Writing a Philosophy Paper
(Some Guidelines)
The Aim of a Philosophy Paper: Although part of the aim of a philosophy paper is to describe, clarify and explicate the problem one is working on, the main task goes well beyond explication and involves the critical assessment of that problem. This means that at some point, you should start arguing about what you consider to be the correct approach to the problem. A paper that is purely descriptive or explicative will, at best, receive a low "B". Ideally, the descriptive part of a philosophy paper should come at the beginning, right after the introduction, and should not comprise more than 25% of the paper.
The Map of Your Paper:
As I have emphasized in class, and will continue to emphasize, philosophical discourse has a dialectical structure. That is, the discourse can be represented as an ongoing exchange between two opposing viewpoints (or, a viewpoint and those who are skeptical of it). Your paper should display the fundamental structure of this dialectic. In other words, the paper should contain:
(1) The best argument you can think of for the position you wish to defend (or against the position you wish to oppose)
(2) The best objection you can think of against the argument you gave in (1) above.
(3) A response against the objection voiced in (2) above.
Step (2) will be the most difficult for most of you. It requires you to step out of your own shoes and to step into the shoes of the opposing viewpoint. You are then supposed to attempt to undermine your own position by finding the weakest point in it. This is not something most of us are used to do in the daily course of our lives; but it is a crucial component of critical thinking and intellectual honesty
Finally, remember that it does not pay to fight against paper tigers. In other words, at every stage of the process I mapped above, make sure you are not presenting arguments, objections and counter-arguments which are transparently faulty. If you are capable of easily detecting a problem with what you say, this means that you can most probably devise an improved approach that avoids such transparent mistakes.
Now for some details:
A. Before you start:
1. Research the topic. This involves reading from the source materials the portions which relate to your topic, and taking notes.
2. Organize the material before you write. Think about what you want to accomplish. Examine the basic statements of the philosophical position or topic you are dealing with; determine what they mean, and ask whether they seem to be true or not. If you decide that they are not true, try to figure out why they are not true. Make a list of the questions you want to ask about the issue and express these questions clearly on paper.
3. Make sure that what you are about to write can be handled within the required number of pages.
B. Writing the paper:
1. The opening paragraph should clearly state what the issues or questions are, as well as what you are trying to accomplish in your paper. In general, it is helpful to briefly summarize what is going on in your paper; here is an example:
In my paper, I intend to show that beauty and truth are not the same thing. To do this, I will focus on a theory from matemathical physics, and argue that it is a beautiful, yet false theory. I will, in turn, argue for the beauty of the theory by showing that it has the aesthetic features traditionally asociated with scientific theories, such as simplicity, elegance and fecundity….
2. Present a clear and fair statement of the topic, explaining its major points. By stating the philosophical position you will critically evaluate as clearly and fairly as possible (even though you may completely disagree with it), you will be helping yourself to understand the position, and this should help you avoid any major misunderstandings of what the position is really about. (In longer papers, it is common to include, in this part of the paper, quotations from the books or articles you read).
3. Write out your arguments as clearly as possible. There are two basic ways in which you could go about writing your paper: i) Write your statements in argument form (premisses and conclusions) first, then expand on these to generate the final draft. ii) Write your ideas down in a first draft, then go through it picking out the points which you are trying to prove, and, see if you can come up with rigorous and sound arguments to prove them. At every point in this process, you should closely follow the organizational structure and the goals stated in your introduction. It is crucial to keep these in mind to avoid getting tangled up in tangential issues.
There are some things to do and some to avoid. First, some philosophically desirable things:
(i) Analyze:
(1) The logic of your position and the opposing position. Find good reasons for your own position and good reasons against the other position.
(2) The assumptions of the various positions (what do the positions take for granted?).
(3) The implications of a position (could it lead to a contradiction, to an obvious falsity?)
(ii) Examples:
Examples may help illustrate what you want to express. Your goal is to persuade, and common, day to day examples are powerful tools of persuasion. But also remember that examples are illustrations, and not arguments; and hence their power is limited. (To those who have taken some Logic: what I say here needs to be qualified when an "example" is part of an argument from analogy)
(iii) Your opponent:
You should try to imagine how your opponent might respond to your criticisms. This is very difficult to do, but very important, because your criticisms will not be very good if all of them are easily answered by the person who holds the position you are criticizing. (Here it helps if you have carefully read and understood the material while you were doing the research).
(iv) Conclude:
Here your research and criticisms are summarized, and you show how it all points to some conclusion: e.g., "Based upon the criticisms which I have made, we can conclude that …" , or, "From the above arguments, we can see that…".
Now some undesirable things that you should avoid:
(a) Do not depend on authority. Do not say that something is true simply because a certain philosopher, (or your dentist, for that matter) said it.
(b) Avoid phrases such as "I feel," "In my opinion," "I believe," etc. First, since it is your paper, and what it contains is obviously your opinion, these are redundant. More importantly, they might be signs that you are just repeating your support for one side of a controversial position, or a claim that you should argue for, without arguing for it. Feelings and opinions do not make an argument.
C. Rewriting the paper:
(a) Rewriting is very important. You will rarely write a decent paper in the first draft; you should expect to rewrite it at least once. But don’t try to rewrite the whole thing all at once–go through it and rewrite the parts which obviously need it, and then put the whole thing together again. If necessary, repeat this process. It helps to read the paper aloud, listening carefully to what you are saying as you read it. Imagine the sorts of objections that people might point out, and rework what you have written to make these objections inapplicable. It is a time consuming process, but when you are writing a philosophy paper, you shouldn’t expect great length--just thoroughness.
Suggestion: It might be very useful to read to, or discuss the first version of your paper with or a relative or a friend who is not taking this class, and to tape the conversation. You might be surprised how useful it is to obtain such a live criticism of your work, and how much it can sensitize you to the viewpoints of the opposition.
(b) At this stage make sure that your paper is free of mechanical errors. Misspellings, misprints, lack of reasonable neatness are things that can only hurt you.
Remember
You are strongly encouraged to come and see me about the paper once you have started working on it.