Metaphysical Questions on the Self Due.

Assignment for the 1st Guided Essay:
One of the great ironies of life is that, though we have spent our entire waking lives with ourselves, the precise nature of our self remains elusive and enigmatic.
This past 4-week section of the course has explored some deceptively complex questions:
How Can We Explain the Relationship Between Mind and Body?
How Can We Account for Conscious Experience?
What Really Is the Self?
Of course, those are only the broad questions. There have been many others as we have progressed from week to week and entered into different readings and discussions.
The philosophers we have studied in this five-week unit have endeavored to unravel the mysteries of consciousness and physicality, mind and body, and the nature of the self:
Alan Turing
Gottfried Leibniz
J.J.C. Smart
Aristotle
Thomas Hobbes
Steven Jay Gould
John Searle
Georg Wilhelm Hegel
Mark Mercer
George Mavrodes
Lynn Baker
Gilbert Ryle
Charles Taylor
Plato
Jean-Paul Sartre
David Chalmers
Hilary Putman
Sigmund Freud
Augustine
Genevieve Lloyd
Kate Chopin
Jerry Fodor
Aquinas
Janice Steil
David Armstrong
René Descartes
Paul Churchland
Daniel Dennett
Charles Darwin
Richard Dawkins
Peter Singer
Francico Ayala
Alfred North Whitehead

Use four Philosophers to bring various perspectives as you develop your own ideas to the various questions. Choose one question to build your paper around.
It is likely you have found, in studying these readings, that you have gained both insight and confusion as your understanding of these issues has deepened and your questions have become more intellectually sophisticated.
This essay assignment is an opportunity to express your own views on the nature of the self in a form that is thoughtful and coherent. Although I have just now used the phrase “the nature of the self” to describe the topic, you will quite likely want to limit or define your topic in a way that helps you to develop your thinking. In other words, you will find it helpful if you can refine a more particular question that your essay pursues. That will give your essay focus, help you relate readings to one another, and keep your thoughts from scattering in too many directions.
Defining your focus question is an important early step. Try to choose a question that has gotten your attention and interest as you have read and written during the course of this unit. Make sure it is a question that you can a tie significantly to the thinking of at least four of our authors for this unit. within your essay.
Also, you should begin by reflecting on various perspectives regarding the self (or your more defined topic/question) that you have read about and discussed in this unit. Make notes about which theories you strongly agreed and disagreed with, but also those that added an important perspective worth thinking about, and do some pre-writing by drafting a paragraph on each of those theories, bringing your own experiences and reasoning to support your positions. Then use these drafts to compose a paper that reflects your own synthesis of the theories.

Include overviews and critiques of at least four of the philosophers you have studied in this unit. But, besides including these overviews and critiques, your essay should be organized in a way that progresses toward clarifying your own viewpoint and showing why that should be the preferred position on the issue.
You may find that your ideas on this complex subject become clearer as you think them through in writing. By the end of the essay, your reader should be convinced that you have good understanding of the thinkers you chose to discuss; also, your reader should have an understanding of your concept of the self and its connection to the philosophical ideas we have been examining. As you write this essay, I expect you to use almost entirely your own words, except for an occasional brief quotation from the course readings (with page number cited). Please do not cut and paste or copy from secondary sources that you find on the internet. If, for some reason, you wish to quote or paraphrase something from a source outside of our readings, you should cite that source using MLA documentation guidelines—i.e., parenthetical reference in the text plus a Works Cited list. Mid’s guidelines for academic honesty apply to this assignment, as your essay should be your own work.
Your finished essay should be at least 1600 words (which is at least five full pages in double spaced 12-point font).

QUESTIONS FOR THIS GUIDED ESSAY
Stage 1: What is the key philosophical question that you wish to explore in this essay? Besides stating the question in this opening section, reflect upon why or how this philosophical question arises and why it matters. (at least 250 words)

Stage 2: Explain how that philosophical problem or question is dealt with in the the ideas and arguments of one of the philosophers we have read (see list at the top of this assignment):
Be sure to explain the philosophers’ thinking with focus on your chosen philosophical question. How does this philosopher introduce a distinctive approach or answer to the question? But also, what seems problematic in that philosopher’s thinking on this issue? (at least 250 words)

Stage 3: Explain how that philosophical problem or question is dealt with in the the ideas and arguments of another one of the philosophers we have read (see list at the top of this assignment):
Be sure to explain the philosophers’ thinking with focus on your chosen philosophical question. How does this philosopher introduce a distinctive approach or answer to the question? But also, what seems problematic in that philosopher’s thinking on this issue? (at least 250 words)

Stage 4: Explain how that philosophical problem or question is dealt with in the the ideas and arguments of another one of the philosophers we have read (see list at the top of this assignment):
Be sure to explain the philosophers’ thinking with focus on your chosen philosophical question. How does this philosopher introduce a distinctive approach or answer to the question? But also, what seems problematic in that philosopher’s thinking on this issue? (at least 250 words)

Stage 5: Explain how that philosophical problem or question is dealt with in the the ideas and arguments of another one of the philosophers we have read (see list at the top of this assignment):
Be sure to explain the philosophers’ thinking with focus on your chosen philosophical question. How does this philosopher introduce a distinctive approach or answer to the question? But also, what seems problematic in that philosopher’s thinking on this issue? (at least 250 words)

Stage 6: Conclude your guided essay with a discussion of your chosen philosophical problem or question. In this section, you should develop your own thinking on the key question, probably through comparison, contrast or critique of the four philosophers you discussed in the earlier sections. But I look especially for your own original thinking in this section as you think through and defend your chosen position or resolution to the question you have worked on throughout the essay. (at least 350 words).

Featured course learning objectives:
Almost all of the course learning objectives apply within this assignment, but the following are especially prominent:
b) Identify and frame a critical question in philosophy, and distinguish different approaches to that question, including key concepts and theories involved in each of those approaches. (developing proficiency in Analytic Inquiry)
e) Offer communications that are clear and coherent for classmates and/or instructor, and that operate through audience awareness, and that coordinate effectively with the group’s collective inquiry into problems in philosophy. (developing proficiency in Communicative Fluency)
h) Show ability to recognize philosophical issues within everyday problems and ability to deal with everyday problems philosophically. (developing proficiency in Broad Knowledge)

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