by Huenemann
I recently came across this handout I made for some previous class, and thought it might be of some use to our readers. Note that not all professors are the same, and not all assignments are the same; still, the advice that follows covers a great many paper assignments in a great many courses, I believe.
How to write a philosophical essay
Specifically: how to write an essay that explains and provides an analysis of a philosophical text and a critical (thoughtful) response to it.
- Focus on an interesting claim of argument within a larger body of work.
- E.g., the argument for God’s existence in Descartes’s Third Meditation; Hume’s argument against miracles in section 10 of the Enquiry; Kant’s argument that truths about space are a priori synthetic in the first part of the Prolegomena; Fichte’s view that human experience arises from an ego positing a non-ego through which it can understand itself.
- Sometimes you will focus on a specific argument for a specific claim; other times you will be explaining a general view or perspective, and trying to determine its value.
- You must devote time and effort to “inhabiting” the philosophers’ perspective. This means being able to feel and understand why an intelligent person would have this view. You should be able to explain the appeal of the view, in your own words to a sympathetic friend. Do your best to convince yourself the view is right.
- As you do this, you will find that there are things you don’t understand, or questions you can’t answer. This is good. Read the work again, or look up materials online, or talk to another student, or think it through on your own. After all this, you might find that you still aren’t sure. But you will have found a couple of possibilities – maybe X is the answer, or maybe Y is. This is really good, as it will give you some material to explore in your paper.
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