Dowling College
Dr Christian Perring
PHL 003A Introduction to Philosophy Spring 2003
Paper I.
2 pages/~600 words. Due by midnight on Wednesday February 19. Even if you have not completed your paper by class, do NOT miss class. If you find you are having difficulties writing your paper, contact me to let me know and I will help you.
Papers must be submitted in an electronic form. I prefer you to do so using Turnitin.com (the class ID is 59882, and the password is "philosophy"), but you can instead email me a copy of your paper in Word or RTF as an attachment, or give me a copy of your paper on disk. You can if you want also give me a hard copy.
Any form of plagiarism or academic dishonesty is unacceptable and may result in you failing the course and being reported to the Dean of Students. Plagiarism is using sources in the writing of your paper without acknowledging your sources. It is often a good idea to use other sources, but if you do so, you must say where you found information, either in parentheses or in a footnote. If you quote directly or copy text from another source, you must put the quotation in quotation marks and say exactly where it comes from, giving page numbers or the exact URL. I don’t require any particular reference format, but APA format is a good one to use. (For more information on reference formats, the Dowling College Library website has a page on the Citation and Evaluation of Sources.)
For a short paper like this, you do not need introductory or concluding paragraphs. Just answer the question.
Answer ONE of the following questions.
1. Explain both Aquinas’ SECOND way to prove the existence of God (p. 58) William Paley’s main argument for the existence of God (p. 62) in your own words. For each argument, discuss what properties God must have if the proof is successful. Finally, give the best objection you can to ONE of these arguments.
2. Explain William James’ argument in favor of religious belief in “The Will to Believe.” Then consider whether one could make parallel arguments in favor of belief in (a) continued existence of people after their physical deaths OR (b) the Easter Bunny.