PHIL Discussions

Discussion 1

This is not intended as a fluff question. One aim of it is to help students get to know each other better. But its largest aim is to make students set speific investigative goals for themselves. I want you to think hard about the following question: What question(s) about death do you hope to get answered, or at least addressed, in a class like this? The clearer you are about what you hope to get out of our inquiries in this class, the more you will get out of these inqiries.

word count (150)

Discussion 2

I would suggest that most (if not all) of our knowledge is theoretical. That is, there is very little that we take ourselves to know, which is wholly based on simple “direct observation.”

What I would like each of you to do is to explicitly articulate a theory that you have come to accept as a result of your studies (college, high school, independent reading, whatever). This can be a theory in the sciences or the humanities. It does not matter. It need only be an account that you have come to accept for its seeming ability to provide the “best explanation” for a phenomenon that you take to be observable or well-confirmed.

I then want you to evaluate this theory using the criteria of theory choice in lecture #3 (and the Schick and Vaughn material it concerns). Your answer should be several well-chosen paragraphs long.

To repeat, do the following:

(1) Clearly articulate a theory you have come to accept as a result of your studies.

(2) Evaluate this theory using the criteria of theory choice discussed in lecture #3.

Discussion 3 

I would like you to think hard about the following question: what, if anything, would you have to experience during a “Near Death” Episode to become convinced of the truth of the soul theory?

Note a couple of things here. I am not assuming or requiring that you disbelieve in souls. That is your business, not mine. Instead, I am asking you whether or not a first-person NDE would ever constitute conclusive evidence (by your lights) of the soul’s existence. And if it could, what exactly would it have to be like? What precisely would have to occur? 

No aspect of a first-person NDE could be conclusive (note that I am not telling you to complete this). If this is the case, then address the following question: what kinds of third-person tests or experiments would convince you that NDEs are best explained in terms of the soul?

This is a discussion assignment. So please don’t tell me what you think I want to hear (as my skepticism concerning this stuff is presumably apparent from the lectures). Use this to wrestle with these issues and share your conclusions

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