discussion board question and answers

WEEK ONE DISCUSSION QUESTION AND ANSWERS

Part I: Q&A Discussion Forum: You will be asked to come up with two original questions based on the work of two different authors in each week’s required readings. Think about what stood out to you in the works in question—what ideas, theories, or approaches did you find to be interesting, engaging, or perhaps intriguing or challenging? (See each Discussion Forum for the specific authors or works you may select from in forming your questions.) Your task is then to do your best to answer each of your own questions as incisively and thoroughly as possible within a word-count range of around 350-500 words maximum (posts with fewer than 250 words will not receive any credit). The word count includes your question but not any citations. You must cite at least one source, which will be the particular essay or article from the required readings you are addressing. You are welcome to bring in as many others sources as you may need, but this is optional. Just be sure to cite any source from which you take ideas, arguments, or passages of language within the body of your response (next to the quoted or paraphrased passages), including the full source information at the end of your response (you need not do a separate works cited or reference page for this assignment). Your score for this part of the assignment will be based on the relevance, sophistication, and originality of your questions as well as the insight, understanding, and incisiveness expressed in your answers. In these essay-style responses to your own questions, you should express a point of view and support your view with good reasons, evidence, examples, expert opinion, etc. High marks will not be achieved by simply reporting back information from the text or other sources. Philosophical thinking and writing involves more than presenting information; beyond doing this, you must also critically assess the issue in question—this involves original thinking and analysis. Moreover, you should attempt to come to some final position in response to the question and include evaluation of others’ positions or views on the issues involved in the question. Work for originality and development of critical analyses and evaluations.

Formatting Your Posts: EXAMPLE

YOU SHOULD CREATE A NEW PAGE FOR EACH ONE OF YOUR TWO QUESTIONS

1) Q&A: Compose and answer two original questions based on the Week One required readings. Ask and answer one question that addresses the works of each of the following philosophers:

Plato (you may select any of the particular reading assignments by Plato from Week One).

Descartes (consider here only Meditations I and II from Descartes's Meditations on First Philosophy).

1) Part I: Each one of your two Q&A Discussion pages should be formatted as follows (remember...these are two separate threads):

2) First thread: My first question is: My answer to this question is:

3) Second thread: My second question is: My answer to this question is:

REQUIRED READING INFO:

THE OTHER READING:Use these readings to look for how what Russell,  The Problems of Philosophy says there links up with, adds to, or even conflicts with the philosophical views and ideas of Plato and Descartes.

· Plato, Republic, Book IV, §437b-441e; Books VI-VII, §509d-521a [Excerpts can be found here: 

Plato,  Dialogues,  vol. 3  : Bk. IV, pp. 272-278; Bk. VII, pp. 351-360; and also here: 

Plato:  Complete Works  , Ed. John M. Cooper, Bk.IV, pp. 1099/1068-1104/1073; Bk. VII, pp. 1161/1130-1169/1138.  [Please note that the three items below are for further study but not required reading.]

. For further study and comparison, read this concise and annotated contemporary translation of the 

Allegory of the Cave from Book VII of the Republic  .

. For further study, read this brief 

analysis of the Allegory of the Cave  retrieved from http://personal.tcu.edu/jrharris/sample.pdf. 

. For a further analysis of Socrates's explanation of the divided line at the very end of Book VI, read this article by John Malcolm "

The Line and the Cave  ," 1962. 

· Descartes, 

Meditations on First Philosophy :  Preface; Meditations I-II, pp. 1-12 [ [You can find an in-depth analysis of Descartes's philosophy and more of his work here:  The Online Library of Liberty  ].