Essays

I was led to the formal study of philosophy because of my respect for truth and my distaste at the shallowness and lying of much advertising (not, like many of my contemporaries, because I thought it might be “easy to pass”!). On this page I’ve uploaded for posterity the academic essays I wrote as a philosophy undergraduate.

Eventually I achieved first class grades consistently (as I did in the final exams), but actually I have now changed my mind on almost every issue, consider the essays a little naive, and would approach them differently were I to write them again. For example I would avoid the use of the personal pronoun and italic emphasis, I would lay out more clearly at the beginning what I am going to prove, and I would be much more reluctant to take such a relativist stance. I took my subject seriously, however, and I am still proud of my efforts with the essays for the time when they were written. They deal with some fundamental and, I think, very interesting topics.

Following my final exams, in which I repeated many of these arguments, I was offered funding and a place to study Metaphysics at the London School of Economics.

The essays were all typed on a palm-top Psion Series 3, which I used intensively throughout the nineties (also noting down many reflections such as those that appear on this blog), and I present them here as 300 dpi greyscale PDF files, requiring the free Acrobat Reader.

Ethics

• The Meaning of the Word ‘Good’ (2.90 Mb)
  As marked by Dr Geoffrey Scarre
• Kant’s Categorical Imperative (3.88 Mb)
  As marked by Dr Geoffrey Scarre
• On Relativism (3.11 Mb)
• Roger Scruton on Sexual Desire (3.56 Mb)

Aesthetics

• The Problem of Taste (4.21 Mb)
  As marked by Dr Andy Hamilton
• The Definition of Art (3.77 Mb)
  As marked by Dr Andy Hamilton
• Kant on Aesthetic Judgements (4.60 Mb)
  As marked by Dr Andy Hamilton
• Music as the Language of Emotion (6.63 Mb)
  As marked by Dr Andy Hamilton

Metaphysics

• Dissertation: The Logical Possibility of Time Travel (18.4 Mb)
• Absolute vs. Relational Space (4.69 Mb)
  
• Kant on Space and Time (3.39 Mb)
  As marked by Professor E.J. Lowe
• The Passing of Time (2.67 Mb)
  

Modern Philosophy

• John Locke on Volition (4.82 Mb)
  As marked by Professor E.J. Lowe
• Sartre’s Existentialism (2.79 Mb)
  As marked by Barry Stobbart
• Locke on Primary & Secondary Qualities (3.45 Mb)

Philosophy of Mind

• Artificial Intelligence (2.90 Mb)
  As marked by Barry Stobbart
• Wittgenstein’s Private Language Argument (3.02 Mb)
  As marked by Dr Andy Hamilton

Logic

• Truth (2.18 Mb)
  As marked by Professor E.J. Lowe

Scanned with this excellent device, all of these essays are copyright © 2007 Gavin Orland and may not be reproduced in part or whole without my permission.