1. 1-2 paragraph introduction in which you tell me what you are going to say in your paper about the thought experiment that you chose.
2. Main body of your paper
a. Briefly tell me the “puzzle” presented by the thought experiment. These thought experiments do not have a single right answer or a single answer that everyone agrees upon. So, after you explain the “puzzle” posed by the thought experiment, you need to tell me what your answer will be regarding the thought experiment.
b. Identify the at least two different sections (a section must be at least 2 paragraphs) from one or more readings from the course that you will use to help you with your argument for your answer or view above.
c. Define key terms that are essential to your topic that are in need of definition to avoid vagueness or ambiguity. You should do this early on in your paper – in the 2nd or 3rd paragraph. It’s one of the first things you should do. If appropriate you can test these definitions with counter examples (see the Skills)
d. Clearly provide your argument in support of your claim. Make use of words like “thus”, “since”, “hence”, “because” in order to make your logic clear.
e. Consider the strongest objections to your argument and provide the reasoning for these strongest objections (ie, give a counter argument).
3. Conclusion (1-2 paragraphs max) – do NOT simply restate what you said. I already know what you said. Instead respond to the objections in 2e.
4. Provide citations and a bibliography or references. Citations and bibliography does not count as part of your word count.
5. Place the WORD COUNT on top of your paper.
Topic: Epistemology FRANK JACKSON’S “COLORLESS MARY, THE BRILLIANT COLOR SCIENTIST” – does the world’s top expert on color learning anything new if she sees color for the first time?
Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black-and-white room via a black-and-white television monitor. For her entire life she has NEVER seen any color except for “black and white.” Everything in her room or house is black and white. Even her own body is in “black and white.”
HOWEVER, she specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and the colors and she happens to know EVERYTHING there is to know, SCIENTIFICALLY, about “color.” She knows exactly what happens in the brain when we “see” red tomatoes, or the blue sky, and use words like “red,” “blue,” and so on. She knows, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces in the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal cords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence “the sky is blue”… She knows EVERYTHING scientifically that happens when you or I see “color.”
But Mary, the WORLD’S TOP COLOR EXPERT never has, herself, “seen”, color!!!
What will happen when Mary is released her black-and-white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything NEW? Why or why not? Required readings that you must reference in your paper – OER Introduction to Philosophy – Chapter 7 – Epistemology; David Hume, Enquiry Concerning Understanding, Sections 2 to 4
Required readings will be attached.
Thank you so much for your help. I apologize for the short notice. I normally write my own papers and planned on writing this paper, but with some stress to recent life events I just can not focus on this at all.