Essay: Philosophy of Religion

Essay #1: Introduction to Philosophy

 Unit: Philosophy of Religion

 Course goals: 

• Be able to write philosophically on a variety of topics;

• Understand the different contexts and criteria for knowledge;

• Have developed an understanding of the relation of philosophy to other disciplines and areas of inquiry.

  Unit objectives:

  *To understand the way that religion could be understood as lived experience and philosophical praxis

   

  *To understand the dialectic between western and nonwestern religious philosophy

   

  *To consider shared philosophical ideas (ontology, etc.) between multiple thinkers

  
  

 Choose one of the following two essay prompts. The essay should be three to five pages in parameters, double spaced, and in MLA format or Chicago format.

In the second paragraph of the excerpt from William James below, the term “consensus gentium”  means a common consent. In other words, the term suggests a universal principle that all can agree upon. Revisit this section, and explain a) what James means by the “consensus gentium,” whether he suggests that idea has currency, and how his examples (libraries, geometry) play into this idea. Explain his ideas, and articulate whether you think he believes “objective evidence and certitude” are indeed possible (IV.2). Feel free to use other parts of his essay in formulating your reply.

“Objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they found? I am, therefore, myself a complete empiricist so far as my theory of human knowledge goes. I live, to be sure, by the practical faith that we must go on experiencing and thinking over our experience, for only thus can our opinions grow more true; but to hold any one of them —I absolutely do not care which—as if it never could be reinterpretable or corrigible, I believe to be a tremendously mistaken attitude, and I think that the whole history of philosophy will bear me out. There is but one indefectibly certain truth, and that is the truth that pyrrhonistic scepticism itself leaves standing,—the truth that the present phenomenon of consciousness exists. That, however, is the bare starting-point of knowledge, the mere admission of a stuff to be philosophized about. The various philosophies are but so many attempts at expressing what this stuff really is. And if we repair to our libraries what disagreement do we discover! Where is a certainly true answer found? Apart from abstract propositions of comparison (such as two and two are the same as four), propositions which tell us nothing by themselves about concrete reality, we find no proposition ever regarded by any one as evidently certain that has not either been called a falsehood, or at least had its truth sincerely questioned by some one else. The transcending of the axioms of geometry, not in play but in earnest, by certain of our contemporaries (as Zöllner and Charles H. Hinton), and the rejection of the whole Aristotelian logic by the Hegelians, are striking instances in point.

No concrete test of what is really true has ever been agreed upon. Some make the criterion external to the moment of perception, putting it either in revelation, the consensus gentium, the instincts of the heart, or the systematized experience of the race. Others make the perceptive moment its own test” (IV. 2)

St. Thomas Aquinas’ ‘On the Five Ways to Prove God’s Existence’ is a short treatise that makes sequential points in favor of his main proposition. Consider the five points that Aquinas makes and the relative merit of his argument on each one (‘motion,’ ‘gradation,’ and so forth). Write a first-person letter back to Aquinas on his five main points, addressing how persuasive he is for several of these points. Find at least one point with which you agree, and find another one that is disagreeable. Explain his rationale fairly, critique his points fairly, and use direct quotations from Aquinas several times while doing so. The purpose of the letter is to provide external context and commentary on the five propositions – but done in personal, first-person terms. Allow your own voice to be included in the letter at opportune times. Be polite in rhetorical form, but persuasive in articulating your points.

Good luck! Feel free to contact your instructor with further questions.