Directions (Read Carefully!): 1. You must write an essay for a prompt. The essays must be saved in a distinct .doc or .docx file labelled EE1 Essay 1. Essays will not be accepted in any other format. 2. Each essay must contain your CWID at the top. Your name should NOT appear in the essays. 3. Your essays must be double spaced with one-inch margins all around and should be written in 12 point font. 4. Each essay must be 400 – 600 words long. Your essay must be a minimum of 400 words but you can go over 600 words by a reasonable amount if you feel that it is necessary to do so. Just don’t write novels. 5. Your essay should be written for an audience that has not read the material, attended the lectures, nor seen the prompt. Imagine you’re teaching the material to someone completely unfamiliar with the material, prompt, or lectures. This will lead you to explain things clearly and thoroughly. For example, you will need to repeatedly mention the name of the philosopher throughout the essay and should not immediately respond to the questions in the prompt without posing these questions in your essays. 6. You may NOT use secondary sources of any kind for this assignment. Your essays should be based entirely on class lectures and the assigned readings. This includes dictionaries and internet sources. 7. Quotations must follow proper MLA format and should be used sparingly. The majority of your essay should be in your own words. If you quote me you must mention me by last name before the quotation, use quotation marks, and cite the day this was said, or the lecture and page number. Likewise with the philosophers you’re writing about. 8. Your essays must contain a proper thesis statement telling your reader what you will discuss. 9. Your essays must address the questions in the prompt in the order they are presented in the prompt. You must address all parts of prompt. 10. Your essay must be well organized, free of awkward sentences, and must use proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Your essay should be broken into paragraphs addressing specific points. Your essay should be free of slang and abbreviations. 11. Your essay should not contain any numbered or bullet points, but should be written in the form of an essay with distinct paragraphs addressing distinct points. 12. Paragraphs should be spaced exactly as the rest of your essay (e.g., there should NOT be four spaces between paragraphs, only two). You will need to adjust your word processing program to avoid this problem. 13. Your thesis statement should NOT be a “grabber” like “Since the beginning of time, mankind has wondered…” Stick to the topic the prompt asks. A good thesis statement has the following structure: “In this essay I will discuss Heidegger’s account of the worldhood of the world and how tools take on the meaning and significance they have.” It tells your reader exactly what you will discuss. 14. Your essays should focus solely on what the prompts asks and should not discuss irrelevant things such as the biography of the philosopher. 15. When using key terms, they should be defined exactly as they are in lecture or using an accurate paraphrase that does not change the meaning of those terms. The safest way to do this is by simply quoting the definitions as presented in lectures. 17. Your essay should NOT use the word “ideology” when describing the positions of the philosopher you are writing about. Ideology refers to a person’s political orientation (democrat, republican, conservative, socialist, etc), or distorted beliefs about society and how society works that benefit the ruling group. Essay 1 Leibniz raises the question of why God created this universe rather than all of the other possible universes God could have created. Write an essay addressing the following points: 1) What is Leibniz’s answer to this question and what argument does he give to arrive at this conclusion? 2) According to Leibniz, what three features make this the best of all possible universes? Make sure you explain and illustrate how each of these three features work to demonstrate that you have understood Leibniz’s point. 3) As you explain the three features that, according to Leibniz, make this the best of all possible universes, explain how Leibniz deduces these features from the nature or properties of God. Here is a list of the properties of God as understood by Leibniz: If God is a perfect being then God must have the following nature, essence, or properties: he must be infinite, eternal, omnipotent, morally perfect and good, omniscient, and rational because it is more perfect to have these characteristics than not. Finally, 4) given that the universe often appears to be a pretty awful place where terrible things happen daily, how does Leibniz explain why the universe SEEMS awful when, according to him, it is the best possible universe? To complete this essay you will need to review Lecture 12 and read the Discourse on Metaphysics, sections 1 – 17. IMPORTANT: Your essay should NOT discuss the principle of identity, non-contradiction, nor Leibniz’s thesis that beings contain everything that will happen to them past, present, and future, nor that they have no causal connections between them. These are not one of Leibniz’s three reasons. The first two reasons he believes this is the best of all possible universes pertain to nature and the third to morality.
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