence of God, His Epistemology

Gottfried Leibniz: His understanding of language, Theodicy of Against Argument of Evil and Suffering

George Berkeley: His Argument for Subjective Idealism

John Locke: His Political Theory, His Epistemology

David Hume: His Skepticism and His Epistemology

Immanuel Kant: His Epistemological Revolution, His Ethics (The Categorical Imperative)

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: His Metaphysics (Dialectical Understanding of Reality)

Karl Marx: His Interpretation of History, His Critique of Capitalism, the Alienation of the Worker, the Superstructure of society

Soren Kierkegaard: His Critique of Hegel, His Understanding of Authenticity and Faith

Baruch Spinoza: His Ethics, His Understanding of God

Arthur Schopenhauer: His Understanding of the Will

Friedrich Nietzsche: His Idea of ‘Will to Power,’ His Epistemology, His Metaphysics

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein: Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Language (Game Theory of Language)

Edmund Husserl: Phenomenology

Martin Heidegger: Ontology (existence), Hermeneutics

Jean-Paul Sartre: Atheistic Existentialism

Martin Buber: Theistic Existentialism (Ich-Du)

Alvin Plantinga: Analytic Theistic Philosophy, The Question of Evil, His Ontological Argument