How To Write A Philosophy Paper - Slides

Why Write Philosophy?
Finding Your Contribution Outlining Your Essay Writing the First Draft
First Drafts
Dr Bryan Pickel
The University of Edinburgh

School of Philosophy, Psychology, and Language Sciences
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Why Write Philosophy? Finding Your Contribution Outlining Your Essay Writing the First Draft
Outline
Finding Your Contribution
Outlining Your Essay
Writing the First Draft
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I In preparing for your essay, you’re probably thinking through

these two questions:
I What should I write?
I How should I write it?
I But it’s worth giving a thought to one further question: why
am I writing?
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am I writing?
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am I writing?
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am I writing?
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External Goals
I More generally why do we philosophy lecturers always assess

our students by having them write philosophy?
I Learning to write philosophy has some obvious benefits for
your interaction with others:
I Communication: You often have an belief or plan that you
want to express clearly to someone else.
I Persuasion: You have a belief and you want to get someone
else to share it.
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External Goals

else to share it.
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External Goals

else to share it.
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External Goals

else to share it.
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Internal Goals
I When merely thinking

I We often formulate our thoughts only partially. We feel we can
understand our thoughts without fully articulating them.
I Each idea or thought is backed by a network of other thoughts
which we transition quickly between.
I Writing forces you to clearly formulate and order your
thoughts.
I You can think in sentence fragments. But writing only works
in complete sentences.
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Internal Goals

thoughts.
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Internal Goals

thoughts.
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Internal Goals

thoughts.
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Internal Goals

thoughts.
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Internal Goals
I Articulation: This can reveal that we don’t fully know

how to articulate what we were thinking.
I Understanding: Even if we can articulate the thought in a
sentence. Sometimes we find that we have to use a word that
is too vague or imprecise to cover the cases we want.
I Connections: Writing forces us to explicitly make our
reasons and the connections between our beliefs clear. This
often reveals that reason for a belief is much more tenuous
than we thought. It tells us what it would take to change our
mind.
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Internal Goals

mind.
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Internal Goals

mind.
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I do not lack the experience of having allowed myself to be

befooled with words. It is very easy to believe oneself to
be thinking when one is only stringing together words that
have a warm familiarity and emotive significance. We are not
thinking unless we know what it is we are ‘thinking about’.
(Susan Stebbing, Thinking to Some Purpose, 1939)
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Good Philosophy Papers
I The internal aims of writing help reveal some features of a

good philosophy paper.
I Good philosophy papers help the writer make up their own
mind about the argument under discussion.
I Good philosophy papers aim to clarify the terms of the debate.
I Good philosophy papers bleed. They wear their weaknesses on
the surface. They explicitly signal how someone could resist
the argument or conclusion.
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To be sensitive—to have an open mind—these are valuable

qualities even in war-time, whatever the wireless says. Do
they help us to conquer the Nazis? They don’t. They are
weapons in a larger and longer battle. (E. M. Forester, 1940)
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Outline
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First Steps
I Make sure you understand the assignment.

I Are you being asked to assess a claim or an argument?
I What is the question being asked?
I What do the terms in the question mean?
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First Steps

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First Steps

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First Steps

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Second Steps
I Think through the argument under discussion.

I What is it trying to prove and why is the conclusion
important?
I Why would someone endorse the premises of the argument? Is
there anything that speaks in their favor?
I How would a proponent of the argument respond to the most
obvious counterexamples.
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Second Steps

important?
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Second Steps

important?
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Second Steps

important?
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Initial Reacitons
I Think through your initial reaction.

I Do you agree with the conclusion? Is it because of the
argument or for some other reason?
I Do you agree with the premises? Why or why not?
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Initial Reacitons

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Initial Reacitons

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Strong Reactions
I Do you strongly reject the conclusion?

I Then you have to reject one of the premises or show that the
argument is invalid.
I How do you need to adjust your position in light of the
argument?
I More often than not, philosophical arguments have something
going for them. Even if we reject the conclusion, we usually
have to revise our beliefs somewhere in response.
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Strong Reactions

argument?
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Strong Reactions

argument?
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Strong Reactions

argument?
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Strong Reactions
I If you don’t like the conclusion of the argument but can’t

identify a definite flaw, then you might try to figure out which
premise in the argument you have to reject to make your
position coherent.
I What would a position that rejects this premise look like?
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Strong Reactions
I If you don’t like the conclusion of the argument but can’t

identify a definite flaw, then you might try to figure out which
premise in the argument you have to reject to make your
position coherent.
I What would a position that rejects this premise look like?
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Indecision
I Are you undecided about the conclusion?

I Then you have to find at least one of the premises to be
unconvincing or show that the argument is invalid.
I Why is the premise unconvincing? What is the source of your
resistance?
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Indecision

resistance?
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Indecision

resistance?
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Agreement
I Do you agree with the conclusion?

I How have opponents responded? Do they reject a premise?
Do they modify their position?
I Are there subtle modifications of the argument that target
these views?
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Agreement

these views?
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Agreement

these views?
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Progress and Originality
I Explaining an argument in your own terms and examining

whether it is successful requires originality.
I You likely won’t say something completely unprecedented.
I It is much better that you make an original contribution by
fully thinking through what you think about the argument.
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Progress
The essay doesn’t have to conclusively settle whether the position

is true or the argument is successful. Good philosophy papers
often:
I Identify a hole in an argument.
I Plug a hole in an argument.
I Describe a new (often strange form) of the view being
criticized that resists the argument.
I Reframe an argument in an interesting way.
I Show that the success of the argument depends on some
apparently unrelated theses.
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Progress

often:
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Progress

often:
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Progress

often:
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Progress

often:
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Outline
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Articulate Your Thought!
I The first step in writing your essay is usually planning it.

I The plan should be written in complete sentences not
individual words.
I Remember, articulating our thoughts is our reason for writing
in the first place.
I Too often, students show me outlines with bullet points like
‘so-and-so’s argument here’ and ‘my response here’ without
having any idea of what the argument is or what their
response is.
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individual words.
in the first place.
response is.
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individual words.
in the first place.
response is.
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individual words.
in the first place.
response is.
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Be Literal
I We often think in metaphors.

I But metaphors may help us discover that there is a
connection between two claims.
I But they often don’t disclose the precise nature of the
connection.
I A good outline should unpack the metaphor into literal truth
I We needn’t—like Plato—outlaw poetry. But our poetry
should be grounded in clarity about what we ourselves think.
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Be Literal

connection.
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Be Literal

connection.
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Be Literal

connection.
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Be Literal

connection.
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[T]he unpacking by literal speech, within the limits of the

humanly possible, of all metaphors, anthropomorphic, spatial,
or otherwise, is nowhere more urgent, just as it is nowhere
more difficult, than in ontology. (Gustav Bergmann, 1992)
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A good plan includes:

I A statement of the position under discussion (or conclusion of
the argument under discussion).
I A statement of the argument for it.
I Definitions or explanations of any complicated terms.
I Concerns one might have about the argument. (Are the
premises under motivated?)
I Possible responses to these worries.
I Concerns about the conclusion. (Are there independent
arguments for or against it?)
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Outline
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I If you have written an outline fit to purpose, then you should

be in a position to write your first draft.
I In fact, you should be able to lift sentences or even
paragraphs of your first draft from your outline.
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I If you have written an outline fit to purpose, then you should

be in a position to write your first draft.
I In fact, you should be able to lift sentences or even
paragraphs of your first draft from your outline.
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Introductions
I You’ll likely need to substantially revise your introduction in

light of what you say in the essay. Don’t worry if it isn’t just
right.
I A good first draft of an introduction might just state:
I There is an argument for conclusion p.
I This essay will explain the argument and address a challenge
to the arguments premise/conclusion/reasoning
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Introductions
I You’ll likely need to substantially revise your introduction in

light of what you say in the essay. Don’t worry if it isn’t just
right.
I A good first draft of an introduction might just state:
I There is an argument for conclusion p.
I This essay will explain the argument and address a challenge
to the arguments premise/conclusion/reasoning
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Getting Stuck
I When you get stuck:

I Sometimes you just need a break.
I Other times, it’s because there’s a problem with your plan.
I Consider: Are you trying derive an inference that just doesn’t
follow from the premises? Is your claim stronger than you can
prove? Do you still agree with your original position?
I Remember: re-thinking, re-planning, and re-writing are
virtues. They’re the point of the exercise!
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Getting Stuck

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Getting Stuck

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Getting Stuck

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Getting Stuck

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Why Write Philosophy?

The University of Edinburgh

Why Write Philosophy?

Finding Your Contribution

Outlining Your Essay

Writing the First Draft

I In preparing for your essay, you’re probably thinking through

I In preparing for your essay, you’re probably thinking through

I In preparing for your essay, you’re probably thinking through

I In preparing for your essay, you’re probably thinking through

I More generally why do we philosophy lecturers always assess

I More generally why do we philosophy lecturers always assess

I More generally why do we philosophy lecturers always assess

I More generally why do we philosophy lecturers always assess

I When merely thinking

I When merely thinking

I When merely thinking

I When merely thinking

I When merely thinking

I Articulation: This can reveal that we don’t fully know

I Articulation: This can reveal that we don’t fully know

I Articulation: This can reveal that we don’t fully know

I do not lack the experience of having allowed myself to be

Good Philosophy Papers

I The internal aims of writing help reveal some features of a

Good Philosophy Papers

I The internal aims of writing help reveal some features of a

Good Philosophy Papers

I The internal aims of writing help reveal some features of a

Good Philosophy Papers

I The internal aims of writing help reveal some features of a

To be sensitive—to have an open mind—these are valuable

Why Write Philosophy?

Finding Your Contribution

Outlining Your Essay

Writing the First Draft

I Make sure you understand the assignment.

I Make sure you understand the assignment.

I Make sure you understand the assignment.

I Make sure you understand the assignment.

I Think through the argument under discussion.

I Think through the argument under discussion.

I Think through the argument under discussion.

I Think through the argument under discussion.

I Think through your initial reaction.

I Think through your initial reaction.

I Think through your initial reaction.

I Do you strongly reject the conclusion?

I Do you strongly reject the conclusion?

I Do you strongly reject the conclusion?

I Do you strongly reject the conclusion?

I If you don’t like the conclusion of the argument but can’t

I If you don’t like the conclusion of the argument but can’t

I Are you undecided about the conclusion?

I Are you undecided about the conclusion?

I Are you undecided about the conclusion?

I Do you agree with the conclusion?

I Do you agree with the conclusion?

I Do you agree with the conclusion?

Progress and Originality

I Explaining an argument in your own terms and examining

Progress and Originality

I Explaining an argument in your own terms and examining