General (... and maaaaybe some specific) Seminar Paper Topics/Prompts

Keep in mind, if further expanded, these could also serve in part as directions toward larger paper topics as well. In fact, it might be good to consolidate your efforts and think about using your Seminar short paper as a preliminary pre-write to your long paper. No reason they can't be connected :)

So here are some ideas to help you.  Keep in mind, you want to in some way connect literature -- as covered in class -- to philosophy, or philosophy to literature, as this is the goal of the class.  You can do this through the major units/questions we'll cover this semester.  Below are those questions, and some sub-topics that might be generated from them.  Feel free to email me if you have any questions about any one of them (or, a few of them) in particular, and/or how to apply them to our class literature pieces, and I'd be more than happy to help question you and lead you toward narrowing things down further and helping you formulate a response in a structured manner!

Unit 1: The Nature of Belief [What is Real? What is Existence?]

• Throughout history, many stories have been told about the origins of the universe -- some use religion to answer this question, others science -- do they have to be mutually exclusive?
• Do both good and evil have to exist, or can one eliminate the other for once and for all?
• Faith is described by the religious metaphysicians as better than belief, in that belief is simply taken without thought or reason while Faith must accompany choice and careful deliberation. Is Faith something would should have/use? Does it need only apply to religion?
• Can we trust everything we see/hear/touch/etc? (If not, how can we get to the truth?)
• True/False: "If there is one constant in the universe, it is Change."
• Would there be a time in your life where 'erasing all memory of the past' would be a good thing?
• Why are we so interested, as human beings, in slowing down to look at accidents on the freeway? What about our existence makes us so interested in morbidity and death?
• True/False: "History repeats itself."
• True/False: "Time is only something that exists because humans have defined it and can perceive it."
• True/False: "Religion is for the weak-minded."
• Is there a difference between 'living' and 'being alive'?
• Is the mind the same thing as the brain?
• Can God create a stone so heavy that he cannot lift it?
• Can there be 'morality' without God?
• What are numbers and do they really exist?
• Why is there something rather than nothing?
• How do you know you are not dreaming right now?
• If we live in a computer simulation, does it make a difference to the meaning of life?

Unit 2: The Question of Identity [Who am I? How do I Know What I Know?]

• Is "déjà vu" a real thing? How do we explain the feeling? (to go along with that, do you ever feel like you were meant for something, that some event or moment in your life was 'meant to be'?
• True/False: "Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."
• Should knowledge be based only on what we experience (specifically, what we see/hear/touch etc.), or can we know things that we may never sense? 
• How do people who live in similar environments (think of siblings raised together) become so radically different? On the same token, how can two people who have never met -- who lived very different lives -- be so incredibly similar?
• Can some animals be people too, or at least, people-like?
• Do I know myself better than anyone else? In other words, do I shape my identity, or do other people's opinions of me also play a role in my defining?
• How should we approach the ethnocentricity of human beings? Are we greater than the rest of the animal kingdom -- is there something that makes us special? Do we then have responsibility for everything else as a result?
• Are the major shake-ups in our lives the only events that are important in our self-defining?
• True/False: "I do not truly become a self (or person, or free being) until I make a conscious decision to act on something I believe."
• True/False: "Ignorance is Bliss."
• Which one plays a greater role: Nature or Nurture?
• Is there a line between insanity and creativity? Where is the difference?
• How do you know that your experience of consciousness is the same as other people's experience of consciousness? In other words, how can we be sure that anything we communicate can be actually shared?
• Is race a biological category or a social construct?
• Are you the same person you were ten years ago?
• What is a person? Is it the mind, or the body? Or?
• Is truth relative, or a matter of opinion?

Unit 3: Of Individual Will and Choice [Am I Free? Does Anything Have Meaning?]

• To what extent do you shape your own destiny, and how much is down to 'fate'?
• If there is a purpose to human life, does it stand to reason that there is also a greater purpose to animal and plant life? Are they all the same, or different? 
• Do we have a true 'destiny' or are life's outcomes strictly the result of choice and/or circumstance?
• True/False: "Absolute Power corrupts Absolutely."
• Without choosing to be happy, can we ever really be happy? Similarly, without choosing to love someone, do we really ever experience love?
• Are we merely a product of our mundane routines? Are we stuck in a cyclical existence of meaninglessness?
• Do each of our decisions in life have profound impact on later events? Can we alter the course of our lives at any point, or is there such a thing as 'too late'?
• At what point does a punishment cease to be a punishment?
• True/False: "Much of what I believe is a product of either my genetics, or my environment."
• What things hold you back from doing the things that you really want to do?
• Is it always better to have more choices?
• If there is no freewill, should we punish people at all?
• Are people free to sell themselves into slavery?

Unit 4: On Proper Living [How do I Apply my Perspectives to Practical Living? On What Beliefs or Reasons do I Base my Life Choices?]

• If it is wrong to kill another person, is it always wrong -- or are there exceptions? 
• Is it wrong to kill a mass murderer?
• True/False: "What goes around comes around."
• Are there many different types of love, or do we love different things with the same emotion just in different degrees? ("What is love? Baby don't hurt me... don't hurt me... no more...)
• True/False: "Actions speak louder than words."
• How do we reconcile with other people who have radically different views and values than us? Is someone wrong and someone right? How do we settle those disagreements?
• Which is more persuasive -- emotion, or logic?
• Most people have ideals and morals in some practical sense -- however, are there events that would make you question your own? 
• Is it better to be merciful, even if it means letting bad people get away with things once in a while, or "hold fast" to your ideals or morals so that bad never goes unpunished?
• Can we hold one view in our personal lives and the opposite view in our public lives concurrently -- even if those views contradict?
• True/False: "If we have the technology and intelligence to do something, we should."
• Is it worse to fail at something or never attempt it in the first place?
• Should people care more about doing the right things, or doing things right?
• Why do people fear losing things that they may not even have (yet, or ever)?
• Is 'family' still relevant in the modern world of individualism?
• What role does 'honor' play in today's society?

** I will continue to add to this list as I think of more things to add -- check back again later!