course material

1. A critical analysis of Rene Descartes Meditations I and II
Guidelines for this paper… What does “critical analysis” mean? Each of the readings listed
above contains at least one core argument for some position either epistemology of
philosophy of religion. You are to give a critical analysis of this argument, which involves
doing three things: 1) providing an analysis of the core argument in the reading, 2)
providing a critical assessment of this argument, and 3) responding to potential replies to
your assessment. More details for each of these three steps is listed below. Analyzing
Arguments Analyzing an argument involves clarifying the basic components of the
argument and the relationship between the basic components. In any argument, the
components include premises and a conclusion. So, when reading the argument, you need to
be asking yourself what the final conclusion of the argument is and what reasons (premises)
does the author give in support of this conclusion. You should also make it clear why
someone might want to advance or accept the argument. One way of doing this is by
considering the premises, and, for each, make it clear what it means and why someone
might believe it. If appropriate, an example or two can be given to illustrate the point made
by the premise. It is customary in philosophy to present the argument being analyzed into
standard form. It is up to you whether you follow this custom, but you at least need to get
clear what the main point of the argument is and the reasons the author has given in
support of that conclusion. The goal of the analysis is to represent the argument in the text
in an accurate, clear, concise, and charitable manner. Critically Assessing Argument Once
the argument has been analyzed, you can then go on to critically evaluate the argument.
Here are some basic rules for evaluating arguments. • A good argument is one that has
rationally acceptable/justified premises that provide sufficient grounds for affirming the
conclusion. So there are two basic ways of evaluating any argument. You can assess the
acceptability of its premises or the sufficiency of the premises as grounds for asserting the
conclusion. When grounds are sufficient the inference is either a deductively valid one (if
the premises were true, it would be impossible for the conclusion to be false) or an
inductively strong one (if the premises were true, then it would be improbable that the
conclusion is false). • Given these two goodness making features of an argument, there are
two general ways one might challenge an argument. You can challenge the acceptability of
the premises or challenge their sufficiency for accepting the conclusion. o Challenging
premises: You can argue that there are overriding reasons for supposing that a premise is
false, or you might argue that we don’t have sufficiently good reasons for supposing that a
premise is true. o Challenging the Inferential Connection: You can also argue that, even if the

2. premises were true, they would not provide good enough reasons to accept the conclusion.
Here it’s important to observe the intention of the person presenting the argument. Does
the person intend to be presenting a deductively valid argument, or only an inductively
strong one? • A common mistake occurs when students simply give reasons for thinking the
conclusion is false. This is not a good strategy. While it is the case that if the conclusion is
false there is something wrong with the argument, simply showing that the conclusion is
false does not show where or how the argument goes wrong. So, if you think the conclusion
is false, you need to show how the argument for the conclusion goes wrong by either
challenging at least one of the premises or challenging the inferential connection. Finally, if
you think the conclusion is true, don’t assume the argument is a good one. There are plenty
of poor arguments for true conclusions and your job is to assess the argument as a whole,
not the conclusion. • In cases where you think the argument in the reading is sound or
cogent, you should still go though process above by identifying potential challenges to the
argument. Responses The last part of the critically analysis is to respond to potential replies
to your assessment. For example, if you tried to show that the argument was unsound or not
cogent, try to identify the way a defender of the argument might reply to your objections
and address these replies. If your assessment is that the argument is sound/cogent, you
should show how the argument could withstand the potential challenges raised in the
assessment. Organization and Style You paper needs to be organized into an introduction,
body, and conclusion. • The introduction should be one paragraph where you briefly
introduce the reading you are focusing one and set forth a thesis statement. The thesis
statement should be one sentence stating what you are going to demonstrate about the
argument in the reading. For example, a thesis statement might look something like the
following. “After analyzing Hume’s argument for expressivism, I will show that this
argument is unsound because one of the premises is false.” • The body of the paper should
be several paragraphs long where you include the analysis, assessment, and response
described above. • Finally, you should include a concluding paragraph. This paragraph
should succinctly review what you think you’ve demonstrated and potential implications.
Answer the question, “What does it matter?”