Week 15 · Assignment: Traditional alternative (no AI)

Week 15 — What Is It All For? Meaning, the Absurd, and a Position of Your Own — Traditional alternative (no AI)

Introduction to Philosophy Free sample edition

Traditional alternative (no AI), unpublished. In the course this is a separate assignment that ships unpublished beside the adaptive assignment: same objective, no AI. An instructor who prefers it publishes it and unpublishes or deletes the adaptive one, as the note at its top says.

Instructors: publish this instead of the adaptive version if you prefer, and unpublish or delete the adaptive one.

Assignment 14 of the term — correct a post about Sartre and Camus, key two arguments and match the theory-matching set, run the 3 answers to the question of life's meaning on a case of your own, defend a reasoned position on a question from the course's roster against its strongest objection, and explain existentialism to someone new to philosophy.

This week you learned Sartre's claim that existence precedes essence and the situation objection, Camus' absurd and Sisyphus imagined happy, Beauvoir on freedom and the situation, the 3 answers to the question of life's meaning, and the 6 steps of a reasoned position. In Week 2 you learned standard form, validity, and soundness; in Weeks 11 to 13 you matched Dataset J's statements to Dataset D's theories; and every week added one case to the roster. This week's lecture tutorial, quiz, discussion, and Philosophy Workshop practice the same ideas from other angles; this assignment, the last of the course, is where you put the whole course together.

The task

You will use this week's sources, Dataset A (the course's roster of 15 thought experiments), Dataset B, the argument set (illustrative), Dataset D (the course's table of 4 ethical theories), and Dataset J, the theory-matching set (illustrative). Datasets B and J are written for teaching and are not claims the course endorses; the course keys Dataset B's arguments for validity only, never for soundness, because the premises are open questions. The course pins no quotation from Sartre, Camus, or Beauvoir, so describe their views in your own words. The everyday cases below were written for this assignment; they are illustrative and describe no real person or place.

Part A — get the sources right, then use the tools. A post on a study-group forum reads: "Camus came up with existence precedes essence, and his story of Sisyphus proves that life is pure despair. That is why existentialists think nothing matters." Do three things:

Correct the post. Say whose formulation existence precedes essence is, and explain it with an example of an essence of your own (not the mug); state the situation objection and a reply from the existentialist side, and say what Beauvoir adds about freedom and the situation; say what the absurd is in Camus' sense and why it is not despair; say how Camus' book ends, in your own words; and credit Sisyphus and his rock to its source on the roster.
Key two arguments. Write Dataset B's argument 7 ("If Socrates is wise, he admits his ignorance. Socrates is wise. So he admits his ignorance.") and argument 10 ("Most people in this town favor the law. So the law is just.") in standard form, key each for validity with a one-sentence reason from the definition of validity, name argument 7's form, and say why neither is keyed as sound.
Match the theory-matching set. List Dataset J's 8 statements by number and give the theory in Dataset D that each is keyed to.

Then work this problem, showing your reasoning:

Dataset D has 4 ethical theories, and Dataset J has 2 statements for each of them. How many statements does Dataset J have?

Part B — the synthesis. Work this problem first, showing your reasoning:

The course's roster has 15 thought experiments, 1 per instructional week, and 7 of them come in Weeks 1 to 7, before the midterm. How many come after Week 7?

Then do three things:

Run the 3 answers. Choose a task or commitment that never quite finishes, from your own life or invented (not the river trail). Run meaning given from outside, meaning created by the individual, and meaning found in valuable activities and relationships on it, each in its strongest form, with its strongest objection and a reply from its side, without naming one answer correct.
Choose the procedure. Pick one question from the course's roster (any week). Say which tool you will use to defend a view on it, the 6 steps of a reasoned position, a single counterexample, or a labelled variation of the thought experiment, and why that tool fits the job, and say why one of the other two fits less well.
Defend a reasoned position. Using the 6 steps, state the question; state your position in one sentence; put your argument in standard form, marking any added premise; judge its validity and say which premises are open; state the strongest objection as its best defender would; and reply to it, ending in one plain sentence naming where you and the objector disagree. Credit the roster case to its pinned source.

Explain it to a non-expert

A cousin who has never taken philosophy says, "Existentialists are the people who think life is pointless." Write a 3–5 sentence message in everyday words that explains what existentialism holds about choice, why the absurd, as Camus uses the word, is not the same as despair, and one honest limit of what you can claim. Explain any term your cousin might not know.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine a coworker who asks whether a valid argument must have a true conclusion. Model answer: "Valid only means the conclusion would have to be true if the reasons given for it were true. An argument can be valid and still have a false conclusion when one of its reasons is false. Philosophers save the word sound for a valid argument whose reasons really are true. One limit: checking the form is quick, but whether the reasons are true can take a lot more work, and sometimes people still disagree."

Use that pattern for your message to your cousin, with your own explanation of existentialism.

Revise and reflect

Put your first draft away for a few hours, then reread it against Chapter 15. For the correction, check each attribution against the chapter and confirm that you quoted none of the three thinkers; for arguments 7 and 10, check the forms against Week 2's list; for Dataset J, confirm 2 statements per theory; for each answer and for your own position, ask whether its best defender would sign your statement of it, and whether your objection is the strongest one, not the easiest; and check that your cousin message explains why the absurd is not despair. Make at least one change and keep both versions. Then answer one of these two options in 2–4 sentences; they carry the same weight:

(a) Which change made your sourcing or your standard form more exact, and which definition or pinned source showed you it was needed?
(b) Which change made your strongest objection stronger, and what had you left out at first?

After this assignment

The cumulative final exam comes in Week 16. Its study guide, practice exam (the Final Practice Exam), and exam-prep tutorial sit in the Week 16 exam bundle. The synthesis move you practice in Part B, choosing the right tool, stating the other side at its strongest, and naming where you disagree in one plain sentence, is the same move those materials ask you to make with every unit of the course.

Deliverables

Submit one document or recording that contains, in this order:

your Part A forum-post correction, arguments 7 and 10 keyed, Dataset J matched, and your first count;
your Part B count, the 3 answers on your own case, your tool choice, and your reasoned position in 6 steps;
your message to your cousin;
your first and revised versions of the part you changed, and your reflection.

Choose how you show it. Present your work as written text, or as a recorded audio or video explanation of about five minutes with a transcript. Every form is graded by the same scoring criteria. Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text.

How you'll be graded

The full analytic rubric is attached to this assignment in Canvas.

Academic integrity and AI use

This version is designed to be completed without AI: do the correction, the reconstructions, the reasoned position, and the writing yourself, without a chatbot or other AI tool. Submitting AI-generated work as your own, or copying another student's work, is an integrity violation under the course policy.

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