Archive for year: 2023

1. According to Lyotard, what are the main characteristics of society in the so-called postmodern age? Please be specific, and carefully explain your reasoning.

2. What impact, according to Lyotard, does the postmodern age have on the nature of knowledge? Can you provide concrete examples? Please be specific, and carefully explain your reasoning.

Your response to each question should be about 300 – 400 words in length, but please feel free to be as detailed as you wish. Your responses must be written in full sentences, logically structured, using proper grammar and spelling, and appropriate style. It is recommended that you write out your answers using a word processing program and copy and paste the completed response or attach a file. This will avoid loss of work in case of an internet outage, etc. Always keep a backup copy of all written work.

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Suggested articles that you might respond to in your paper

1. Epistemology

a. George Bishop Berkeley (pronounced BARK-lee) (1685–1753) is associated with so-called Berkeleyan idealism, the perhaps surprising doctrine according to which ideas in the mind (appearances or sensations) exhaust existence—that is, nothing but these ideas exist, in particular, physical objects do not. See selections from his Dialogues between Hylas and Phylonous in Rosen et al. 417–428.

b. A view perhaps similar to that of Berkeley is presented by Buddhist monk Vasubandhu (c. 450 C.E.). See Rosen et al. 430–439, where claims, grounds, and argument are marshalled somewhat in the manner of Toulmin.

c. Nick Bostrom, “Are We Living in a Computer Simulation?”, Rosen et al. 443–451. This celebrated Swedish philosopher argues for a disjunctive claim: briefly, either (1) the vast majority of advanced human-like civilizations never become all that advanced, either technologically or inquisitively, or (2) it is all but certain that you are presently “living” in a computer simulation (a virtual reality) designed by some AI team belonging to such a civilization. (If (2) holds, then you are not in fact living, it seems.)

2. Metaphysics

a. Susan Wolf, “Sanity and the Metaphysics of Responsibility”, RBCHS 445–656

b. Nomy Arpaly, “Why Moral Ignorance Is No Excuse”, RBCHS 658–653

3. Moral Philosophy

a. Peter Singer, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”, RBCHS 678–684

b. Onora O’Neill, “The Moral Perplexities of Famine and World Hunger”, RBCHS 685–695

c. Judith Jarvis Thomson’s paper “A Defense of Abortion”, RBCHS 696–704

d. Elizabeth Harman, “The Moral Significance of Animal Pain and Animal Death,” RBCHS 714–721

e. Cora Diamond, “Eating Meat and Eating People”, RBCHS 723–729

4. Philosophy of Religion

a. Robert White, “The Argument from Cosmological Fine-Tuning”, RBCHS 29–35

b. Alvin Plantinga, “When Is Faith Rational?”, RBCHS 107–117

5. Political Philosophy

a. Harry Frankfurt, “Equality As a Moral Ideal”, RBCHS 1136–1143

b. Martha Nussbaum, “Political Equality”, RBCHS 1146–1154

6. Any of the articles in the section entitled “What Is the Meaning of Life”, RBCHS 973–1020

7. The articles listed on page xix in Rosen et al. were written specially for this anthology and are hence likely to be most understandable. We read that of Hursthouse, which is hence not permissible as the topic of the paper. However, this leaves many others.

8. Students wishing to write on non-Western philosophy may write on any one of the papers of Baruch’s Professor H. Sarkissian, whose specialty is philosophy in the Buddhist and Confucian traditions. The instructor’s especially recommends his “Minor Tweaks, Major Payoffs: The Problems and Promise of Situationism in Moral Philosophy,” Philosopher’s Imprint 10(9) 1–15 (available on-line), which concerns Confucian ethics.

Suggestions for writing a good paper

1. You should not include any biographical information concerning the author(s) of the reading(s) that you choose to write about unless this is of intrinsic philosophical interest. Submissions whose first pages comprise such information will be graded accordingly.

2. There must be ample evidence that you yourself have read the reading(s) you have chosen. If your paper consists of little more than biographical information and general philosophical remarks, from Internet sources, that are not keyed to passages within the chosen readings, then your grade for the paper will suffer.

3. On your first read-through of the selection you have chosen, you might have in mind the following questions:

(a) At whom is the author’s article directed? Whose is the author’s intended audience? Typically, that audience will turn out to be other philosophers or students of philosophers? Does the author seem to have in mind philosophers inclined to a certain philosophical doctrine? Or are the author’s words merely directed at those who have asked themselves certain philosophical questions without having arrived at any particular conclusions? (Write up answers to these questions; they might serve as the basis for a first draft.)

(b) What is the author’s topic? To what area of philosophy does that topic belong?

(c) What is the author’s claim with respect to his chosen topic? Does the author present an argument for his claim? What are the grounds for the claim? Is the author’s argument convincing? If not, can you see a way to improve the author’s argument so as to make it more convincing? In general, you might try to apply Toulmin’s Six-Point Method of Argument Analysis here, identifying in writing how each of Toulmin’s six points is applicable. For example, are there philosophical objections that the author is recognizing in advance and attempting to rebut?

(d) Does your author’s introduce technical terms? If so, give some example of such terms and of how the author uses them.

(e) Does your author rest his case on certain distinctions? If so, can you make sense of those distinctions? This is especially important in the case of ancient writers, who frequently make distinctions that may make little sense on the face of it. Can you provide a sympathetic interpretation that enables you to make sense of these distinctions?

4. You may also find the “Notes and Questions” at the end of each selection helpful. Indeed, one or two of the questions raised there may provide the germ of your paper.

5. There should be a bibliography, which might include just our course anthology. Citations should be minimal. If all your citations are to our course anthology, those after the first one should be abbreviated—just a page number should suffice.

6. Lastly, the most important determiner of your grade will be the instructor’s sense of the extent to which you yourself became engaged with the reading(s) you chose. In the past, a few students have chosen to write in the first person, perhaps on the model of a journal entry. This is nonstandard for philosophy papers, where one tends to avoid the pronouns “I” and “me”. However, the most important criterion for the instructor will be engagement. If structuring your paper as a sort of journal entry helps you to achieve such engagement, then feel free to do so.

7. Evidence of engagement takes many forms. Failing to proof-read your paper and/or ignoring your spelling checker are not ways to convince the instructor that this project was meaningful to you. You might find the introductory entries “A Brief Guide to Logic and Argumentation” and “Some Guidelines for Writing Philosophy Papers” in RBCHS to be helpful

3

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You will pick a microorganism for your paper on pathology or microbe-environment interactions. The organism can not be one of the ones your instructor goes over during lecture listed in the syllabus. Select a pathogen/microbe from current events that is an emerging or reemerging concern to you or people in your area. Provide local epidemiological data/statistics for the organism.

Your paper must include:

• Introduction to the organism (structure, cell type, morphology, metabolic requirements, natural reservoir, history, etc.)
• Introduction to the disease(s) caused by the organism (epidemiology, signs, symptoms, etc.) OR introduction to the environmental impact of the organism
• List and describe factors employed by the organism to assist in its growth, reproduction, culture conditions, host/pathogen interactions and/or virulence. (e.g. nitrogen fixation, symbiotic interactions etc.) Categorize virulence factors by mechanisms of action (Immunity Avoidance, Tissue/Cell Lysis, Colonization/Spread)
• Discussion of treatment/prevention options for the disease(s) caused by the organism (Antibiotics or other chemotherapeutics given as part of treatment and their mechanisms of action, Vaccines available and type)
• The paper should be a minimum of 5 pages of relevant and informative material that covers all of the content and requirements listed below and in the rubric. The 5 pages does not include the title and reference pages. The paper should thoroughly inform the reader.
• APA format. This includes citations and references
• Title page must have a title, student name, instructor name, course title, and date.
• No direct quotes; put information into your own words or paraphrase
• Minimum of three (3) primary and at least two (2) secondary scholarly sources, plus any other references used. You also must include in-text citations.
• 1 inch margins
• Double-spaced
• 12 point, Times New Roman
• After uploading to Turnitin, your paper will be scored for similarity. Anything above 20% similarity should be worked on further and uploaded again before the due date. Please email your instructor for more help with this.
• Over 20% similarity and/or no references will result in an automatic zero on the paper.

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• Overview:
• Instructions:
• Requirements:
• Evaluation Rubric for Unit 2 Assignment

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Finance Work out problems

1.      You have the following data on

(1) the average annual returns of the market for the past 5 years

(2) similar information on Stocks A and B.  Which of the possible answers best describes the historical betas for A and B?

Years     Market     Stock A     Stock B

1        0.03        0.16        0.05

2       -0.05        0.20        0.05

3        0.01        0.18        0.05

4       -0.10        0.25        0.05

5        0.06        0.14        0.05

a. bA > 0; bB = 1.

b. bA > +1; bB = 0.

c. bA = 0; bB = -1.

d. bA < 0; bB = 0.

e. bA < -1; bB = 1.

2.      Which of the following statements is CORRECT?

a.       “Characteristic line” is another name for the Security Market Line.

b.      The characteristic line is the regression line that results from plotting the returns on a

c.       particular stock versus the returns on a stock from a different industry.

d.      The slope of the characteristic line is the stock’s standard deviation.

e.       The distance of the plot points from the characteristic line is a measure of the stock’s

market risk.

3. Assume an economy in which there are three securities:  Stock A with rA = 10% and  A = 10%; Stock B with rB = 15% and  B = 20%; and a riskless asset with rRF = 7%.  Stocks A and B are uncorrelated (rAB = 0).     Which of the following statements is most CORRECT?

a.       The expected return on the investor’s portfolio will probably have an expected return that is somewhat above 15% and a standard deviation (SD) of approximately 20%.

b.      The expected return on the investor’s portfolio will probably have an expected return that is somewhat below 10% and a standard deviation (SD) of approximately 10%.

c. The expected return on the investor’s portfolio will probably have an expected return that is somewhat below 15% and a standard deviation (SD) that is between 10% and 20%.

d. The investor’s risk/return indifference curve will be tangent to the CML at a point where the expected return is in the range of 7% to 10%.

e. Since the two stocks have a zero correlation coefficient, the investor can form a riskless portfolio whose expected return is in the range of 10% to 15%.

4. Consider the following information and then calculate the required rate of return for the Scientific Investment Fund, which holds 4 stocks.  The market’s required rate of return is 15.0%, the risk-free rate is  7.0%, and the Fund’s assets are as follows:

Stock         Investment         Beta

A           $  200,000         1.50

B              300,000        -0.50

C              500,000         1.25

D            1,000,000         0.75

a. 10.67%

b. 11.23%

c. 11.82%

d. 12.45%

e. 13.10%

5. You plan to invest in Stock X, Stock Y, or some combination of the two. The expected return for X is 10% and X = 5%.  The expected return for Y is 12% and  Y = 6%.  The correlation coefficient, rXY, is 0.75.

a.       Calculate rp and  p for 100%, 75%, 50%, 25%, and 0% in Stock X.

b.      Use the values you calculated for rp and  p to graph the attainable set of portfolios.  Which part of the attainable set is efficient? Also, draw in a set of hypothetical indifference curves to show how an investor might select a portfolio comprised of Stocks X and Y.  Let an indifference curve be tangent to the efficient set at the point where rp = 11%.

c.       Now suppose we add a riskless asset to the investment possibilities. What effects will this have on the construction of portfolios?

d.      Suppose rM = 12%,  M = 4%, and rRF = 6%.  What would be the required and expected return on a portfolio with  P = 10%?

e.       Suppose the correlation of Stock X with the market, rXM, is 0.8, while rYM = 0.9.  Use this information, along with data given previously, to determine Stock X’s and Stock Y’s beta coefficients.

f. What is the required rate of return on Stocks X and Y?  Do these stocks appear to be in equilibrium?  If not, what would happen to bring about an equilibrium?

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