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Intuitions about Intensions

Final version of that Phil paper. I think it’s a lot cleaner than the last version, so I’m satisfied with how it turned out. Intuitions about Intensions In “Meaning and Reference,” Hilary Putnam challenges the theory that meaning is just a set of properties that picks out certain objects. He believes that psychological states don’t […]

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Paper Draft on Putnam

Here’s my first draft of a paper on Hilary Putnam’s “Meaning and Reference.” Alexi, the lecturer, stressed that we need to write clearly so that even an elementary student can understand it. While i hope that my audience is more mature than I am, I would still appreciate any feedback that anyone has on the […]

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Phil paper about Nagel on physicalism

I just turned in the first paper for my current philosophy class, “Mind, Matter, and Meaning.” I like to think my philosophy writing style has gotten better, but that might be tempered by my lack of depth on the topic. The paper isn’t very long, but I also didn’t manage to get a lot of […]

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Mill’s Objection to the Formula of Universal Law

The second paper I wrote for moral phil. I don’t really think i have anything surprising or new in here, but hopefully, I did a decent job explaining the concepts I do put out there. Mill’s Objection to the Formula of Universal Law In the “Groundwork for the Metaphysics Morals,” Immanuel Kant proposes a method […]

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Response to Kant’s Kingdom of Ends

So I did a very smart thing this quarter and did most of my reading responses early, before I got other bigger commitments. I finally got the motivation to write my last reading response last week, so here it is. Kant, Immanuel. “Groundwork for the Metaphysics Morals.” Cambridge University Press, 1998. 1-45 (As a preface, […]

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Arguments in Defense of Preference Hedonism

Here’s the first complete Phil paper I’ve written for my Moral Philosophy class. I turned it in Wednesday, and was reasonably satisfied with it. Like most things I write, I wish I had had more time to edit it, but at least I got a rough draft reviewed by my TA before turning it in. […]

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Response to Mill’s Utilitarianism

This is for tomorrow’s lecture. Sorry it tails off at the end, but I had to clip it to fit one page. Mill, John Stuart. “Utilitarianism.” Ethical Theory: Classical and Contemporary Readings, 5th ED. Wadsworth Publishing, 2007. While John Stuart Mill also proposes a type of utilitarianism, his theory differs from Bentham’s most notably in […]

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Response to Response’s to Bentham’s Utilitarianism

The topic we’re currently on is utilitarianism, so here’s one that I wrote for yesterday’s reading. Nozick, Robert. “The Experience Machine.” Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Basic Books, 1974. 118-119. Parfit, Derek, “What makes Someone’s Life Go Best?” Ethical Theory: Classical and Contemporary Readings, 5th ED. Wadsworth Publishing, 2007. In his excerpt, Derek Parfit provides several […]

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Response to Ethical Egoism 2

The reading for today in my moral philosophy class was again on Ethical Egoism, though from a different author. Specifically, Rachels, James, “Ch. 21: Ethical Egoism,” Ethical Theory: An Anthology, Russ Shafer-Landau ED., Blackwell Publishing, 2007. 213-220 Early in the excerpt, James Rachels makes the distinction between Psychological Egoism (which I will lazily abbreviate as […]

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Response to Ethical Egoism

One of the classes I’m taking this quarter is Phil 20, intro to moral philosophy. Of which I know nothing. The class assignments are all writing (and I’ve never done phil writing before), including several response papers to our reading. They’re not supposed to be polished, and probably don’t even have to be right, but […]