Final Project Assignment

Posted: Mon, Nov 17, 2025

Due: Wednesday, December 17, by midnight, to CourseWorks

Please choose one of the following options for your final project.

Choose Your Philosophical Adventure

Length: 1,000 to 1,500 words.

Many of our authors recognize that philosophy isn’t an intellectual game but has profound implications for how we live our lives. I’d like you to choose a philosopher we’ve read and try to live like them for a full week. For example, what’s it like—in a concrete and embodied way, as one goes about one’s daily life—to think that determinism precludes free will, as Peter van Inwagen does? Or, what difference does it make if one believes in ghosts and spirits, as Mozi recommends?

Please report back on your philosophical adventure. How did it go? Does there turn out to be an important difference between believing something intellectually and living it out for real? How does this shape your understanding and assessment of your chosen philosopher’s view?

What Are Philosophers Up to These Days?

Length: 1,500 to 2,000 words.

Incredibly, philosophy didn’t start with Socrates or Descartes, nor did it end along with the 20th century—philosophers as a (strange) species are still spotted in the wild today! For this option, I’ll ask you to find out what philosophers are doing these days by identifying 5–7 philosophy departments (choose a variety of types of institutions and geographical locations) and researching their faculty members: What questions are they asking? How are they approaching these questions? Which philosophers from the history of philosophy are more or less relevant today?

Please then present and analyze your findings in light of our class discussions. Do you see any patterns of what passes as philosophical? What has and has not changed? What might explain differences between departments? Are you surprised in any way?

Wild Card

Assignment: With permission, you may also decide to write a paper or pursue another creative project (a video essay, a short story, a dialogue, a play, a game, a zine, a mini-album, a podcast episode, an exhibit, a website or an application, a reenactment, an alternative history, etc.). Usually this is an in-depth response to a reading or a philosophical problem we’ve covered, but it need not be.

You must discuss your wild card idea with me (for students in the morning section) or Nick (for students in the afternoon section) by Wednesday, December 2 at the latest.