PHIL 336 TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

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Instructions

Textual Analysis Assignment

For your first writing assignment in PHIL 336 you will be analyzing how an important philosopher, Aristotle or Descartes, developed their arguments. It is important to note that we study the old philosophers not because they have some overarching authority, or that we hold them in special reverence, and their writings as holy and above criticism. The conclusions of Aristotle and Descartes concerning the natural world have long been questioned and criticized by philosophers, and even discarded by modern science. No, we study the old philosophers such as Aristotle and Descartes because they can teach us how to think, (not necessarily what to think) and how to arrive at an understanding of difficult-to-grasp concepts. It will be your task in this assignment to understand how Aristotle or Descartes thought about some important ideas in their philosophies of the mind, and the reasoning they used. You will demonstrate your understanding by answering some important questions (listed below) about how they developed their arguments. Your first step is to choose between Aristotle’s De Anima or Descartes’ 2nd Meditation. When writing on these questions, remember to use examples, analogies, parallels, metaphors and other tools of reasoning in your explanations so your instructor can understand you better. 

Technical requirements of the Textual Analysis Assignment 

· Choose either Aristotle’s De Anima or Descartes 2nd Meditation 

· Minimum 100 word answer for each question 

· Submit a Microsoft .docx (not .pages or .pdf) 

· Double Spaced, 12pt Times New Roman font, 1” right and left margins 

The purpose of this essay is twofold: 

· To give you experience closely analyzing the reasoning of an important philosopher on the subject of the mind 

· To give you experience communicating your understanding of a philosophical writing 

Option 1: Aristotle’s De Anima (“On the Soul”) 

Explore how Aristotle develops an understanding of phantasia (“imagination”) in De Anima, Book III, Part 3: 427b28 – 429a9 and noein (“thinking”) in De Anima, Book III, Part 4: 429a10 – 430a9. 

A reading guide on this text can be found here: 

Polansky, Ronald, M. Aristotle’s De Anima: A Critical Commentary. Cambridge University Press (2007). 

The text of Aristotle's De Anima to read can be found here:

Aristotle, De Anima, Book III, Part 3 - 4

Answer the following questions on a separate document (Microsoft Word .docx),  exploring how Aristotle develops an understanding of phantasia (“imagination”) in part 3 and noein (“thinking”) in part 4 of De Anima.  

1. Why does Aristotle say that  phantasia is distinct from perception? (428a6ff.)  

2. Aristotle claims that “sensations are always true, imaginations are for the most part false” (a11-12) What does he mean and why is it important to state? 

3. How does Aristotle argue that imagination is distinct from belief? (428a19-b5). Can you identify the premises and conclusion? 

4. What positive relation does imagination have to perception? How is imagination related to motion? (428b10-17)  

5. How is "thinking" (noein) like perceiving? (429a13-17)  

6. In what sense is intellect purely potential? (a20)  

7. How does intellect differ from perception in its being unaffected? (429a30-b5)  

8. Why does Aristotle say intellect is separable? (b5)  

9. What kind of knowledge is Aristotle talking about at 429b6-9?  

10. How does the analogy of the writing tablet help explain the nature of intellect and its relation to its objects? (430a1-2)  

Option 2: Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy  

Explore how Descartes develops his ideas on the nature of the mind in the 2nd Meditation, OF THE NATURE OF THE HUMAN MIND; AND THAT IT IS MORE EASILY KNOWN THAN THE BODY, sections 1-16 

A reading guide on this text can be found here: 

Franks, Richard, Descartes’ ‘Meditations’: A Reader’s Guide. Continuum (2008) 

The text of Descartes 2nd meditation to read can be found here:

Descartes, 2nd Meditation, parts 1-16.

Answer the following questions on a separate document (Microsoft Word .docx), exploring how Descartes develops his ideas on the nature of the mind in the 2nd Meditation. 

1.  According to Descartes, what is necessarily true each time it is expressed by me? 

2. What, according to Descartes, am I? What is the nature of the mind? 

3. Exactly what does the argument concluding at the end of the third paragraph of Meditation II prove? Does it prove that Descartes exists? Does it prove that I (the reader) exist? Does it prove to me that I exist? (Are these last two questions different?) 

4. How does Descartes go about imagining himself without a body? Can you really imagine yourself without a body? Can you conceive of having sensations -- sights, sounds, smells, etc. -- without a body? Could you be without being somewhere and some when? 

5. What does Descartes say is the nature of material bodies? (Is he right?) 

6. In the example of the wax, if the wax really changes all of its sensory qualities (i.e., the qualities that the senses can perceive), then what makes me think there is any one thing here at all? Does any collection of sensory qualities make up the sensations of an object? 

7. What important conclusion about the nature or character of the mind does Descartes draw from the example of the piece of wax? 

8. When a physicist investigates the nature of some element, does he or she concentrate on sensory qualities, or on the underlying atomic structures? Would Descartes call our knowledge of that underlying atomic structure sensory knowledge or rational knowledge? 

9. If Descartes is correct that the essence of the mind is thinking, then how can I ever know whether there are other minds besides my own?