Grading Rubric for DB responses
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Discussion Board #4 |
Format of DB Responses [ Click here for detailed Grading Rubric for DB responses. ]
In these essay-style responses, express a point of view and support your view with good reasons, evidence, examples, expert opinion, etc. High marks will not be achieved by simply reporting back information from the text or other sources. Philosophical thinking and writing involves more than presenting information; beyond doing this, you must also critically assess the issue in question—this involves original thinking and analysis. Moreover, you should attempt to come to some final position in response to the question and include evaluation of other possible positions or views on the issues.
Work for originality and development of critical analyses and evaluations.
In responding to the questions for each discussion board, you are encouraged cite specific examples from the course text (or other sources) to illustrate and support your points. If you copy or paraphrase word or ideas from the text or other sources, make sure that you follow appropriate procedures for crediting those sources with quotation marks and citations.
If you want to “go the extra mile” on this assignment, bring in some discussion of your peers’ responses to the DB questions; showing that you have read through and thought critically about how the other students in the class answered the questions will raise your score on this assignment.
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Question 1: What Is Art? |
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What qualifies something to be counted as a work of art? Explain what you understand Arthur Danto’s theory of art to be saying in response to this question and compare and contrast what he says about art with Plato’s conception of art as mimesis (copy, imitation, simulacrum). Be sure to give an account of what Danto means by “the is of artistic identification.” What is your own view about art? If you say that it is all a matter of subjective taste (that “art or beauty is in the eye of the beholder”), then what can be said about the fact that some artworks are worth millions (or hundreds of millions) of dollars, displayed with utmost reverence in museums, galleries and other public venues, while others have little if any monetary value? Why should the opinions of art critics, art historians, philosophers of art, art collectors and art dealers, and even artists themselves matter more than the opinions of those of us who make up the public at large? Maybe you think that they should not matter more, but they do! |
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Question 2: The God Question |
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Kierkegaard waged a mighty battle with his own will and conscience not just about the existence of God, but, more importantly, about having faith in the promise of Christianity–that God actually became Man in the form of Jesus Christ, who died for the sins of all men, in order to renew His promise of eternal salvation and everlasting life in God’s paradise (heaven). Wolff characterizes Kierkegaard’s existential dilemma: “But just because I need so desperately to know that Jesus really lived, I am hopelessly at a loss for evidence or argument sufficient to my need. Can I rest comfortably in the belief that I have been promised eternal life when the evidence for my belief is merely probable, merely the sort of evidence that a historian or philosopher can produce? No, too much is at stake: Salvation is everything; it is eternity of life rather than death. I am reduced by my terror and my need to infinite concern for something that defies rational grounding. In short, I am reduced to an absolute leap of faith” (p. 310). Explain in your own words what you think Kierkegaard is trying to solve or establish here; specifically, explain what he means by saying that one must make a “leap of faith” in order to truly realize the promise of Christianity. Be sure to discuss how Kierkegaard’s approach to religious faith differs radically from that of his family and the society of his time, including his claim that faith is irrational and that “truth is subjectivity.” |
