Power and goodness of human rationality HW 1

Power and goodness of human rationality HW 1

Part 1: Some of the more characteristic doctrines of the Enlightenment focused on the power and goodness of human rationality:

1) Reason is the most significant and positive capacity of the human;
2) reason enables one to break free from primitive, dogmatic, and superstitious beliefs holding one in the bonds of irrationality and ignorance;
3) in realizing the liberating potential of reason, one not only learns to think correctly, but to act correctly as well;
4) through philosophical and scientific progress, reason can lead humanity as a whole to a state of earthly perfection;
5) reason makes all humans equal and, therefore, deserving of equal liberty and treatment before the law;
6) beliefs of any sort should be accepted only on the basis of reason, and not on traditional or priestly authority; and
7) all human endeavors should seek to impart and develop knowledge, not feelings or character. (pbs.com)

Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson embodied the Age of Enlightenment. Use your choice of three of the seven doctrines to explain and prove these author’s philosophies. Make sure you draw on our readings to support your choices. Next, consider and discuss how these doctrines have been advanced, tested, and revised as the nation has grown and evolved.

Part II: Briefly describe several, meaning more than two, of the conditions of the slave ship as experienced by Olaudah Equiano and related in his narrative. Compare his narrative to that of Phillis Wheatley’s experience. You must use selected quotes from each, but then interpret, in your own words, what the quotes mean and what their impact is on the reader.

Submission Instructions:

Your initial discussion should be at least 200 words. Please also respond to a minimum of two of your classmates’ initial posts and bring together pieces of the discussion and take those ideas further. These responses should be at least 150 words

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.