Writing Prompts - Please respond to one of the following three writing prompts, in an essay which complies with the Basic Instructions below:
First Writing Prompt:
The film All The President's Men and Greenstein's article on direct and circumstantial evidence provide us with several examples of the way humans try to find the meaning of facts and the truth about events.
Assume that you must rewrite Greenstein's article, using three or four scenes from the film All The President's Mento illustrate Greenstein's main idea.
• Which film scenes would you use?
• What is the conclusion Greenstein should draw from those film scenes about gathering and assessing evidence?
Second Writing Prompt:
"It would not be an exaggeration to say that the distinction between appearance and reality is, and has always been, one of the principal focal points of philosophy. ... [T]he chief question raised by the distinction is epistemological: How can people know the nature of reality when all that people have immediate access to are appearances? Broadly speaking, responses to the question fall into one of three classes: Those that argue that observers are unavoidably "cut off" from reality, those that argue that there is some way of "getting at" reality through the appearances, and those that reject the distinction."
("Appearance and Reality."New World Encyclopedia.24 Oct. 2012. Web.)
• Please discuss how Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" answers the distinction between reality and appearance.
• How does Locke's understanding of our senses, our reason, and the outside world contradict Plato's ideas?
• Which of these two thinkers makes the most compelling argument for a workable system of knowledge that best explains your life experience? Please provide two or threespecific reasons to support your choice.
Third Writing Prompt:
In "On Truth and Lies in an Extra-Moral Sense," Nietzsche asks the following questions about the relationship between words and ultimate reality:"And besides, what about these linguistic conventions themselves? Are they perhaps products of knowledge, that is, of the sense of truth? Are designations congruent with things? Is language the adequate expression of all realities?" (1)
• Please discuss how Locke, Nietzsche, and de Saussure answer these questions, and how their conclusions differ from, or agree with, one another.
• Which of these three thinkers makes the most compelling argument regarding the language/reality relationship that best explains your life experience? Please provide two or three specific reasons to support your choice.
Basic instructions:Your 750 to 1,000-word essay (three-four pages)should meet each of the following content and format requirements:
• Create a thesis that focuses your essay, supported by well-organized paragraphs and a well-reasoned conclusion
• Include at least four short quotations from the assigned readings to support the reasoning in your essay
• Document all primary and secondary sources according to the Modern Language Association (MLA) or American Psychological Association (APA) method of documentation with parenthetical citations everywhere you quote, paraphrase, or summarize
You may use the Weiss article in your discussion of Nietzsche's ideas, but you must cite the article according to the foregoing rules.
• Include a Work(s) Cited/Reference section at the end of your paper, and a header with your name, course number and section, and date
• Be word-processed, double-spaced, in 12 point font with no more than one inch margins all around, and be free of spelling and grammatical errors.