Metaphysics Final Thesis Research Paper

Use Chicago format (or, if you really prefer, MLA) for citations. You should have quotations from each text you refer to, and you should introduce each author.

I suppose you must use books and academic journals that are available online. The library subscribes to many journals and you can access most articles online. Google scholar isn’t a bad place to look, either. Many books are available as PDFs online, or you can read them for free on google books. Especially for academic books, check for free PDFs. I recognize this kind of research is maybe less familiar but do your best. (If you’re citing a book from a book on google books, just use the normal print citation; if it’s an online PDF, use the format for web citations.)

This is a thesis paper like the last two we wrote. You should state an argument in the first paragraph and then demonstrate that argument in your body paragraphs. You must use quotations from all your sources. Your thesis, however, should not be about the secondary literature; the secondary literature should support your thesis.

I’m going to provide a few questions but please choose your own topic if you’d like, as long as it follows the above guidelines – two philosophers we’ve read, two secondary sources.

A good final paper would draw a specific and peculiar/important comparison or contrast between two of the philosophers we’ve read. This means offering an interpretation of each philosopher and then showing how their two philosophies are importantly similar or different. As always, the more detailed and specific or technical the comparison, the better.

Sample Questions:

1. What is Descartes’ idea of God and how does it differ from Leibniz’s idea of God. Why is Leibniz’s idea of God more aligned with Aristotle’s ideas of substance and the prime mover?

2. How does Plotinus’ concept of emanation reflect Plato’s theory of the forms, and how does Plotinus’ version of Platonic philosophy respond to Aristotle’s critique of the forms?

3. Descartes and Kant both put the human subject at the center of truth and experience. How does Kant’s subjectivism – his belief that the world is based in subjective conditions – follow from Descartes’ project of radical doubt, and how does Kant go further than Descartes?

4. We have seen with Parmenides and then with Leibniz the idea of determinism, the belief that there is no freedom and everything is predetermined by laws of necessity. In Schelling’s “Freedom Essay,” how does he conceive of freedom and does he escape the problems of determinism