Write a one page REACTION PAPER. This is opinionated not factual. Any and everything has to be from the pdf itself.
Below is an example.
REACTION PAPER RUBRIC
-Reaction Papers will be due in dropbox by the end of the week. There will be a total of 10 reaction papers that will need be submitted. However, there will be 13 weeks of class with readings. Therefore, you are permitted to skip 3 reaction papers whenever you choose. Each paper will count as 1% of the total course grade, adding up to a total of 10%.What you will need to do is write one paragraph summarizing an argument or other interest that a philosopher we have read that current week has put forth. Once you summarize their argument or whatever it was you found interesting that they said, then write a following paragraph that contains your reaction to it. For example, you could write about how you agree or disagree with what they said; you could write about why you thought the topic they dealt with was extremely important or not important; you could also write about anything else as long as you critically think about and deal with the argument you summarized in the first paragraph.
12 point, Times New Roman Font
Double Spaced
1-inch margins
250-300 words (1 page)
You MUST CITE PAGE NUMBER
Do not cite videos
Example reaction paper:
Robert Austin Kippes
Reaction Paper 01/11
In An Apology for Raymond Sebond, Michel de Montaigne sets out to bring humanity’s ego back down to Earth. He states that “The natural, original distemper of Man is presumption (16).” The significance of this is that humans have developed reason which includes assumptions of their superiority over other creatures. However, Montaigne finds these assumptions to be unjustified and overbearing. This is why he claims presumption is humanity’s original distemper: because it is a disease-like mode of being which breeds dogmatism. And no claim to pure, calm, and collected rationality can coexist alongside dogmatism. Although Montaigne’s arguments sometimes come off as arrogant, it is his wit and style that makes him a victim of this. After all, who is he to cut down the opinions of others as if he is justified in doing so by some aid of rational discourse? Is he not sometimes doing the exact thing he criticizes? For example, “to determine the limits of our powers and to know and judge the difficulty of anything whatsoever constitutes great, even the highest, knowledge” – so he states (16).
It would seem that by his own criticisms of the claim to reason’s power by other philosophers that he is determining the limits of the capacity of humans to attain knowledge. And so, would be refuting his central theme. But this is not the case. Never once does Montaigne say it is impossible for humans to use their creation of reason to know what is absolutely True. Instead, his criticisms, including this one stated above which could move uncareful readers to judge him as a hypocrite, are aimed at undermining the very unjustified use of reason which presupposes reason’s claims to be certain in advance. In other words, the problem with reason is that for what it claims to be known to be true it would need another rubric which justifies reason as a method to knowledge in the first place. And for Montaigne only God can provide this – the sole being capable of remaining outside the limits of reason to provide such a rubric. Therefore, it is here that Montaigne achieves a kind of tranquility because even this is not justifiable as a sole individual. In this assertion itself Montaigne would not seek out reason to justify but merely find peace in this ambiguous state of the unknown and the indefinite possibility of further inquiry.
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