Directions: Write a two page paper on any one of the following topics. Make sure that your writing is clear and precise and that you make it very clear what your central point is. These topics are likely to be difficult. Some details about how to write these papers will be discussed in class. This assignment is due at the beginning of class on Thursday, February 21. If you are having trouble deciding on a topic, do (8) below or check with me.
1) You can write about any point in the readings assigned up through the 2/21/02 class or any point that has been discussed in class. Among the things you might write about are The Standard View, The Traditional Analysis of Knowledge, the connection between morality and epistemology (the issues raised by Clifford), or the problem raised by Gettier and the various responses to it. Pick one of these points if you have something you want to add to the discussion. This can be a critical comment about one of the points made in one of the readings or in class or a defense of some claim from criticisms made in the readings or in class. {Check with me about your topic before proceeding.}
2) Defend the TAK from Gettier style examples. In Chapter 3, Section II of the book (and in class) I presented two such defenses, but I argued that they didn't work. You can argue that one of these defenses does work. Or, you can argue that there's another way to defend the TAK.
3) In Chapter 3, Section III of the text I criticize two slight modifications of the TAK. Defend one of those modified analyses from one of the criticisms presented there. {Note: you need not think that the modified analysis is correct to do this. It is enough to think that one of the specific objections presented in the text (or in class) does not work.}
4) Raise an objection to the "Modest Proposal" presented at the end of Chapter 3.
5) Pick some point in Clifford's essay, "The Ethics of Belief" and discuss it. (Do not attempt to discuss the whole essay.) If you do this, you should either discuss some point we did not already discuss or else add something to our discussion.
6) In Chapter 2 of the text, there is a discussion of the correspondence theory of truth. Discuss some aspect of this view. You can react to one of the nine points considered in this section, raise a question or objection, or identify some significant consequence that is not discussed in the book.
7) Is knowing how to do something reducible to propositional knowledge? (Add to what was said in class and the book.)
8) On the bottom of p. 28 and the top of p. 29 Goldman discusses an example about Abraham Lincoln. What point is he trying to make with this example? Is he right? Must defenders of the traditional analysis deal with this example in the way he says?