LAVC Philosophy Plato and Descrates Discussion post

Plato and Descartes are paradigmatic rationalists. As such, both Plato and Descartes think the nature of knowledge and its acquisition are rational, and the nature of reality is non-empirical.  We saw how Plato takes seriously the commitment to an objective, fixed truth, which is exhibited in Forms. Knowledge, on Plato’s view, is the complete grasp of a Form. Both the Divided Line and Allegory of the Cave are intended to show the relationship between knowledge and reality. We also saw how Descartes uses methodic doubt to arrive at the (purely rational) certainty of the ‘I think.’

As with all our discussion work, there are two parts to this forum. First, you’re going to respond to the prompt I provide. Once you do that, you can see others’ responses. At that point, you can complete the second part, which involves using the second prompt I provide to reply to a classmate’s post. 

General Instructions

Please consult the Discussion Rubric for some general writing guidelines.

Think of all your discussion work as part of your essay exam preparation. Interacting with the text, your classmates, and me should aid the development of your understanding of the material, as well as provide you with practice articulating your thinking about the text.

Pay attention to spelling and grammar, which are essential tools for doing philosophy. Precision in word choices and sentence structures also aid in the clear and coherent presentation of ideas and arguments.

NOTE: Each part of the discussion is worth 5 points, for a total of 10 points.

As a reminder, your initial post is due on Saturday before midnight; your peer reply is due Sunday before midnight

Part I Instructions and Prompt

• You are going to conduct edits on a response generated by ChatGPT. It is important that you follow the editing format I used in this sample, which involves striking through text and using colored font for the new text. (These features are common in Word and Google Docs.)

Below you’ll see the options. Click on the link associated with the option you choose.

• You’ll see the ChatGPT-generated answer to the relevant prompt (which is also included on the linked page).
• Copy the text and paste it into a Word or Google doc (or similar word processing program). Please note that Canvas doesn’t seem to preserve colored font, so either you have to recolor the edited text in Canvas’s text box, or do what I’ve done, which is highlight edited text in bold italics.
• Edit the text using the formatting style in the sample I provided via this link. (Strikethrough text to be delighted and use bold italics for new text.) Edit for the following:

Grammar (clarity)

• Word choices (sharpness of conceptual focus)

Coherence (flow of reasoning; explanations of technical terms)

Relevant text (i.e., get rid of anything inessential to the philosophical concepts, e.g., biographical info.)

Below the edit, type up the “clean” copy, i.e., no edit marks.

Copy the entire work (marked-up ChatGPT product and your clean copy) into the discussion field. You shouldn’t have any issues with the formatting copying over, but if you do, the strike-through and other tools are available in the discussion text field.

1. Your completed edit should run to roughly 300 words.

Choose ONE of the following options:

1. Explain Plato’s theory of the divided line.
2. Explain Plato’s the allegory of the cave.
3. Explain Descartes’s dream argument, ending with the possibility of the evil genius.
4. Explain the passage in Descartes’s second meditationending with, “I am, I exist, must be true whenever I assert it or think it.”