Reference no: EM133486366

Case Study: Please chose one of the following three paper topics. Your discussion should be between 800-1050 words. Part of this assignment is to develop and defend your own philosophical perspective on one of the course topics.

Notice that the prompts each do a fair amount to walk you through developing your position. (Topic 3 has the most, followed by topic 2 and then topic 1). Adhering to this structure, and making sure he feel comfortable with one part before moving onto the next, will help you write a focused, engaged paper.

Topic 1: Hume gives a general account of how we come by our beliefs about unobserved "matters of fact," but most of his examples concern a special case: beliefs about the future. First, come up with an example that does not fit this mold-a belief about some past or present matter of fact that you have not personally observed. Explain how Hume's problem about induction arises in your case, and what the problem is more generally. Do this in roughly the first 1/3 of your paper.

Hume claims that all of our reasoning concerning unobserved matters of fact is "founded on the relation of cause and effect." But this is puzzling. People living near the ocean have always known that high tide is followed by low tide at certain intervals. These people experience a regularity and come to expect it to persist into the future, and this would appear to be a clear example of the sort of reasoning Hume has in mind. But over the centuries, most of these people have had no idea what causes the tides. That is a scientific discovery (due to Isaac Newton).

In this part of your paper, explain why Hume might have thought reasoning about the unobserved involves reasoning about causes, and why the case of the tides and the case you came up with in the first part of your paper, may pose a problem. What problem does it pose? That's the next third of the paper.

In the last 1/3 of your paper, try to answer the following question. Is Hume just wrong to say that reasoning about the unobserved always involves reasoning about causes? If so, why? If not, why not?

Topic 2: You encounter a tribe who do not reason as we do. Their senses and their memories are every bit as good as ours, but when they notice that all observed emeralds have been green, they conclude that the next emerald they encounter will not be green. In general, they follow a rule of counterinduction.

All observed Fs have been G.
Therefore, the next F we examine will not be G.

You are deep in conversation with a counterinductivist when you are told that a new emerald has just come to light. The two of you are asked to predict its color. You say it will be green; the counterinductivist says the opposite. You point out that the examined emeralds have all been green. The counterinductivist says, "I know. That gives us reason to think this one will be different." You say, "But induction has almost always worked in the past." The counterinductivist says, "Precisely. That gives us reason to think that it will fail in this case." You say, "But your track record is terrible; almost all of your predictions have been wrong!" And the counterinductivist replies, "Exactly. That gives us reason to believe that this time we'll be right!"

Is the counterinductivist irrational (despite his maddening consistency)? If so, say why. If not, say why not. Start your paper off by explaining any key phrases ("induction" "counter induction") . Then explain in your own words the question in the paper prompt (roughly first 1/3 of your paper). Then develop, and explain, your answer to the questions in italics. (second 1/3 of your paper). Finally, consider a worthy objection to your position. How would you respond to it? (Roughly the last 1/3 of your paper).

Topic 3:

In this paper, you will develop your thinking about whether color is a physical property of objects by engaging with one of Hardin's central arguments.

Hardin argues that color properties are not identical with various physical properties, despite these properties partly causing our color experiences. These include the surface reflectance properties of objects (what he calls their radiation). Hardin writes: "Apart from their radiative result, there is nothing that blue things have in common, and we have already seen that there is nothing in the structure of that radiation which could serve as counterparts to the unique hues or the opponence of complementary hues. I conclude that objectivism fails. It fails because nothing in the domain of objects, properties and processes beyond our skins is both causally connected with our colour experiences and models the essential characteristics of colours."

Please explain Hardin's reasoning for this conclusion, in particular the part of the passage quoted above. Do you think the reasoning is valid? Is it sound? Do you agree that, for example, a tomato's property of being red is not identical with any property of its skin, or its surface's reflectances?