Tuesday 10/8
Examination II
As per the syllabus, please note that today's examination is worth twice the first exam (100 vs 50 points). So it is important that you carefully review all of the notes, handouts, texts, and, crucially, the synopses for each of the lecture days. Make sure you are well-versed on the fallacies we've discussed, review the distinction we've drawn between puzzles and paradoxes and their nature, and be sure you understand all of the arguments we have taken up. A lot of this exam will depend on your capacity to think on your feet, as it were. Faced with the choice of getting sleep versus cramming for the exam, it is by far the wiser choice to sleep. Bear in mind that you can have a single, handwritten, 4"x6" notecard for reminders, explanations, or whatever you think might help.
Exam II is organized as follows:
- Truth-phobic language, argumentative contexts, and fallacies of natural language
- Puzzles and Paradoxes
- The Cosmological Argument for the existence of God and the Principle of Sufficient Reason
- The Teleological Argument for the existence of God
- The Ontological Argument for the existence of God
- The Traditional Problem of Evil