1. Give an account of the ontological argument for the existence of God as well as Kant’s critique of it. Do you think this argument is really sound? Or is Kant’s critique of it correct? Is it possible that the argument merely explicates the meaning of God without really proving that he indeed exists? Or is necessary existence a peculiar property, which perhaps only God has, so that he must exist? Give reasons for holding your view. 4. Give an account of the critique of religion by Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. Write a full paragraph on each one of them. Do you think they are right to regard religion primarily as an obstacle to man’s self-determination and self-realization? Or can religion also work in exactly the opposite way which these atheistic thinkers claim? Give concrete counter-examples of self-realizing humans who have been religiously motivated. How would these three cynics react to this Should we liberate ourselves from dependence on God in order to fulfill our human potential or not? Give reasons for holding your view. 6. Give an account of Aristotle’s theory of essences, and how to grasp the essence of a thing, by examining a paradigm case, which excels at expressing it, rather than getting at the characteristics which all members of a type have in common. Why does he see the essence as defined by its telos or function? Take the definition of man by specific difference as being a rational animal and a political animal and spell out the elitist implications of it, which allowed Aristotle to exclude women and enslaved people from citizenship, due supposedly to their lack of rational capacity rather than their lacking the educational opportunity to excel. What do you think of this? Give reasons for holding your view.
