Maximum length: Whatever it takes.
Directions: Respond to all the requests, questions, and passages below.
Essay (70 %). We began the course with the question, “What is it ‘to give a reason’?” What answer would you give to that question, now, that you have been through this course? Write an essay in response to this second question. Once you have answered this question in your essay to the best of your knowledge, you may proceed to the passages and include those in the essay reffering to them by (A., B., or C.) and answering the corresponding requests to them!
Passages (30 %). For each of the passages below, explain what language games you find present there, speculating about the context where you feel it is necessary to an answer. Are any of the passages examples of reasoning? Explain. You can use the articles provided to help answer these passages.
A. “My painting does not come from the easel. I hardly ever stretch my canvas before painting. I prefer to tack the upstretched canvas to the hard wall or the floor. I need the resistance of a hard surface. On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting. This is akin to the Indian sand painters of the West.
I continue to get further away from the usual painter’s tools such as easel, palette, brushes, etc. I prefer sticks, trowels, knives, and dripping fluid paint or a heavy impasto with sand, broken glass, and other foreign matter added.
When I am in my painting, I’m not aware of what I’m doing. It is only after a sort of “get acquainted” period that I see what I have been about. I have no fears about making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well.”
From: Jackson Pollack, “My Painting,” Possibilities, No. I (Winter, 1947-48)] There are many photos of Pollock’s work online, as well as video clips of him painting. Here’s a view of what they are like.
B. The problem of evil, in the sense in which I shall be using the
phrase, is a problem only for someone who believes that there is a
God who is both omnipotent and wholly good. And it is a logical
problem, the problem of clarifying and reconciling a number of be-
liefs: it is not a scientific problem that might be solved by further
observations, or a practical problem that might be solved by a de-
cision or an action. These points are obvious; I mention them only
because they are sometimes ignored by theologians, who some-
times parry a statement of the problem with such remarks as
“Well, can you solve the problem yourself?” or “This is a mystery
which may be revealed to us later” or “Evil is something to be
faced and overcome, not to be merely discussed.”
In its simplest form the problem is this: God is omnipotent;
God is wholly good; and yet evil exists. There seems to be some
contradiction between these three propositions, so that if any two
of them were true the third would be false. But at the same time
all three are essential parts of most theological positions: the the-
ologian, it seems, at once must adhere and cannot consistently ad-
here to all three.
From: J. L. Mackie, “Evil and Omnipotence”, in T.A. Robinson, ed., God, Hackett, Indianapolis, 2002, p. 231.
C. What kind of concert only costs 45 cents? A 50 Cent concert featuring Nickleback.