Create 20 examples of philosophy analysis prompts. Explain each.
Okay, here are 20 examples of philosophy analysis prompts, each with an explanation of the kind of analysis required and its philosophical significance.
Philosophy Analysis Prompts:
Prompt: Analyze the structure and validity of René Descartes' 'Cogito, ergo sum' ("I think, therefore I am") argument. Does it successfully establish an indubitable foundation for knowledge as Descartes intended?
Explanation: This requires analyzing a foundational argument in modern epistemology and metaphysics. Students must dissect the argument's logic (Is it an inference? An intuition?), assess its premises (What does 'think' entail? What is 'I'?), and evaluate its success in overcoming radical skepticism. It engages with foundationalism and the nature of self-knowledge.
Prompt: Compare and contrast Plato's Theory of Forms with Aristotle's concept of substance as the fundamental constituents of reality.
Explanation: This is a comparative metaphysics prompt focusing on two giants of ancient philosophy. It requires understanding Plato's two-world view (sensible vs. intelligible realms) and his concept of abstract Forms, contrasting it with Aristotle's immanent realism where form and matter constitute individual substances in this world. Analysis involves identifying key differences in their ontologies and epistemologies.
Prompt: Critically evaluate John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of his distinction between higher and lower pleasures and its response to the "doctrine worthy only of swine" objection.
Explanation: This ethics prompt requires an evaluation of a specific refinement within classical utilitarianism. Students must understand Bentham's original formulation, Mill's qualitative distinction, and analyze whether this distinction is coherent, defensible, and successfully addresses criticisms about utilitarianism ignoring the quality of happiness. It probes the nature of happiness and value theory.
Prompt: Analyze Immanuel Kant's concept of the Categorical Imperative (specifically the Formula of Universal Law). Is it a viable and sufficient basis for determining moral duty?
Explanation: This focuses on the core of Kant's deontological ethics. Analysis requires understanding the formulation (Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law), applying it to test cases, and evaluating its strengths (e.g., impartiality, rationality) and potential weaknesses (e.g., rigidity, conflicting duties, neglect of consequences/emotions).
Prompt: Analyze the compatibility (or incompatibility) of metaphysical libertarian free will and causal determinism. Evaluate the main arguments for both compatibilism and incompatibilism.
Explanation: This delves into the classic free will debate (metaphysics, philosophy of action). It requires defining key terms (free will, determinism, compatibilism, incompatibilism) and analyzing the logical and conceptual relationship between them. Evaluation involves assessing arguments like the consequence argument (for incompatibilism) or arguments based on different levels of description (for compatibilism).
Prompt: Explain Gettier's critique of the traditional 'justified true belief' (JTB) analysis of knowledge. Evaluate the success of one proposed solution to the Gettier problem (e.g., causal theory, reliabilism, defeasibility).
Explanation: This epistemology prompt focuses on a pivotal 20th-century challenge to defining knowledge. It requires explaining the structure of Gettier cases (where JTB is met, but intuition suggests no knowledge) and then analyzing a specific attempt to amend or replace the JTB theory, evaluating its ability to handle Gettier-style counterexamples.
Prompt: Analyze John Rawls' concept of the 'Original Position' and the 'Veil of Ignorance' in A Theory of Justice. Evaluate its effectiveness as a hypothetical contract device for deriving principles of justice.
Explanation: This political philosophy prompt examines Rawls' influential thought experiment. Analysis involves explaining the setup (rational, self-interested parties choosing principles behind a veil blocking knowledge of their own status) and evaluating whether this mechanism fairly models impartiality and leads compellingly to his specific principles of justice (e.g., liberty principle, difference principle).
Prompt: Compare and contrast Thomas Hobbes' and John Locke's conceptions of the 'state of nature' and analyze how these differing conceptions lead to their distinct theories of government legitimacy and scope.
Explanation: This comparative political philosophy prompt focuses on social contract theory. It requires outlining Hobbes' view (war of all against all) and Locke's view (natural law, natural rights, inconveniences) and tracing how these foundational anthropologies and pre-political states inform their arguments for absolute sovereignty (Hobbes) versus limited government protecting rights (Locke).
Prompt: Analyze the Mind-Body Problem: Critically evaluate substance dualism (e.g., Descartes) versus physicalism/materialism as competing solutions.
Explanation: This core philosophy of mind prompt requires understanding the fundamental problem of how mental states relate to physical states. Analysis involves explaining the core tenets of dualism (mind and body are distinct substances) and physicalism (mental states are ultimately physical states), and evaluating the major arguments for each (e.g., conceivability argument for dualism, causal closure argument for physicalism) and objections (e.g., interaction problem for dualism, explanatory gap for physicalism).
Prompt: Analyze David Hume's argument concerning the problem of induction. Is he correct that we have no rational justification for believing that the future will resemble the past?
Explanation: This epistemology prompt deals with Hume's famous skeptical argument about inductive reasoning. It requires explaining Hume's reasoning (inductive inferences rely on the Principle of the Uniformity of Nature, which itself cannot be justified deductively or inductively without circularity) and evaluating its implications for scientific knowledge and everyday reasoning.
Prompt: Analyze Friedrich Nietzsche's distinction between 'master morality' and 'slave morality' in On the Genealogy of Morality. What are the core values and psychological origins attributed to each?
Explanation: This prompt focuses on Nietzsche's ethical critique and historical analysis. It requires explaining the characteristics Nietzsche associates with each type (master: noble, value-creating, life-affirming; slave: reactive, based on resentment, utility for the weak) and analyzing his genealogical account of how 'slave morality' (specifically Judeo-Christian ethics) came to dominate Western values.
Prompt: Critically assess the validity and implications of the Ontological Argument for the existence of God (e.g., Anselm's or Descartes' version). Consider key objections (e.g., Gaunilo's island, Kant's 'existence is not a predicate').
Explanation: This philosophy of religion prompt requires analyzing a purely a priori argument for God's existence. Students must carefully reconstruct the argument's logical steps (defining God as that than which nothing greater can be conceived, arguing existence is part of perfection) and evaluate influential critiques that challenge its premises or logical structure.
Prompt: Analyze Ludwig Wittgenstein's concept of 'language-games' in the Philosophical Investigations. How does this concept challenge traditional theories of meaning based on reference or mental representation?
Explanation: This philosophy of language prompt focuses on Wittgenstein's later work. It requires explaining the idea that language functions in diverse ways embedded in forms of life ("games") and analyzing how this view contrasts with earlier theories (like Wittgenstein's own Tractatus or simple referential theories) by emphasizing use, context, and public criteria over private mental states or a single essence of language.
Prompt: Analyze the Ship of Theseus paradox. What different criteria for identity over time does this thought experiment force us to consider, and what are the strengths and weaknesses of each criterion (e.g., material continuity, structural continuity, functional continuity)?
Explanation: This metaphysics prompt uses a classic thought experiment to probe the concept of identity, particularly persistence through change. Analysis involves articulating the paradox clearly and using it to examine competing theories of identity (e.g., sameness of matter, sameness of form/structure, psychological continuity for persons) and their counter-intuitive consequences.
Prompt: Evaluate Simone de Beauvoir's claim in The Second Sex that "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." Analyze its distinction between biological sex and socially constructed gender.
Explanation: This prompt engages with feminist philosophy and existentialism. It requires analyzing Beauvoir's central thesis, explaining the distinction she draws between the biological 'female' and the constructed identity 'woman' (shaped by societal expectations, myths, and oppression), and evaluating the philosophical implications of this claim for understanding identity, freedom, and social structures.
Prompt: Analyze the concept of 'Justice as Fairness' as developed by John Rawls. Explain and evaluate his two principles of justice (Liberty Principle and the combined Fair Equality of Opportunity/Difference Principle).
Explanation: This political philosophy prompt requires a deeper dive into the content of Rawls' theory (complementary to prompt #7). It demands an explanation of the specific principles Rawls argues would be chosen in the Original Position and an evaluation of their coherence, justification, and practical implications for structuring a just society.
Prompt: Critically analyze Thomas Nagel's argument in "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" regarding the irreducibility of subjective conscious experience (qualia) to objective physical description.
Explanation: This philosophy of mind prompt focuses on the problem of consciousness and qualia. It requires explaining Nagel's argument (understanding a bat's objective neurophysiology doesn't equate to knowing its subjective experience) and analyzing its implications for physicalist theories of mind – does it successfully show an "explanatory gap"?
Prompt: Compare and contrast the ethical frameworks of Virtue Ethics (e.g., Aristotle) and Deontology (e.g., Kant). Focus on their differing conceptions of the primary object of moral evaluation (character vs. actions/rules) and their approaches to moral decision-making.
Explanation: This comparative ethics prompt requires analyzing two major normative ethical theories. It involves identifying their core tenets (Aristotle's focus on eudaimonia and virtuous character traits; Kant's focus on duty and the Categorical Imperative) and contrasting their fundamental approaches to what makes something morally right or wrong and how one should live a moral life.
Prompt: Analyze Karl Popper's criterion of falsifiability for demarcating science from non-science (or pseudo-science). Evaluate its adequacy and consider major criticisms (e.g., the Duhem-Quine thesis, the status of historical sciences).
Explanation: This philosophy of science prompt examines a key demarcation criterion. It requires explaining Popper's proposal (a theory is scientific only if it can be potentially refuted by empirical evidence) and evaluating its success as a defining feature of science, considering challenges regarding auxiliary hypotheses and the practice of actual science.
Prompt: Analyze the concept of 'Bad Faith' (mauvaise foi) in Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialism. Explain how, according to Sartre, individuals engage in self-deception to evade the anxiety of freedom and responsibility.
Explanation: This prompt focuses on a key concept in existentialist philosophy and ethics. It requires explaining Sartre's view of radical freedom and the resulting anguish, defining 'bad faith' as the denial of this freedom (e.g., pretending to be an object determined by one's role or past), providing examples, and analyzing the psychological and philosophical mechanisms involved in this self-deception.
These prompts aim to encourage deep engagement with philosophical texts and concepts, requiring students to not just summarize but to critically analyze, compare, evaluate, and apply philosophical reasoning.
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