Take-Home Essay Exam and Paper #3

 

 

Take-Home Essay Exam (for Nonmajors)

 

Write a separate essay for each of the following topics. Each essay must contain at least one citation from our reading.

 

1. Pick what you think is the strongest of Aquinas’ five arguments for God’s existence. Briefly explain the argument in your own words, focusing on what you take to be the most essential claim in the premises. Then critically evaluate the argument, pointing out its strengths and weaknesses and justifying your claims. (Minimum 1.5 full pages.)

 

2. Explain Bonaventure’s view that God is reflected in all creatures, illustrating it with at least two examples from the reading: a material object and a faculty in the human mind. Briefly, why is this view a version of Neoplatonism? (Minimum 1 full page.)

 

3. Explain the three criteria in Aquinas’ just war theory, and apply them to the U.S. military intervention in Iraq: On his view, is this a just war? Why or why not? Then evaluate Aquinas’ theory, considering the relevance of his criteria and whether they are sufficient. Make sure your essay is well-reasoned and that it avoids emotional rhetoric. (Minimum 1.5 full pages.)

 

 

Paper (for Philosophy Majors)

 

The emergence of Aristotelianism as a competitor to Augustinian Neoplatonism is the defining characteristic of philosophy in the high medieval period. Illustrate the difference between them by explaining in detail Aquinas’ view about how we acquire knowledge of material things (including his concept of abstraction), and contrasting it with Bonaventure’s claim that such knowledge is only possible because “[t]he creatures of this sensible world signify the invisible things of God” (320). Briefly describe the affinity of Aquinas and Bacon on this issue.

 

Your paper must contain at least 3 citations from our reading.

 

 

Guidelines for Take-Home Essay Exam and Paper:

 

1. Length – Minimum of 4 full pages, maximum 7 pages. If you use formatting or stylistic devices which artificially inflate the length of your writing – such as titles or headers, footnotes or citations within the text, or extra spaces between paragraphs – you will need to expand the length of your essay or essays to make up the difference.

 

2. Citations – Provide full citations for any quotation or paraphrase (not including class lectures), using any standard method that provides all of the relevant information (including exact page numbers). Sample: Augustine, “On the Free Choice of the Will,” in Medieval Philosophy, 4th edition, ed. Forrest E. Baird and Walter Kaufmann (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003), p. 81.

            Place full citations in endnotes or a bibliography placed at the very end of the paper. Citations in the text or in footnotes should include only the author’s last name and the page numbers.

 

3. Formatting – Number pages and staple; 12 point type; Double-spaced; 1-1.5 inch margins