Descartes, Hume, Kant or Nietzsche Essay

PHIL 113:08
Dr. Dewey
This essay will be the second short essay constituting 10% of your final grade. For this
essay, you will be expected to develop your responses as clearly as possibly in a 2-3 page essay.
Be sure to eliminate any unnecessary filler, and directly respond to the questions.
For this essay and for all others throughout the course, you are responsible for following
the MLA general essay guidelines, which can be found at the Purdue OWL website:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/ (Times New Roman 12 pt. font, double-
spaced, 1 inch margins, page numbers, first page heading, proper in-text citations and works
cited entries, etc.)
You will also be required to submit all essays upon the due date to the Moodle
assignment page, and should attach your file with a saved file title that consists of your first
initial and last name, followed by an underscore and the title of your essay. Example:
Bdewey_Socratic.docx (please use your own name and not mine). If you have difficulties via
Moodle, please submit your essay to Bdewey@Maryu.marywood.edu
Please respond to one of the following assignment options:
1.) Descartes, Hume, Kant, and Nietzsche all begin their philosophical projects in response
to certain failures and wrongs that they believe preceded them. Choose one of these 4
philosophers, and address the following questions:
What are they responding to within their philosophy? How do they respond? What do
you think of the effectiveness of their philosophical arguments/response? What problems
might they leave behind for others, or what problems/failures still remain?
2) Looking specifically at Immanuel Kants moral philosophy and his formulation of the
categorical imperative, how can you easily explain this categorical imperative to someone
unfamiliar with Kant, and how successful of a prescriptive ethical philosophy is Kants
categorical imperative? What potential problems or disagreements might there be
regarding Kants categorical imperative, and how might one attempt to defend Kant?

3) Friedrich Nietzsche is famously known as the philosopher who declared God is Dead.
What does he mean by this and why does he believe God is Dead? What does he believe
or response should be to the Death of God? How does Gods death influence or relate to
other important aspects of his philosophy? Could God remain alive for these other
aspects of his philosophy to still hold importance?

The essay is due by midnight on 11/20 through Moodle