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Philosophy essay writing guide

Introduction.

This guide is intended to give new students of philosophy some preliminary advice about writing philosophy essays at university. For many of you, writing a philosophy essay will be something of a new experience, and no doubt many of you will be a little unsure of what to expect, or of what is expected of you. Most of you will have written essays in school for English, History, etc. A philosophy essay is something a little different again. However, it is not an unfathomable, mysterious affair, nor one where anything goes.

Just what a philosophy essay is will depend a lot, as you'd expect, on just what philosophy is. Defining philosophy is always a more or less controversial business, but one way to think of what is done in university philosophy departments is to think of the difference between having a philosophy and doing philosophy. Virtually everyone "has a philosophy" in the sense that we have many basic beliefs about the world and ourselves and use certain key concepts to articulate those beliefs. Many of us initially come to thus "have a philosophy" (or elements of several philosophies) often only unconsciously, or by following "what's obvious" or "what everybody knows", or by adopting a view because it sounds exciting or is intellectually fashionable.

"Doing philosophy", on the other hand, is a self-conscious unearthing and rigorous examination of these basic beliefs and key concepts. In doing so, we try to clarify the meanings of those beliefs and concepts and to evaluate critically their rational grounds or justification. Thus, rather than having their heads in the clouds, philosophers are really more under the surface of our thinking, examining the structures that support - or fail to support - those who trust that they have their feet on the ground. Such examination may even help to develop new and firmer ground.

Doing philosophy, then, begins with asking questions about the fundamental ideas and concepts that inform our ways of looking at the world and ourselves, and proceeds by developing responses to those questions which seek to gain insight into those ideas and concepts - and part of that development consists in asking further questions, giving further responses, and so on. Human beings across the world have been engaged in this sort of dialogue of question and response for many centuries - even millennia - and a number of great traditions of reflection and inquiry have evolved that have fundamentally influenced the development of religion, art, science and politics in many cultures. The influence of philosophical thinking on Western civilization, in particular, can be traced back more than 2,500 years to the Ancient Greeks.

In philosophy, a good essay is one that, among other things, displays a good sense of this dialectic of question and response by asking insightful, probing questions, and providing reasoned, well-argued responses. This means that you should not rest content with merely an unintegrated collection of assertions, but should instead work at establishing logical relations between your thoughts. You are assessed not on the basis of what you believe, but on how well you argue for the position you adopt in your essay, and on how interesting and insightful your discussion of the issues is. That is to say, you are assessed on how well you do philosophy, not on what philosophy you end up having. Nonetheless, you ought to make sure that your essay's discussion is relevant to the topic. (See Section 5.2 below on relevance.)

It is hoped that you enjoy the activity of essay writing. If you have chosen to study Arts, it is likely that you will have a particular interest in - even a passion for - ideas and the variety of forms and genres in which ideas are expressed and explored. The argumentative or discursive formal academic essay is one such form, and one which can be a pleasure to read and to write. Thus, the assessment that is set in philosophy courses is primarily an invitation to you to pursue what is already (or, hopefully, soon to be) your own interest in writing to explore ideas. However, your immediate goal in writing an academic philosophy essay ought not to be to write a personal testament, confession or polemic. Rather, you should primarily aim at articulating, clearly and relatively dispassionately, your philosophical thinking on the topic at hand. Nevertheless, the kind and degree of personal development one can gain from taking up the challenge to think and to write carefully, clearly and thoroughly is certainly something to be greatly valued.

This guide is intended to help you get started in the business of writing philosophy essays. As you practise your philosophical writing skills, you will develop your own technique, and learn what is appropriate in each particular case. So you may well come to "work around" many of these guidelines. Nonetheless, it is important that you pass through that which you seek to pass beyond.* In addition to your own writing, your reading of other philosophers will help you to develop your sense of what constitutes good philosophical writing. As you read, note the various styles and techniques that philosophical authors employ in their treatment of philosophical issues. Practice and studying good examples, then, are the most valuable ways to develop your essay writing skills.

This guide is, moreover, only one of many publications that introduce philosophy students to essay writing. Some others you may like to consult include:

• A. P. Martinich, Philosophical Writing, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997)
• J. Feinberg and R. Shafer-Landau, Doing Philosophy: A Guide to the Writing of Philosophy Papers, 2nd ed. (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 2001)
• Z. Seech, Writing Philosophy Papers, 4th ed. (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 2003)
• R. Solomon, "Writing Philosophy", Appendix to his The Big Questions: A Short Introduction to Philosophy, 6th ed. (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 2001)
• S. Gorovitz et al., Philosophical Analysis: An Introduction to its Language and Techniques, 3rd ed. (New York: Random House, 1979)

Also, the websites of many philosophy departments in universities around Australia and the world contain downloadable essay writing guides or links to them.

*This phrase is adapted from Jacques Bouveresse, "Why I am so very unFrench", in Alan Montefiore, ed., Philosophy in France Today (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 12.

What do I do in a Philosophy essay?

Philosophy essay topics are not designed to provide an intellectual obstacle course that trips you up so as to delight a malicious marker. They are designed to invite you to "grapple with" with some particular philosophical problem or issue. That is to say, they are designed to offer you an opportunity to demonstrate your understanding of a particular philosophical problem or issue, and to exhibit your own philosophical skills of analysis, argumentation, etc. These twin goals are usually best achieved by ensuring that your essay performs two basic functions (your understanding and your skills apply to both):

an exposition of the problem or issue in question (often as it is posed in some particular text); and a critical discussion of the problem or text

These two functions can, but need not always, correspond to physically or structurally distinct sections of your essay. See Section 5.1.

The expository ("setting forth") aspect of your essay is where you should make clear what the issue is and why it is an issue. Where you are dealing with an issue as it is presented in some particular text, your aim should be to make clear what it is that the author in question meant in their text, what they see as the issue and why they see it as an issue. This does not involve merely quoting or paraphrasing a text. Of course, occasional quotation and paraphrase may be appropriate - sometimes necessary - but these ought not to constitute the sole or major content of your exposition. Where you do quote or paraphrase, make sure you attribute your sources in footnotes or endnotes. (See Section 7.)

Exposition is, then, primarily a matter of developing in your own words what you think the issue is or what you think the text means. In all expository work you should always try to give a fair and accurate account of a text or problem, even when the exposition becomes more interpretive rather than simply descriptive. You ought to be patient and sympathetic in your exposition, even if you intend later to criticise heavily the philosopher in question. Indeed, the better the exposition in this regard, usually the more effective the critique.

An important part of exposition is your analysis of the text or issue. Here you should try to "break down" the text, issue or problem into its constitutive elements by distinguishing its different parts. (E.g. "There are two basic kinds of freedom in question when we speak of freedom of the will. First, … . Second, …", or "There are three elements in Plato's conception of the soul, namely... He establishes these three elements by means of the following two arguments... ") This also involves showing the relationships between those elements, relationships which make them "parts of the whole".

As well as laying out these elements within a text or issue, you can also (when appropriate or relevant) show how a text or issue "connects up with" other texts, issues, or philosophical and/or historical developments, which can help to shed further light on the matter by giving it a broader context. (eg "Freedom of the will is importantly connected to the justification of punishment", or "Plato's tripartite theory of the soul bears interesting resemblances to Freud's analysis of the psyche", or "Kant's transcendental idealism can be seen as reconciling the preceding rationalist and empiricist accounts of knowledge".)

An exposition of a text need not always simply follow the author's own view of what it means. You should, of course, demonstrate that you understand how the author themself understands their work, but an exposition can sometimes go beyond this, giving another reading of the text. (eg "Heidegger might deny it, but his Being and Time can be read as developing a pragmatist account of human understanding.") A given text or issue may well be susceptible to a number of plausible or reasonable interpretations. An exposition should aim to be sensitive to such variety. When appropriate, you should defend your interpretations against rivals and objections. Your interpretation ought, though, to be aimed at elucidating the meaning or meanings of the text or issue and not serve merely as a "coat-hanger" for presenting your own favoured views on the matter in question, which should be left to your ...

Critical discussion

This is where your thought gets more of the centre stage. Here you should attempt to develop a response to the issues which your exposition has made clear, and/or, in the case of a discussion of some particular text, attempt to give a critical appraisal of the author's treatment of the issue. In developing a response to a philosophical problem, argumentation is, again, of central importance. Avoid making unsupported assertions; back up your claims with reasons, and connect up your ideas so that they progress logically toward your conclusions. Consider some of the various objections to and questions about your views that others might or have put forward, and try to respond to them in defence of your own line of thinking. Your goal here should be to discuss what you have expounded so as to come to some conclusion or judgement about it. ("Critical" is derived from the Ancient Greek for "to decide, to judge".) Critical discussion is thus not necessarily "destructive" or "negative"; it can be quite constructive and positive.

In the case of a critical appraisal of a particular author's text, you can negatively criticise the author's arguments by pointing out questionable assumptions, invalid reasoning, etc. If, on the other hand, you think that the text is good, then your critical discussion can be positive. This can be done by revealing its "hidden virtues" (that is, by showing that there is more to the author's arguments and views than what lies on the surface) and/or by defending an author against possible and/or actual criticisms. (eg "Norman Malcolm argues that Descartes is mistaken in assuming that dreams and waking episodes have the same content.* However, Malcolm fails to appreciate the subtlety of Descartes' argument in the First Meditation, which allows Descartes to claim . . .") Just to expound an author's arguments and then say "I disagree" or "That seems right" is not really enough - you need to "have something to say" about it. Of course, by all means go on, after finding fault with some philosopher, to answer in your own way the questions tackled or raised by the author. (eg "Simone de Beauvoir's analysis of women's oppression in The Second Sex suffers from serious weaknesses, as I have shown in Section 2 above. A better way to approach the issue, I shall now argue, is to . . .".)

Where you are not primarily concerned with evaluating or responding to a particular text, your critical discussion can be more focused on your own constructive response to the issue. (eg "Having used Dworkin's account to clarify the meanings of the concepts of 'the sanctity of life' and 'voluntariness', I shall now argue that voluntary euthanasia is morally permissible because its voluntariness respects what is of value in the notion of the sanctity of life" - where you now leave Dworkin behind as a source and move on to give your own account.)

* See Norman Malcolm, "Dreaming and Skepticism", in Willis Doney, ed., Descartes: A Collection of Critical Essays (London: Macmillan, 1967), p. 56.

Guide to researching and writing Philosophy essays

5th edition by Steven Tudor , for the Philosophy program, University of Melbourne, 2003.

This fifth edition of How to Write a Philosophy Essay: A Guide for Students (previous editions titled A Guide to Researching and Writing Philosophy Essays ) was prepared in consultation with members of the Philosophy program, the University of Melbourne. For advice and assistance on this and earlier editions, thanks are due to Graham Priest, Barry Taylor, Christopher Cordner, Doug Adeney, Josie Winther, Linda Burns, Marion Tapper, Kimon Lycos, Brendan Long, Jeremy Moss, Tony Coady, Will Barrett, Brian Scarlett, and Megan Laverty. Some use was also made of materials prepared by the Philosophy Departments of La Trobe University, the University of Queensland, and The Australian National University.

Disclaimer: University, Faculty and program rules

Please note: this booklet does not provide authoritative statements of the official policies or rules of the University of Melbourne, the Faculty of Arts, or the Philosophy program with regard to student essays and examinations or any other matters. Students should, therefore, not rely on this booklet for such information, for which they should consult the various appropriate notice boards, handbooks, websites, and/or members of staff.

Essay topics

What do philosophy essay topics look like? There are, very roughly, two basic kinds of philosophy essay topics: "text-focused" topics and "problem-focused" topics. Text-focused topics ask you to consider some particular philosopher's writing on some issue. (eg "Discuss critically David Hume's account of causation in Part III of Book I of his A Treatise of Human Nature " or "Was Wittgenstein right to say that 'the meaning of a word is its use in the language', in his Philosophical Investigations, Sec. 43?"). Problem-focused topics are more directly about a particular philosophical problem or issue, without reference to any particular philosopher's text. (eg "Is voluntary euthanasia morally permissible?" or "What is scientific method?")

There is another sort of topic, one which presents a statement and asks you to discuss it, where that statement is a "made up" or, at least, unattributed quote. (eg. "'Without belief in God, people cannot be moral'. Discuss.") I shall regard these as variations of the problem-focused type of topic. Where you are asked to discuss some such statement "with reference to" some specified text or philosopher, then that topic becomes more text-focused. (eg "'Without belief in God, people cannot be moral'. Discuss with reference to J.L. Mackie's Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. ") Occasionally, a topic presents an unattributed statement, but the statement is, in fact, a quote from a particular philosopher you've been studying, or, at least, a good paraphrase of their thinking. (An example of the latter: "'All the ideas in our minds originate from either sense perception or our reflection upon sensory information.' Discuss.", in a course devoted to John Locke, whose views are summed up in the quoted statement, though those words are not actually his.) Should you take such topics as problem- or text-focused? Rather unhelpfully, I'll say only that it depends on the case. You might ask your lecturer or tutor about it. Whichever way you do take it, be clear in your essay which way you are taking it.

The difference between text-focused and problem-focused essay topics is, however, not very radical. This is because, on the one hand, any particular philosopher's text is about some philosophical problem or question, while, on the other hand, most philosophical problems (certainly virtually all those you will be given as essay topics at university) will have been written about by previous philosophers.

The basic way to approach text-focused topics, then, is to treat the nominated text as an attempt by one philosopher to deal with a particular philosophical problem or issue. The essay topic will, generally speaking, be inviting you to do philosophy with that philosopher, to engage with them in thinking about the issue, whether that engagement proves to be as an ally or an adversary. The chosen text will usually be one which has been (or deserves to be) influential or significant in the history of philosophy, but the task is not to pay homage to past masters. But, even if homage is your thing, the best way to do that here is to engage with the master philosophically.

With regard to problem-focused topics, you will often find your exploration of the problem aided by taking some text or texts which have dealt with it as reference points or prompts. This is not always strictly necessary, but many of you starting out in philosophy will find it helpful to do so - it can help you give focus to your response to the question. (Thus, you might, in an essay on the topic "Is voluntary euthanasia morally permissible?" take it upon yourself to use, for example, Ronald Dworkin's Life's Dominion and Peter Singer's Practical Ethics as reference points. Or, in an essay on the topic "What is scientific method?", you might set up your answer via a comparison of the two different accounts in Karl Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery and Paul Feyerabend's Against Method.*) How will you know which texts to adopt as reference points or prompts, if none is mentioned in the essay topic itself? One way is to consider what texts have already been mentioned with regard to the topic in your course reading guide and in lectures and tutorials. Another way is to do some of your own research. On this see Section 4 below.

* In this guide, in giving examples of how to go about answering an essay question, I am not necessarily giving any concrete or reliable advice for any particular topic. The examples are primarily to do with the form or style or strategy you might find helpful.

Researching your essay

To do research for your philosophy essay you need to do only two things: read and think. Actually, for problem-focused essays, thinking is the only truly necessary bit, but it's highly likely that you will find your thinking much assisted if you do some reading as well. Philosophical research at university is a little different to research in most other disciplines (especially the natural sciences), in that it is not really about "collecting data" to support or refute explanatory theories. Rather, the thinking that's involved in philosophical research (as part of one's preparation for philosophical writing) is more a matter of reflecting critically upon the problems in front of one. Researching the writings of other philosophers should, therefore, be primarily directed towards helping you with that reflection rather than aiming at gathering together and reporting on "the relevant findings" on a particular topic. In many other disciplines, a "literature review" is an important research skill, and sometimes philosophy academics do such reviews - but it is rare that philosophy students are asked to do one.

What, then, to read? It should be clear from your lectures and tutorials what some starting points for your reading might be. (All courses provide reading guides; many also have booklets of reading material.) Your tutor and lecturer are also available for consultation on what readings you might begin with for any particular topic in that subject. Independent research can also uncover useful sources, and evidence of this in your essay can be a pleasing sign of intellectual independence. Make sure, though, that what you come up with is relevant to the topic. (See Section 5.2 below on relevance.) Whichever way you proceed, your reading should be purposive and selective.

In the case of essay questions that refer to a particular text, you should familiarise yourself thoroughly with this text. Usually, such a text will be a primary text, i.e. one in which a philosopher writes directly about a philosophical issue. Texts on or about a primary text are called secondary texts. (Many philosophical works will combine these two tasks, and discuss other philosophical texts while also dealing directly with a philosophical issue.) Some secondary texts can be helpful to students. However, don't think you will only ever understand a primary text if you have a nice friendly secondary text to take you by the hand through the primary text. More often than not, you need to have a good grasp of the primary text in order to make sense of the secondary text.

How much to read? The amount of reading you do should be that which maximises the quality of your thinking - that is, you should not swamp yourself with vast slabs of text that you can't digest, but nor should you starve your mind of ideas to chew over. There is, of course, no simple rule for determining this optimal amount. Be wary, though, of falling into the vice of looking for excuses not to read some philosopher or text, as in "Oh, that's boring old religious stuff" or "She's one of those obscure literary feminist types", or "In X Department they laugh at you if you mention those authors in tutes". If someone wants a reason not to think, they'll soon come up with one.

Philosophical writings

Most philosophical writings come in either of two forms: books or articles. Articles appear either in books that are edited anthologies or in academic journals, such as Philosophical Quarterly or Australasian Journal of Philosophy. Some academic journals are also on the internet. Most articles in the journals are written by professional philosophers for professional philosophers; similarly with many books. But by no means let this put you off. Everyone begins philosophy at the deep end - it's really the only kind there is!

There are, however, many books written for student audiences. Some of these are general introductions to philosophy as a whole; others are introductions to particular areas or issues (eg biomedical ethics or philosophy of science). Among the general introductions are various philosophical dictionaries, encyclopedias and "companions". These reference works collect short articles on a wide range of topics and can be very useful starting points for newcomers to a topic. Among the most useful of the general reference works are:

• Edward Craig, ed., The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (10 vols.) (London: Routledge, 1998)
• Paul Edwards, ed., The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (8 vols.) (New York: Macmillan, 1967)
• Robert Audi, ed., The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999)
• Ted Honderich, ed., The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995)
• Simon Blackburn, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996)
• Thomas Mautner, ed., The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy (London: Penguin, 1998)
• J.O. Urmson and Jonathan Ree, eds., The Concise Encyclopedia of Western Philosophy and Philosophers (London: Routledge, 1993)
• Edward N. Zalta, ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (an internet-based reference work: plato.stanford.edu/ )

Note taking

Note taking, like your reading, should not be random, but ought to be guided by the topic in question and by your particular lines of response to the issues involved. Note taking for philosophy is very much an individual art, which you develop as you progress. By and large it is not of much use to copy out reams of text as part of your researches. Nor is it generally helpful to read a great number of pages without making any note of what they contain for future reference. But between these two extremes it is up to you to find the mean that best helps you in getting your thoughts together.

Libraries and electronic resources

The University's Baillieu Library (including the Institute of Education Resource Centre), which is open to all members of the University, contains more than 2,500 years' worth of philosophical writings. The best way to become acquainted with them is by using them, including using the catalogues (including the Baillieu's on-line catalogues and subject resources web-pages), following up a work's references (and references in the references), intelligent browsing of the shelves, etc.

In the main Baillieu Library, the philosophical books are located (mostly) between 100–199 in the Dewey decimal system, and philosophical journals are located in the basement. The Reference section on the ground floor also has some relevant works. The Education Resource Centre also has a good philosophy collection.

In addition to hard-copy philosophical writings, there is also a variety of electronic resources in philosophy, mostly internet-based. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy was already mentioned above. Links to other useful internet sites (such as the Australasian Association of Philosophy website) can be found through the Baillieu Library's web-page and the Philosophy Department's web-page.

A strong word of warning, however, for the would-be philosophical web-surfer: because anyone can put material on a website, all kinds of stuff, of varying levels of quality, is out there - and new-comers to philosophy are usually not well placed to sort their way through it. Unless you have a very good understanding of what you're looking for - and what you're not looking for - most of you will be much better off simply carefully reading and thinking about a central text for your course, eg Descartes' First Meditation, rather than wandering about the internet clicking on all the hits for "Descartes". Exercise your mind, not your index finger.

Writing your essay

Planning and structuring your essay.

It is very important that you plan your essay, so that you have an idea of what you are going to write before you start to write it. Of course, you will most likely alter things in later drafts, but you should still start off by having a plan. Planning your essay includes laying out a structure. It is very important that your essay has a clearly discernible structure, ie that it is composed of parts and that these parts are logically connected. This helps both you and your reader to be clear about how your discussion develops, stage by stage, as you work through the issues at hand.

Poor essay structure is one of the most common weaknesses in student philosophy essays. Taking the time to work on the structure of your essay is time well spent, especially since skill in structuring your thoughts for presentation to others should be among the more enduring things you learn at university. A common trap that students fall into is to start their essay by writing the first sentence, then writing another one that seems to follow that one, then another one that sort of fits after that one, then another that might or might not have some connection with the previous one, and so on until the requisite 1,500 words are used up. The result is usually a weak, rambling essay.

There are, of course, no hard and fast rules about how to structure a philosophy essay. Again, it is a skill you develop through practice, and much will depend on the particular topic at hand. Nonetheless, it might be helpful to begin by developing an essay structure around the basic distinction between your exposition and your critical discussion (as discussed above). In this it will be important that you make clear who is putting forward which point, that is, make it clear whether you are presenting your own thoughts or are expounding someone else's. (Again, confusion in this regard is a common problem in student essays.) It can often help your structuring if you provide headings for different sections (possibly numbered or lettered). Again, this helps both your reader to follow your discussion and you to develop your thoughts. At each stage, show clearly the logical relations between and the reasons for your points, so that your reader can see clearly why you say what you say and can see clearly the development in your discussion.

Another key to structuring your essay can be found in the old adage "Tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em. Tell 'em. Then tell 'em what you've told 'em", which provides you with a ready-made structure: Introduction, Main Body, and Conclusion.

In your Introduction, first introduce the issues the essay is concerned with. In doing so, try to state briefly just what the problem is and (if there is space) why it is a problem. This also applies, of course, to issues covered in text-focused essay topics. Next, tell the reader what it is that you are going to do about those problems in the Main Body. This is usually done by giving a brief sketch or overview of the main points you will present, a "pre-capitulation", so to speak, of your essay's structure. This is one way of showing your reader that you have a grasp (indeed, it helps you get a grasp) of your essay as a structured and integrated whole, and gives them some idea of what to expect by giving them an idea of how you have decided to answer the question. Of course, for reasons of space, your Introduction might not be very long, but something along these lines is likely to be useful.

In your Main Body, do what you've said you'll do. Here is where you should present your exposition(s) and your critical discussion(s). Thus, it is here that the main philosophical substance of your essay is to be found. Of course, what that substance is and how you will present it will depend on the particular topic before you. But, whatever the topic, make clear at each stage just what it is you are doing. You can be quite explicit about this. (eg "I shall now present Descartes' ontological argument for the existence of God, as it is presented in his Fifth Meditation. There will be three stages to this presentation.") Don't think that such explicitness must be a sign of an unsophisticated thinker.

A distinct Conclusion is perhaps not always necessary, if your Main Body has clearly "played out" your argument. So you don't always have to present a grand summation or definitive judgement at the end. Still, often for your own sake, try to state to yourself what it is your essay has achieved and see if it would be appropriate to say so explicitly. Don't feel that you must come up with earth-shattering conclusions. Of course, utter banality or triviality are not good goals, either. Also, your essay doesn't always have to conclude with a "solution" to a problem. Sometimes, simply clarifying an issue or problem is a worthy achievement and can merit first-class honours. A good conclusion to a philosophy essay, then, will usually combine a realistic assessment of the ambit and cogency of its claims with a plausible proposal that those claims have some philosophical substance.

What you write in your essay should always be relevant to the question posed. This is another common problem in student essays, so continually ask yourself "Am I addressing the question here?" First-class answers to a question can vary greatly, but you must make sure that your essay responds to the question asked, even if you go on to argue that the question as posed is itself problematic. (eg "To ask ‘What is scientific method?' presupposes that science follows one basic method. However, I shall argue that there are, in fact, several different scientific methods and that these are neither unified nor consistent.") Be wary, however, of twisting a topic too far out of shape in order to fit your favoured theme. (You would be ill-advised, for example, to proceed thus: "What is scientific method? This is a question asked by many great minds. But what is a mind? In this essay, I shall discuss the views of Thomas Aquinas on the nature of mind.")

This requirement of relevance is not intended as an authoritarian constraint on your intellectual freedom. It is part of the skill of paying sustained and focused attention to something put before you - which is one of the most important skills you can develop at university. If you do have other philosophical interests that you want to pursue (such as Aquinas on mind), then please do pursue them, in addition to writing your essay on the set topic. At no stage does the requirement of relevance prevent you from pursuing your other interests.

Citing Philosophical "Authorities"

There might be occasions when you want to quote other philosophers and writers apart from when you are quoting them because they are the subject of your essay. There are two basic reasons why you might want to do this. First, you might quote someone because their words constitute a good or exemplary expression or articulation of an idea you are dealing with, whether as its proponent, critic, or simply its chronicler. (eg "As Nietzsche succinctly put the point, 'There are no moral phenomena at all, only a moral interpretation of phenomena'.*") You may or may not want to endorse the idea whose good expression you have quoted, but simply want to use the philosopher as a spokesperson for or example of that view. But be clear about what you think the quote means and be careful about what you are doing with the quote. It won't do all the work for you.

The second reason you might want to quote a philosopher is because you think their words constitute an "authoritative statement" of a view. Here you want to use the fact that, eg Bertrand Russell maintained that there are two kinds of knowledge of things (namely, knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description) in support of your claim that there are two such kinds of knowledge of things. However, be very careful in doing this, for the nature of philosophical authority is not so simple here. That is to say, what really matters is not that Bertrand Russell the man held that view; what matters are his reasons for holding that view. So, when quoting philosophers for this second reason, be careful that you appreciate in what exactly the authority lies - which means that you should show that you appreciate why Russell maintained that thesis. Of course, you can't provide long arguments for every claim you make or want to make use of; every essay will have its enabling but unargued assumptions. But at least be clear about these. (eg "For the purposes of this essay, I shall adopt Russell's thesis* that ...").

* Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. R.J. Hollingdale (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973 [first German ed.1886]), Sec. 108.

* See Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967 [first pub. 1912]), Ch. 5.

Philosophy is by its nature a relatively abstract and generalising business. (Note that abstractness and generality are not the same thing. Nor do vagueness and obscurity automatically attend them.) Sometimes a longish series of general ideas and abstract reasonings can become difficult for the reader (and often the writer) to follow. It can often help, therefore, to use some concrete or specific examples in your discussion. (Note that there can be different levels of concreteness and specificity in examples.)

Examples can be taken from history, current events, literature, and so on, or can be entirely your own invention. Exactly what examples you employ and just how and why you use them will, of course, depend on the case. Some uses might be: illustration of a position, problem or idea to help make it clearer; evidence for, perhaps even proof of, a proposition; a counter-example; a case-study to be returned to at various points during the essay; or a problem for a theory or viewpoint to be applied to. Again, be clear about what the example is and how and why you use it. Be careful not to get distracted by, or bogged down in, your examples. Brevity is usually best.

English expression

There's another old saying: "If you can't say what you mean, then you can't mean what you say" - and this very much applies to philosophical writing. Thus, in writing philosophically, you must write clearly and precisely. This means that good philosophical writing requires a good grasp of the language in which it is written, including its grammar and vocabulary. (See Section 9.3 for advice for people from non-English speaking backgrounds.) A high standard of writing skills is to be expected of Arts graduates. Indeed, this sort of skill will last longer than your memory of, for example, the three parts of the Platonic soul (though it is also hoped that some of the content of what you study will also stick). So use your time at university (in all your subjects) to develop these skills further.

Having a mastery of a good range of terms, being sensitive to the subtleties of their meaning, and being able to construct grammatically correct and properly punctuated sentences are essential to the clear articulation and development of your thoughts. Think of grammar, not as some old-fashioned set of rules of linguistic etiquette, but rather as the "internal logic" of a sentence, that is, as the relationships between the words within a sentence which enable them to combine to make sense.

Virtually all sentences in philosophical writing are declarative (ie. make statements), as opposed to interrogative, imperative or exclamatory types of sentences. There is some place, though, for interrogative sentences, ie. questions. (Note that, in contrast, this guide, which is not in the essay genre, contains many imperative sentences, ie. commands.) As you craft each (declarative) sentence in your essay, remember the basics of sentence construction. Make clear what the sentence is about (its subject) and what you are saying about it (the predicate). Make clear what the principal verb is in the predicate, since it is what usually does the main work in saying something about the subject. Where a sentence consists of more than one clause (as many do in philosophical writing), make clear what work each clause is doing. Attend closely, then, to each and every sentence you write so that its sense is clear and is the sense you intend it to have. Think carefully about what it is you want each particular sentence to do (in relation to both those sentences immediately surrounding it and the essay as a whole) and structure your sentence so that it does what you want it to do. To help you with your own sentence construction skills, when reading others' philosophical works (or indeed any writing) attend closely to the construction of each sentence so as to be alive to all the subtleties of the text.

Good punctuation is an essential part of sentence construction. Its role is to help to display the grammar of a sentence so that its meaning is clear. As an example of how punctuation can fundamentally change the grammar and, hence, meaning of a sentence, compare (i) "Philosophers, who argue for the identity of mind and brain, often fail to appreciate the radical consequences of that thesis." and (ii) "Philosophers who argue for the identity of mind and brain often fail to appreciate the radical consequences of that thesis." In the first sentence it is asserted (falsely, as it happens) that all philosophers argue for the identity of mind and brain; in the second, only some philosophers are said to argue for the identity of mind and brain. Only the punctuation differs in the two strings of identical words, and yet the meanings of the sentences are very different. Confusions over this sort of thing are common weaknesses in student essays, and leave readers asking themselves "What exactly is this student trying to say?"

It will be assumed that you can spell - which is not a matter of pressing the "spell-check" key on a word-processor. A good dictionary and a good thesaurus should always be within reach as you write your essay.

Also, try to shorten and simplify sentences where you can do so without sacrificing the subtlety and inherent complexity of the discussion. Where a sentence is becoming too long or complex, it is likely that too many ideas are being bundled up together too closely. Stop and separate your ideas out. If an idea is a good or important one, it will usually deserve its own sentence.

Your "intra-sentential logic" should work very closely with the "inter-sentential logic" of your essay, ie. with the logical relations between your sentences. (This "inter-sentential logic" is what "logic" is usually taken to refer to.) For example, to enable sentences P and Q to work together to yield sentence R as a conclusion, you need to make clear that there are elements within P and Q which connect up to yield R. Consider the following example: "Infanticide is the intentional killing of a human being. However, murder is regarded by all cultures as morally abhorrent. Therefore, people who commit infanticide should be punished." This doesn't work as an argument, because the writer has not constructed sentences which provide the connecting concepts in the various subjects and predicates, even though each sentence is grammatically correct (and possibly even true).

If you are concerned to write not only clearly and precisely, but also with some degree of grace and style (and I hope you are), it's still best to get the clarity and precision right first, in a plain, straightforward way, and then to polish things up afterwards to get the style and grace you want. But don't sacrifice clarity and precision for the sake of style and grace - be prepared to sacrifice that beautiful turn of phrase if its presence is going to send your discussion down an awkward path of reasoning. Aim to hit the nail on the head rather than make a loud bang. What you are likely to find, however, is that a philosophy essay which really is clear and precise will have a large measure of grace and style in its very clarity and precision.

Remember that obscurity is not a sign of profundity. (Some profound thought may well be difficult to follow, but that doesn't mean that one can achieve profundity merely through producing obscure, difficult-to-read writing.) Your marker is interested in what's actually in your essay, not what's possibly inside your head (or indeed what's possibly in some book you happen to have referred to in your essay). So avoid hinting at or alluding suggestively to ideas, especially where they are meant to do some important work in your essay. Instead, lay them out explicitly and directly. Of course, you won't have space to spell out every single idea, so work out which ideas do the most important work and make sure that you at least get those ideas clearly articulated. In expounding a text or problem that ultimately just is vague, muddled, or obscure, try to convey such vagueness, muddle or obscurity clearly, rather than simply reproducing it in your own writing. That is, be clear that and how a text or problem has such features, and then perhaps do your best to make matters clearer.

Despite these stern pronouncements, don't be afraid of sometimes saying things which happen to sound a little odd, if you have tried various formulations and think you have now expressed your ideas just as they should be expressed. Philosophy is often an exploratory business, and new ways of seeing and saying things can sometimes be a part of that exploration.

The need for clarity and precision in philosophical writing sometimes means that you need to stipulate your own meaning for a term. When you want to use a particular word in a particular way for the purposes of your essay - as a "technical term" - be clear about it. (eg "In this essay, I shall intend ‘egoism' to mean ...") Also, be consistent in your technical meanings, or else note when you are not. Be wary, though, of inventing too many neologisms or being too idiosyncratic in your stipulations.

With regard to what "authorial pronoun" to adopt in a philosophy essay, it's standard to write plainly in the first person singular ("I", "me", "my", etc.) rather than use the royal "we" (as in "we shall argue that ..."), or the convoluted quasi-legal indirect form ("It is submitted that ..."), or the scientific objectivity of a physics experimental report. Nonetheless, stick closer to "I argue", "I suggest", "my definition", etc., than to "I wish", "I hate", "my feeling", etc. A philosophy essay is still something more intellectual and formal than a personal reminiscence, polemic, or proclamation. In terms of audience, it's probably best to think of your reader as someone who is intelligent, open to discussion and knows a little about the topic you're writing on, but perhaps is not quite clear or decided about the issues, or needs convincing of the view you want to put forward, or is curious about what you think about the issues.

Try also to use non-discriminatory language, ie. language which does not express or imply inequality of worth between people on the basis of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and so on. As you write, you will be considering carefully your choice of words to express your thoughts. You will almost always find that it is possible to avoid discriminatory language by rephrasing your sentences.

Other things to avoid:

• waffle and padding
• vagueness and ambiguity
• abbreviations (this guide I'm writing isn't an eg. of what's req'd. in a phil. essay)
• colloquialisms (which can really get up your reader's nose)
• writing whose syntax merely reflects the patterns of informal speech
• unnecessary abstractness or indirectness
• unexplained jargon
• flattery and invective
• overly-rhetorical questions (do you really need me to tell you what they are?) and other flourishes

There are many guides to good writing available. Anyone who writes (whether in the humanities or the sciences, whether beginners or experienced professionals) will do well to have some on hand. Most good bookshops and libraries will have some. Among the most consulted works are (check for the latest editions):

• J. M. Williams and G. C. Colomb, Style: Toward Clarity and Grace (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995)
• W. Strunk and E. B. White, The Elements of Style, 4th ed. (New York: Longman, 2000)
• E. Gowers, The Complete Plain Words, 3rd ed. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987)
• R. W. Burchfield, ed., The New Fowler's Modern English Usage (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996)
• Pam Peters, The Cambridge Australian English Style Guide (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1995)
• Australian Government Publishing Service, Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers, 5th ed. (Canberra: AGPS, 1995)

Vocabulary of logical argument

Closely related to the above points about English expression is the importance of having a good grasp of what can rather generally be called "the vocabulary of logical argument". These sorts of terms are crucial in articulating clearly and cogently a logical line of argument. Such argumentation will, of course, be of central importance in whatever discipline you are studying, indeed in any sphere of life that requires effective thinking and communication. I have in mind terms such as these (grouped a little loosely):

all, any, every, most, some, none, a, an, the that, this, it, he, she, they if . . . , then. . . ; if and only if . . . , then . . . ; unless either . . . or . . .; neither . . . nor . . . not, is, are therefore, thus, hence, so, because, since, follows, entails, implies, infer, consequence, conditional upon moreover, furthermore which, that, whose and, but, however, despite, notwithstanding, nevertheless, even, though, still possibly, necessarily, can, must, may, might, ought, should true, false, probable, certain sound, unsound, valid, invalid, fallacious, supported, proved, contradicted, rebutted, refuted, negated logical, illogical, reasonable, unreasonable, rational, irrational assumption, premise, belief, claim, proposition argument, reason, reasoning, evidence, proof

Most of these are quite simple terms, but they are crucial in argumentative or discursive writing of all kinds. (Many are themselves the subject of study in logic, a branch of philosophy). The sloppy use of these sorts of terms is another common weakness in students' philosophy essays. Pay close and careful attention to how you employ them. Moreover, pay close and careful attention to how the authors you read use them. For further discussion of some of these terms and others, see:

• Basic Philosophical Vocabulary, prepared by the staff of the Philosophy Department and available from the programs Office
• Wesley C. Salmon, Logic, 2nd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1973)
• Antony Flew, Thinking About Thinking (London: Fontana, 1985)
• Graham Priest, Logic: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)
• Joel Rudinow and Vincent E. Barry, Invitation to Critical Thinking, 4th ed. (Fort Worth, Texas: Harcourt Brace, 1999)

Revising your essay

It is virtually essential that you write a first draft of your essay and then work on that draft to work towards your finished essay. Indeed, several drafts may well be necessary in order to produce your best possible work. It is a rare philosopher indeed who can get things perfectly right on the first attempt, so be prepared to revise and re-develop what you write. Don't be too precious about what you have written, if it appears that it should be sacrificed in the revision process. There is usually a very marked difference between essays which are basically first draft rush-jobs done the night before they are due and those which have been revised and polished. Give yourself time to revise by starting writing early on. For most philosophy students, the greater part of the work in essay writing is in the writing, not in the preliminary researches and planning stages. So be wary of thinking "I've done all the research. I only need to write up my notes, which I can do the night before the essay's due". This is likely to lead to a weak, perhaps non-existent, essay (and very likely a sleepless night).

Stick to the word limit given for your essay. Why are word limits imposed? First, to give the markers a fair basis for comparing student essays. Second, to give you the opportunity to practise the discipline of working creatively under constraints. Skill in this discipline will stand you in very good stead in any sphere where circumstances impose limitations. Again, word limits are not constraints on your intellectual freedom. Outside your essay you are free to write without limit. But even there you'll probably find that your creativity is improved by working under a self-imposed discipline.

As a general rule, most student essays that fall well short of the word limit are weak or lazy attempts at the task, and most essays that go well over the limit are not much stronger or the result of much harder work - the extra length is often due to unstructured waffle or padding which the writer hasn't thought enough about so as to edit judiciously. If you structure your essay clearly, you'll find it easier to revise and edit, whether in order to contract or expand it. ("Hmm, let's see: section 2 is much longer than section 4, but is not as important, so I'll cut it down. And I should expand section 3, because that's a crucial step. And I can shift that third paragraph in the Introduction to the Conclusion.")

Plagiarism and originality

Plagiarism is essentially a form of academic dishonesty or cheating. At university level, such dishonesty is not tolerated and is dealt with severely, usually by awarding zero marks for a plagiarised essay or, in some cases, dismissing a student from the university.

When you submit your essay, you are implicitly stating that the essay is your own original and independent work, that you have not submitted the same work for assessment in another subject, and that where you have made use of other people's work, this is properly acknowledged. If you know that this is not in fact the case, you are being dishonest. (In a number of university departments, students are in fact required to sign declarations of academic honesty.)

Plagiarism is the knowing but unacknowledged use of work by someone else (including work by another student, and indeed oneself - see below) and which is being presented as one's own work. It can take a number of forms, including:

• copying : exactly reproducing another's words
• paraphrasing : expressing the meaning of another's words in different words
• summarising : reproducing the main points of another's argument
• cobbling : copying, paraphrasing or summarising the work of a number of different people and piecing them together to produce one body of text
• submitting one's own work when it has already been submitted for assessment in another subject
• collusion : presenting an essay as your own independent work when in fact it has been produced, in whole or part, in collusion with one or more other people

None of the practices of copying, paraphrasing, summarizing or cobbling is wrong in itself, but when one or more is done without proper acknowledgment it constitutes plagiarism. Therefore, all sources must be adequately and accurately acknowledged in footnotes or endnotes. (See Section 7.) Plagiarism from the internet in particular can be a temptation for a certain kind of student. However, be warned: there is a number of very good internet and software tools for identifying plagiarism.

With regard to collusion, it's undoubtedly often very helpful to discuss one's work with others, be it other students, family members, friends or teachers. Indeed, philosophy thrives on dialogue. However, don't kid yourself that you would simply be extending that process if you were to ask your interlocutor to join with you in the writing of your essay, whether by asking them to tell you what you should write or to write down some of their thoughts for you to reproduce in your essay. At the end of the day, you must be the one to decide what goes into your essay.

Originality

Students sometimes worry about whether they will be able to develop "original ideas", especially in light of the fact that nearly every philosophical idea one comes up with seems to have been thought of before by someone else. There is no denying that truly original work in philosophy is well rewarded, but your first aim should be to develop ideas that you think are good and not merely different. If, after arguing for what you believe is right, and arguing in way that you think is good, you then discover that someone else has had the same idea, don't throw your work away - you should feel vindicated to some extent that your thinking has been congruent with that of another (possibly great) philosopher. (If you have not yet handed your essay in when you make this discovery, make an appropriately placed note to that effect.) Don't be fooled, however, into thinking that plagiarism can be easily passed off as congruent thinking. Of course, if that other philosopher's ideas have helped you to develop your ideas, then this is not a matter of congruent ideas but rather of derivative ideas, and this must be adequately acknowledged. If, after developing your ideas, you discover that they are original, then that is an added bonus. But remember that it is more important to be a good philosopher than an original one.

Quotations, footnotes, endnotes and bibliography

Quotations in your essay should be kept to a minimum. The markers know the central texts pretty well already and so don't need to have pages thereof repeated in front of them. Of course, some quotation will usually be important and useful - sometimes essential - in both exposition and critical discussion.

When you quote the words of someone else directly, you must make the quotation clearly distinct from your own text, using quotation marks . (eg "Descartes said that 'it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once.'* He makes this claim …" - where the words quoted from Descartes are in 'single quotation marks'. Note that it is relatively arbitrary whether one uses 'single' or "double" quotation marks for "first order" quotations, but whichever style you adopt, use it consistently in the one essay.) Alternatively, where the quoted passage is greater than three lines, put the quoted words in a separate indented paragraph , so that your essay would look like this:

In his First Meditation , Descartes argues as follows:

Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true I have acquired either from the senses or through the senses. But from time to time I have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once.* In this essay I shall argue that prudence does not in fact require us to distrust our senses and that Descartes's sceptical method is therefore seriously flawed.

In both cases, the quotations must be given proper referencingin a footnote or endnote.

When you are not quoting another person directly, but are still making use of their work - as in indirect quotations (eg "Descartes says that it is wise not to trust something that has deceived us before"*), paraphrases, summaries, and cobblings - you must still acknowledge your debts, using footnotes or endnotes.

* Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy , trans. John Cottingham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986 [first French ed., 1641]), p. 12.

Footnotes and endnotes

Footnotes appear at the foot of the same page on which the cited material appears, clearly separated from the main body of the text, each one clearly numbered. Endnotes appear at the end of the essay, again clearly separated from the main body of text, numbered and headed "Endnotes" or "Notes". Either method is acceptable, but you should choose one and stick with it throughout the one essay.

Below are some examples of how to put the relevant referencing information in footnotes and endnotes. This is not intended as an exercise in pedantry, but as a guide to how to provide the information needed for adequate referencing. The reason we provide this information is to enable our readers to find the sources we use in order to verify them and to allow them to pursue the material further if it interests them. In your own researches you will come to value good referencing in the texts you read as a helpful source of further references on a topic. Again, it is this sort of research skill that an Arts graduate will be expected to have mastered.

There are various conventions for writing up footnotes and endnotes. The Philosophy Department does not require that any particular convention be followed, only that you be consistent in your use of the convention that you do choose. For other conventions see the style guides mentioned above, or simply go to some texts published by reputable publishers and see what formats they employ.

Imagine, then, that the following are endnotes at the end of your essay. I will explain them below.

• James Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy , 2nd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993), p. 25.
• Philippa Foot, "Moral Relativism", in Michael Krausz and Jack W. Meiland, eds., Relativism: Cognitive and Moral (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982), p. 155.
• Ibid., p. 160.
• Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, trans. H. J. Paton (New York: Harper and Row, 1964 [first German ed., 1785]), p. 63.
• Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, (London: Dent, 1973 [first pub. 1651]),p. 65.
• Rachels, The Elements, p. 51.
• Peter Winch, "The Universalizability of Moral Judgements", The Monist 49 (1965), p. 212.
• Antony Duff, "Legal Punishment", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2001 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2001/entries/legal-punishment/ at 15 June 2003, sec. 6.

Notes explained

• This is your first reference to a book called The Elements of Moral Philosophy. The title is given in full and in italics. If you are unable to use italics, then you should underline the title. The book's author is James Rachels. It's the 2nd edition of that book, which was published in New York, by the publishers McGraw-Hill, in 1993. The page you have referred to in your main text is page 25
• This is your first reference to Philippa Foot's article, "Moral Relativism", the title of which is put in "quotation marks". This article appeared in a book (title in italics) which is an anthology of different articles, and which was edited by Krausz and Meiland (names in full). The rest is in the same style as note (1)
• "Ibid." is short for "ibidem", which means "in the same place" in Latin. Use it on its own when you want to refer to exactly the same work and page number as in the immediately preceding note. So here the reference is again to Foot's article at page 155
• Ditto, except this time you refer to a different page in Foot's article, namely page 160
• This is reference to a book by Kant. Same book details as per note (1), except that, because this is a translation, you include the translator's name, and the date of the first edition in the original language
• This is a book reference again, so it's the same as note (1), except that, because it's an old book, you include the date of the original edition. (How old does a book have to be before it merits this treatment? There is no settled view. Note, though, that this convention is not usually followed for ancient authors)
• Here you are referring to Rachels' book again, but, because you are not in the very next note after a reference to it, you can't use "ibid.". Simply give the author's surname and a short title of the book, plus page reference. There is also a common alternative to this, whereby you give the surname, and write "op. cit." (which is short for "opere citato", which is Latin for "in the work already cited") and page reference (eg "Rachels, op. cit., p. 51.") Your reader then has to scan back over the notes to see what that "op." was exactly. The first option (author plus short title) is usually easier on the reader
• This is a reference to an article by Peter Winch in a journal called The Monist. The article's title is in "quotes", the journal title is in italics. The volume of the journal is 49, the year of publication is 1965, the page referred to is p. 212
• This is a reference to an article in the internet-based Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The article is titled "Legal Punishment" and was written by Antony Duff. The Encyclopedia was edited by Edward N. Zalta. Note that I have basically followed the mode of citation that the Encyclopedia itself recommends. (This is one sign of the site being a reputable one. Where a site makes such a recommendation, it's best to follow it.) I have, however, also added the date on which the article was retrieved from the site, and put the author's given name first, to be consistent with the other footnotes. I have also added the reference to section 6, in an effort to be more precise as to where in the article the material I used came from. Since web pages aren't numbered in the manner of hard copy works, it will help if you are able to refer to some other feature, such as paragraphs or sections, so as to pin-point your reference. In the absence of a site recommending a mode of citation to its own material, the basic information needed for adequate citation of internet-based material is (where identifiable) the author, the document title, the year the document was created, the website name, the uniform resource locator (URL) in <arrow-brackets>, date of retrieval, and a pin-point reference*

* I am here following the mode of citation of internet materials recommended in Melbourne University Law Review Association Inc, Australian Guide to Legal Citation , 2nd ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Law Review Association Inc, 2002), pp. 70-73. I have, though, added the desirability of a pin-point reference.

Bibliography

At the end of your essay (after your endnotes, if used) you should list in a bibliography all of the works referred to in your notes, as well as any other works you consulted in researching and writing your essay. The list should be in alphabetical order, going by authors' surnames. The format should be the same as for your notes, except that you drop the page references and should put surnames first. So the bibliography of our mock-essay above would look like this:

• Duff, Antony, "Legal Punishment", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2001 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2001/entries/legal-punishment/ at 15 June 2003
• Foot, Philippa, "Moral Relativism", in Michael Krausz and Jack Meiland, eds., Relativism: Cognitive and Moral (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982)
• Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan (London: Dent, 1973 [first pub.1651])
• Kant, Immanuel, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals , trans. H.J. Paton (New York: Harper and Row, 1964 [first German ed. 1785])
• Rachels, James, The Elements of Moral Philosophy , 2nd ed., (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993)
• Winch, Peter, "The Universalizability of Moral Judgements", The Monist 49 (1965)

Presentation of essays and seeking advice

Generally, you should present an essay that is legible (hand-writing is OK, but typed or word-processed essays are preferable), in English, on one side of pieces of paper that are somewhere in the vicinity of A4 size and are fixed together . You should attach a completed Cover Sheet provided by the Philosophy program. Plastic document covers, spiral binding and other forms of presentational paraphernalia are not necessary (nor are they usually even desirable, as they mostly just get in the marker's way).

Late essays

Late essays are penalised . (For details of penalties consult the Philosophy program's notice board.)

Essays not handed in

Essays not handed in at all get zero marks. An essay that is handed in but gets a mark below 50 (and so is technically a "failed" essay) still gets some marks. (At least, it will so long as it's not so extremely late that the deducted marks wipe out all the marks it would have received if handed in on time.) All marks received for your essay (whether pass or fail) go toward your final score in the subject. Therefore, even if you think your essay is bound to fail (but please let your marker be the judge of that), or the due date has already passed, or both, it is still in your interests to hand your essay in .

Tutors and lecturers

Philosophy staff are not there just to be listened to by you; they are also there to listen to you. So don't hesitate to contact your tutor or lecturer to discuss questions or problems you have concerning your work.

If you have a legitimate excuse, you may be granted an extension on the due date for your essay by the lecturer in charge. Similarly, special consideration may also be granted when illness or other circumstances adversely affect your work. Applications for special consideration are made online via the Special Consideration web page.

Student counselling

Some personal or non-philosophical academic difficulties you might have you might want to discuss with someone other than your tutor or lecturer. Student Counselling and Psychological Services are there for you to discuss all sorts of problems you might encounter. Please consult your student diary for details on the counselling service.

English language assistance

As noted above, good philosophical writing requires a good grasp of the language in which it is written. If you are from a non-English speaking background and are having difficulties with your English expression in an academic context, you might like to make use of the services provided by Student Services Academic Skills . Many native English speakers, too, can benefit from short "refresher" courses and workshops run by the Centre. Please consult your student diary for details about this service.

A bit on Philosophy exams

Essays of the sort discussed so far in this guide are not the only form of assessment in the Philosophy program - examinations are also set. What is to be said about them?

First, not much that is different from what's been said above about philosophy essays. This is because what you write in a philosophy exam is none other than a philosophy essay . Have a look at past philosophy exam papers, in the Gibson and Baillieu libraries, to get a feel for them. The only basic difference between essays and exams is the matter of what constraints you're working under. Essays have word limits; exams have time limits . Again, stick to them. (Actually, you'll be made to stick to them by the exam invigilators.)

It's best, then, to think about how long to spend writing on an exam essay topic, rather than about how many words to write on it. Simple arithmetic will tell you how much time to spend on each exam question. (eg if you have a 2-hour exam and have to answer 3 questions, each worth one-third of the exam mark, then spend 40 minutes on each question.) Avoid the trap of "borrowing time" from a later question in order to perfect your answer to an earlier question, and then working faster on the later questions to catch up on lost time - this is likely to get you in a tangle. There are no word limits in philosophy exam essays, but don't think that the more you scrawl across the page, the more marks you'll get. Nonetheless, use the time you've got so as to maximise your display of your philosophical understanding and skills in answering the question.

Planning and structuring remain very important in exam essays. With regard to the niceties of footnotes, endnotes and bibliographies, etc., these are not necessary, so don't waste time on these. However, if you quote or refer to a specific passage from a text, do indicate clearly that it is a quotation or reference. (The principle of being clear as to who is saying what remains central.) If you have the reference handy, just put it briefly in the text of your exam essay. (eg "As Descartes says in Meditation I (p. 12), . . ." or "'[I]t is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once' (Descartes, Meditation I, p. 12)".) Generally speaking, you will show your familiarity with any relevant texts by how you handle them in your discussion. This is also true for your non-exam essays.

Your preparation for the exam should have been done well before entering the exam hall. Note that various subjects have restrictions on what texts and other items can be brought into the exam hall. (Consult the Philosophy program's notice board for details.) Many subjects will have "closed book" exams. Even if an exam is "open book", if you are properly prepared, you should not need to spend much time at all consulting texts or notes during the exam itself.

You won't have time for redrafting and revising your exam essay (which makes planning and structuring your answers before you start writing all the more important). If you do want to delete something, just cross it out clearly. Don't waste time with liquid paper or erasers. Write legibly . Don't wr. "point form" sav. time. Diff. kn. mean. use incomp. sent.

Finally, read the instructions at the beginning of the exam paper. They are important. (eg it's not a good strategy to answer two questions from Part A, when the Instructions tell you to answer two questions, one from Part A and one from Part B.) Note the (somewhat quaint) University practice of starting Reading Time some time before the stated time for the exam. Philosophy exams usually have 15 minutes of reading time. (Check for each of your exams.) So, if your exam timetable says the exam is at 2.15 pm, with reading time of 15 minutes, then the reading time starts at 2.00 pm and the writing time starts at 2.15pm - so get to the exam hall well before 2.00 pm. Reading time is very important. Use it to decide which questions you'll answer and to start planning your answers.

Checklist of questions

• Do I understand the essay question ? Do I know when the essay is due ?
• Do I know which texts to consult? Do I know where to find them?
• Have I made useful notes from my reading of the relevant texts?
• Have I made a plan of how I'll approach the question in my essay?
• Have I given myself enough time to draft and redraft my essay?
• Have I written a clearly structured essay? Is it clear what each stageis doing? Do I do what I say I'll do in my Introduction?
• Have I clearly distinguished exposition and critical discussion ? Have I given a fair and accurate account of the author(s) in question?
• Is my response to the topic relevant ? Do I answer the question? Have I kept my essay within the general bounds of the topic?
• Have I displayed a good grasp of the vocabulary of logical argument ? Are my arguments logically valid and sound? Are my claims supported by reasons ? Am I consistent within my essay?
• Is my English expression clear and precise ? Are my grammar, punctuation and spelling correct? Have I said what I meant to say? Is my writing legible?
• Have I fully acknowledged all my sources in footnotes or endnotes? Are my quotations accurate? Have I included a bibliography ?
• Do I need to revise any part of my essay again?
• Have I made a copy or photocopy of my essay for myself?
• Have I kept the receipt for my handed-in essay?

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How to Write a Philosophy Essay: Ultimate Guide

What Is a Philosophy Essay: Definition

Philosophical writing isn't your typical assignment. Its aim isn't to provide an overview of professional philosophers' works and say whether you agree with them.

Philosophy demands becoming a philosopher for the time of writing, thinking analytically and critically of ideas, pondering the Big Questions, and asking 'Why?'. That's why it requires time and energy, as well as a lot of thinking on your part.

But what is philosophy essay, exactly? If you're tasked with writing one, you'll have to select a thesis in the philosophical domain and argue for or against it. Then, you can support your thesis with other professional philosophers' works. But it has to contain your own philosophical contribution, too. (This is only one definition of philosophy essay, of course.)

What's a Good Philosophy Paper Outline?

Before you start writing your first line, you should make a philosophy essay outline. Think of it as a plan for your philosophy paper that briefly describes each paragraph's point.

As for how to write a philosophy essay outline, here are a few tips for you:

• Start with your thesis. What will you be arguing for or against?
• Read what philosophical theory has to say and note sources for your possible arguments and counterarguments.
• Decide on the definitions of core concepts to include precise philosophical meanings in your essay.
• After careful and extended reflection, organize your ideas following the structure below.

How To Structure a Philosophy Paper?

Like any other essay, a philosophy paper consists of an introduction, a main body, and a conclusion. Sticking to this traditional philosophy essay structure will help you avoid unnecessary stress.

Here's your mini-guide on how to structure a philosophy essay:

• Introduction - Clarify the question you will be answering in your philosophy paper. State your thesis – i.e., the answer you'll be arguing for. Explain general philosophical terms if needed.
• Main body - Start with providing arguments for your stance and refute all the objections for each of them. Then, describe other possible answers and their reasoning – and counter the main arguments in their support.
• Conclusion - Sum up all possible answers to the questions and reiterate why yours is the most viable one.

What's an Appropriate Philosophy Essay Length?

In our experience, 2,000 to 2,500 words are enough to cover the topic in-depth without compromising the quality of the writing.

However, see whether you have an assigned word limit before getting started. If it's shorter or longer than we recommend, stick to that word limit in writing your essay on philosophy.

What Format Should You Use for a Philosophy Paper?

As a service we can attest that most students use the APA guidelines as their philosophy essay format. However, your school has the final say in what format you should stick to.

Sometimes, you can be asked to use a different college philosophy essay format, like MLA or Chicago. But if you're the one to choose the guidelines and don't know which one would be a good philosophy argumentative essay format, let's break down the most popular ones.

APA, MLA, and Chicago share some characteristics:

• Font: Time New Roman, 12 pt
• Line spacing: double
• Margins: 1" (left and right)
• Page number: in the header

But here's how they differ:

• A title page required
• Sources list: 'References' page
• No title page required
• Sources list: 'Works cited' page
• Sources list: 'Bibliography' page
• Footnotes and endnotes are required for citations

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Guideline on How to Write a Philosophy Essay

If you still don't feel that confident about writing a philosophy paper, don't worry. Philosophical questions, by definition, have more than one interpretation. That's what makes them so challenging to write about.

To help you out in your philosophical writing journey, we've prepared this list of seven tips on how to write a philosophy essay.

• Read Your Sources Thoughtfully

Whether your recommended reading includes Dante's Divine Comedy or Jean-Paul Sartre's Existentialism Is a Humanism , approach your sources with curiosity and analytical thinking. Don't just mindlessly consume those texts. Instead, keep asking yourself questions while you're reading them, such as:

• What concepts and questions does the author address?
• What's the meaning behind key ideas and metaphors in the text?
• What does the author use as a convincing argument?
• Are there any strange or obscure distinctions?

As for which sources you should turn to, that all depends on your central question; philosophy topics for essay are diverse and sometimes opposed. So, you'll have to do your fair share of research.

• Brainstorm & Organize Your Ideas

As you're reading those texts, jot down what comes to your mind. It can be a great quote you've stumbled upon, an idea for an argument, or your thoughtful, critical responses to certain opinions.

Then, sort through and organize all of those notes into an outline for your essay in philosophy. Make sure that it holds up in terms of logic. And ensure that your arguments and counterarguments are compelling, sensible, and convincing!

Now, you might be wondering how to write a philosophy essay introduction. Don't worry: there's an explanation right below!

• Craft Your Introductory Paragraph

Think of your introduction as a road map preparing your reader for the journey your essay will take them on. This road map will describe the key 'stops' in your essay on philosophy: your topic, stance, and how you will argue for it – and refute other stances.

Don't hesitate to write it out as a step-by-step guide in the first or third person. For example: 'First, I will examine... Then, I will dispute... Finally, I will present….'

Need an example of an excellent introduction for a philosophy paper? You’ll be thrilled to know that we have one of our philosophy essay examples below!

• Present Your Key Arguments & Reflections

Philosophy papers require a fair share of expository writing. This is where you demonstrate your understanding of the topic. So, make your exposition extensive and in-depth, and don't omit anything crucial.

As for the rest of the main body, we've covered how to structure a philosophy essay above. In short, you'll need to present supporting arguments, anticipate objections, and address them.

Use your own words when writing a philosophy paper; avoid pretentious or verbose language. Yes, some technical philosophical terms may be necessary. But the point of a philosophical paper is to present your stance – and develop your own philosophy – on the topic.

• Don't Shy Away from Critical Ideas

Whenever you examine a philosophical theory or text, treat it with a fair share of criticism. This is what it means in practice – and how to structure a philosophy essay around your critical ideas:

• Pinpoint what the theory's or idea's strengths are and every valid argument in its support;
• See the scope of its application – perhaps, there are exceptions you can use as counterarguments;
• Research someone else's criticism of the theory or idea. Develop your own criticism, as well;
• Check if the philosopher already addressed those criticisms.
• Ponder Possible Answers to Philosophical Questions

Writing an essay in philosophy is, in fact, easier for some students as the topic can always have multiple answers, and you can choose any of them. However, this can represent an even tougher challenge for other students. After all, you must consider those possible answers and address them in the paper.

How do you pinpoint those possible answers? Some of them can come to your mind when you brainstorm, especially if you'll be writing about one of the Big Questions. Others will reveal themselves when you start reading other philosophers' works.

Remember to have arguments for and against each possible answer and address objections.

• Write a Powerful Conclusion

The conclusion is where you sum up your paper in just one paragraph. Reiterate your thesis and what arguments support it. But in philosophical writing, you can rarely have a clear, undebatable answer by the end of the paper. So, it's fine if your conclusion doesn't have a definitive verdict.

Here are a few tips on how to write a conclusion in a philosophy essay:

• Don't introduce new arguments or evidence in conclusion – they belong in the main body;
• Avoid overestimating or embellishing the level or value of your work;
• Best conclusions are obvious and logical for those reading the paper – i.e.; a conclusion shouldn't be surprising at all;
• Stay away from poorly explained claims in conclusion.

Philosophical Essay Example

Sometimes, it's better to see how it's done once than to read a thousand guides. We know that like no one else, so we have prepared this short philosophy essay example to show you what excellent philosophy papers look like:

Like this example? Wondering how to get a perfect philosophy essay as great as it is? You're in luck: you can leave " write my philosophy paper " request and buy online essay at EssayPro without breaking the bank! Keep in mind: this example is only a fraction of what our writers are capable of!

30 Philosophy Paper Topic Ideas

Philosophical writing concerns questions that don't have clear-cut yes or no answers. So, coming up with philosophy essay topics yourself can be tough.

Fret not: we've put together this list of 30 topics for philosophy papers on ethics and leadership for you. Feel free to use them as-is or tweak them!

15 Ethics Philosophy Essay Topics

Ethics deals with the question of right and wrong. So, if you're looking for philosophy essay topic ideas, ethics concerns some of the most interesting – and most mind-boggling – questions about human behavior.

Here are 15 compelling philosophy essay topics ethics has to offer you:

• Is starting a war always morally wrong?
• Would it be right to legalize euthanasia?
• What is more important: the right to privacy or national security?
• Is justice always fair?
• Should nuclear weapons be banned?
• Should teenagers be allowed to get plastic surgery?
• Can cheating be justifiable?
• Can AI algorithms behave ethically?
• Should you abide by an unfair law?
• Should voting become mandatory?
• When can the right to freedom of speech be limited?
• Is it the consumers' responsibility to fight climate by changing their buying decisions?
• Is getting an abortion immoral?
• Should we give animals their own rights?
• Would human gene editing be immoral?

15 Leadership Philosophy Essay Topics

You're lucky if you're tasked with writing a leadership philosophy essay! We've compiled this list of 15 fresh, unconventional topics for you:

• Is formal leadership necessary for ensuring the team's productivity?
• Can authoritative leadership be ethical?
• How do informal leaders take on this role?
• Should there be affirmative action for formal leadership roles?
• Is it possible to measure leadership?
• What's the most important trait of a leader?
• Is leadership an innate talent or an acquired skill?
• Should leadership mean holding power over others?
• Can a team function without a leader?
• Should you follow a leader no matter what?
• Is leader succession necessary? Why?
• Are leadership and power the same?
• Can we consider influencers contemporary leaders?
• Why do people follow leaders?
• What leadership style is the most ethical one?

7 Helpful Tips on Crafting a Philosophical Essay

Still, feeling stuck writing a philosophical essay? Here are seven more tips on crafting a good philosophy paper that can help you get unstuck:

• Write the way you would talk about the subject. This will help you avoid overly convoluted, poor writing by using more straightforward prose with familiar words.
• Don't focus on having a definitive answer by the end of your philosophical essay if your conclusion states that the question should be clarified further or that there are multiple answers.
• You don't have to answer every question you raise in the paper. Even professional philosophers sometimes don't have all the answers.
• Get straight to the point at the start of your paper. No need to warm up the reader – and inflate your word count.
• Avoid using quotes. Instead, explain the author's point in your own words. But if you feel it's better to use a direct quote, explicitly state how it ties to your argument after it.
• Write in the first person unless your assignment requires you to use the third person.
• Start working on your philosophical essay well in advance. However much time you think you'll need, double it!

7 Common Mistakes to Avoid in Philosophy Writing

Sometimes, knowing what you shouldn't do in a philosophical essay is also helpful. Here are seven common mistakes that often bring down students' grades – but are easily avoidable:

• Appealing to authority – in philosophy, strive to develop your own stance instead;
• Using convoluted sentences to appear more intelligent – instead, use simpler ways to deliver the same meaning;
• Including interesting or important material without tying it to your point – every piece of evidence and every idea should explicitly support your arguments or counterarguments;
• Inflating your word count without delivering value – in the writing process, it's crucial to 'kill your darlings';
• Making poorly explained claims – explicitly present reasons for or against every claim you include;
• Leaving core concepts undefined – explain what you mean by the words like 'free will' or 'existentialism' in the introduction;
• Worrying about being wrong – no one can be proven wrong in philosophy!

Realize that your draft contains those mistakes, and it's too late to fix them? Then, let us help you out! Whether you ask us, 'Fix my paper' or ' Write my paper from scratch,' our philosophy writers will deliver an excellent paper worth the top grade. And no, it won't cost you a fortune!

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Related Articles

The Writing Place

Resources – how to write a philosophy paper, introduction to the topic.

The most common introductory level philosophy papers involve making an original argument (“Do you believe that free will exists?”) or thinking critically about another philosopher’s argument (“Do you agree with Hobbes’ argument about free will?”). This short checklist will help you construct a paper for these two types of assignments.

The Basics of a Philosophy Paper

1. introduction and thesis.

There is not a need for a grand or lofty introduction in a philosophy paper. Introductory paragraphs should be short and concise. In the thesis, state what you will be arguing and how you will make your argument.

2. Define Terms

It is important to define words that you use in your argument that may be unclear to your reader. While it may seem like words like “morality” and “free will” have an obvious definition, you need to make clear to your audience what those words mean in the context of your paper. A generally useful rule is to pretend that your reader does not know anything about your course or the subject of philosophy and define any words or concepts that such a reader may find ambiguous.

In a philosophy paper, you need to give reasons to support the argument you made in your thesis. This should constitute the largest portion of your paper. It is also important here to name preexisting conditions (premises) that must exist in order for the argument to be true. You can use real-world examples and the ideas of other philosophers to generate reasons why your argument is true. Remember to use simple and clear language and treat your readers as if they are not experts in philosophy.

4. Objections and Responses to Objections

Unlike other types of persuasive essays, in a many philosophy papers you should anticipate criticisms of your argument and respond to those criticisms. If you can refute objections to your argument, your paper will be stronger. While you do not have to address every potential counterargument, you should try to cover the most salient problems.

5. Conclusion

Like the introduction, you should be simple and concise. In the final paragraph you should review and summarize what your paper has established. The conclusion should tell readers why your argument is relevant. It answers the question, “Why do I care?”

General Tips

• Do not overstate or over generalize your ideas.
• Do not try to argue for both sides of an issue. Be clear about where you stand or your reader will be confused.
• Be specific. Do not try to tackle a huge issue, but rather, aim to discuss something small that can be done justice in just a few pages.
• Be wary of using religious or legal grounds for your argument.

A Quick Practice Exercise...

Practice: what is wrong with this paragraph.

This paragraph contains 5 major errors that you should try to avoid in a philosophy paper. Can you find them all?

“In his argument from design, Paley uses the example of a watch that he finds upon a road that has dozens of pieces that work together to make the clock function.  He asserts that this watch is too perfect of a creation not to have a creator and that it would be obvious to conclude that the timepiece must have a maker. Similarly, the Bible proves that God must exist because he made the world beautiful in seven days.  Paley notes, “There cannot be design without a designer; contrivance, without a contriver; order, without choice; arrangement without anything capable of arranging” (Paley 49). This reasoning is strong because it is apparent that beings found in nature have a complex design.  For example, the iris, retina, lens and ocular muscles of the eye all work together to produce sight in the human eye and without any one of these mechanisms, one would be blind.  For all of these tiny pieces that are required for a functioning eye to have randomly come together seems impossible. Therefore, it is logical that there had to be a designer who created a world in which DNA replicates and dozens of small parts create a functioning human or animal.  By simply viewing the natural world, it is highly plausible to see that Paley’s theory is correct.”

1.  “Similarly, the Bible proves that God must exist because he had the power to make the flood happen in Noah’s Ark.”  Arguments based off religious texts, such as the Bible, are generally frowned upon and only weaken an essay.

2. The writer does not define what he means by “God.” Is God a benevolent overseer of the earth? Or is God a vengeful figure? Although it may seem as though everyone knows who God is, in reality, people have different perspective and the writer needs to define God’s character for the reader.

3.  “For all of these tiny pieces that are required for a functioning eye to have randomly come together seems impossible.”  The phrase “ seems impossible ” is weak and unclear. In a philosophy paper, you should take a strong stance and avoid words that weaken your argument like “probably” or “seem.” Additionally, the phrase “ highly plausible ” appears at the end of the paragraph, which is also a phrase that weakens the argument.

4. The writer gives not premises for Paley’s argument to be true. A stronger paper would name the preexisting conditions that must exist in order for the argument to stand.

5. The “real world” example of the human eye is not the best. The writer neglects strong counterarguments such as evolution and the existence of blindness in humans. A good philosophy paper would be more careful when considering real world examples.

Developed by Ann Bruton

Adapted from:

Harvard University’s Short Guide to Philosophical Writing

Kenneth Seeskin’s “How to Write a Philosophy Paper,” Northwestern University

Click here to return to the “Writing Place Resources” main page.

Introduction to Philosophy

Gaura Rader

• Sample Essays

Here is a good example a what an “A” paper should look like. The paper’s strengths are its focus, clarity, and organization. This paper could have been a bit more ambitious as it doesn’t do much more than explain the difference between act and rule utilitarianism and Smart’s argument against rule utilitarianism. But what it does it does really well and this is sufficient at this level for an A, as these are the basic skills that you are supposed to be developing at this level.  What it does do, beyond merely summarizing Smart, is offer a supporting example and considering a possible objection, which together make the paper an A paper. If it didn’t do those things it would only be a high B paper. One very nice thing about this paper is how well everything is referenced.

A Defense of Smart’s Critique of Rule Utilitarianism

I intend to argue that J.J.C. Smart’s criticism of rule utilitarianism is correct because, as he argues, there are clearly some cases where it is optimific to break a generally optimific rule. I will show this by first explaining rule utilitarianism. Then, I will explain J.J.C. Smart’s critique of rule utilitarianism, including the hypothetical example of “the dying promise,” and provide explanations as to why his criticisms are correct. Finally, I will provide another hypothetical example, one that Smart did not use, in support of Smart’s argument.

I will begin by explaining rule utilitarianism and how it differs from act utilitarianism. Act utilitarianism is the process by which one judges the morality of a given action based on the net positive utility gained by that particular action’s consequences. This is a troubling ethical theory due in part to the daunting nature of attempting to ascertain all the consequences of any given action, something which can not realistically be done. Because of this, the act utilitarian must make estimations to the best of his/her ability, never truly knowing how far off he/she is from having acted on the most optimific choice. As an answer to this problem, a related theory called rule utilitarianism was put forth. Rule utilitarianism is the process by which one judges the morality of a given action based on whether or not it follows a generally optimific rule. In “The Fundamentals Of Ethics,” Russ Shafer-Landau describes rule consequentialism as “the view that an action is morally right just because it is required by an optimific social rule. An optimific social rule is a rule that meets the following condition: if (nearly) everyone in a society where to accept it, then the results would be optimific.” (Shafer-Landau, Page 149). In rule utilitarianism, moral agents are obligated to follow these generally optimific rules.

I will now explain J.J.C. Smart’s objection to rule utilitariansim. Smart believes that generally optimific rules are useful “rules of thumb” for act utilitarians, as they will often allow us to act in optimific ways when there is not time available to carefully weigh out the consequences of a particular action (Smart,94). Smart believes that rule utilitarianism simply takes these common sense guidelines too far, and that doing so can have disastrous results (Shafer-Landau, The Ethical Life , 96). Smart provides an example of a hypothetic rule entitled “R” (Smart, 96). 99% of the time, following R will produce optimific results, while 1% of the time it will not; Rule utilitarianism states that all moral agents are required to follow R, even if they know with complete certainty that doing so will not produce optimific results (Smart, 96). Smart said of such a scenario that it would be “monstrous to suppose that if we have worked out the consequences and if we have perfect faith in the impartiality of our calculations, and if we know that in this instance to break R will have better results than to keep it, we should nevertheless obey the rule” (Smart, 96). As Smart suggested, it is completely irrational to believe in an ethical theory meant to promote overall net happiness, and then to choose to follow through on an action that you know will decrease said happiness, simply for the sake of following a rule that will usually promote happiness. It is a clear sign of a flawed ethical theory when following its guidelines of morality actually contradicts its intended results.

Smart provides another hypothetical example commonly referred to as “the dying promise.” I will now present Smart’s dying promise example from my perspective. Imagine that I am on a desert island, and the only other person on this island is my dying friend, to whom I promise that, should he die, I will donate his entire fortune (which I control) to a jockey club if I am rescued (Smart, 98). When I am rescued, though, I decide that more good can be done by giving his fortune to a hospital instead of to a jockey club (Smart, 98). The idea of giving this money to a hospital, though it will most likely produce the greatest amount of net happiness over unhappiness, will most likely conflict with one or more generally optimific rules. For example, there could be a generally optimific rule that it is never morally permissible to tell a lie; or that it is never morally permissible to deny a dying man his last request, so long as no one will be harmed in following through with it; or that it is never morally permissible to spend the wealth of others in a way that contrasts with their wishes. All of these potentially generally optimific rules would prevent a rule utilitarian from donating the money to the hospital. They would be morally obligated to donate it to the jockey club, despite the fact that this would certainly be the less optimific of the two options. Once again, rule utilitarianism is proven to be flawed, as its generally optimific rules prevent moral agents from acting to produce the intended consequences of the theory itself, maximum utility.

Another example that supports Smart’s argument against rule utilitarianism, but that he did not use himself, is the hypothetical situation known as “the inquiring murderer.” This hypothetical is often used to discredit Kantian ethics and other ethical systems that employ absolute moral laws. I will present this example from my perspective. Imagine that a murderer knocks on my door and asks if I know the location of a man that he is bent on murdering; further imagine that I do know the location of the intended victim and that I must decide whether to lie in order to save the life of an innocent man or tell the truth and aid in an innocent man being murdered (Shafer-Landau, 166). One could easily imagine that a rule which stated that it is never morally permissible to tell a lie would be generally optimific; or an even more extreme rule which stated that it is never morally permissible to withhold the truth, which would also be optimific in a majority of cases. In the case of the inquiring murderer, however, such rules would oblige the rule utilitarian to divulge the location of the murderer’s intended victim, aiding in his demise.

I will now point out a reasonable argument against my use of the inquiring murderer and will go on to prove the validity of the example. There is certainly an argument against this example in that a generally optimific rule which stated the following could exist: It is never morally permissible to aid in the murder of an innocent man. If such a rule did exist, it would lead to a conflict of two rules, in which case the rule utilitarian would be expected to judge his action based solely on its consequences. While it is true that this specific example can be accounted for within the guidelines of rule utilitarianism, we can not assume that a rule will be in place to conflict with every rule that ends up requiring a moral agent to act in a way which produces less than optimific results. It is likely that a majority of moral rules, if thought through to conclusion, would end up having exceptions that would require a conflicting rule to be made. Additionally, every instance that presents a conflict of two moral rules and requires the rule utilitarian to essentially be an act utilitarian further discredits rule utilitarianism. These instances discredit rule utilitarianism because its entire purpose is to not have to judge each action on its own consequences, and so each instance in which a rule utilitarian must act as an act utilitarian discredits rule utilitarianism.

I have argued that J.J.C. Smart’s criticisms of rule utilitarianism are correct. There are certainly many cases where, as Smart argues, it is optimific to not follow a generally optimific rule. This simple truth makes rule utilitarianism self-defeating as its guidelines do not consistently produce, and will sometimes even specifically hinder, its intended results.

Works Cited

Shafer-Landau, Russ. The Fundamentals of Ethics . 2nd ed. New York, NY: Oxford University      Press, 2012. Print

Smart, J.J.C., “Extreme and Restricted Utilitarianism” The Ethical Life . 2nd ed. Ed. Russ Shaffer-Landau. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012.

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• Some General Tips for writing a Philosophy Paper
• More good advice on writing a philosophy paper
• Even More Good Advice About Writing a Philosophy Paper
• The Elements of Style by Strunk and White
• Logic for Intro to Philosophy: Deductive Reasoning, Validity, and Soundness
• Essay Grading Rubric
• How to Cite in a Philosophy Paper (MLA)
• Unit 1: Introduction
• Unit 2: The Science of Morality
• Unit 3: Philosophy and Morality
• Unit 4: Social Contract Theory
• Unit 5 : Kantian Ethics
• Unit 6 : Utilitarianism
• Unit 7: Marxism
• Unit 8: Egalitarianism
• Unit 9: Libertarianism
• Unit 10: Abortion and Animal Rights
• Unit 11: Criminal Justice
• Unit 12: Racism and the #BlackLivesMatter Movement
• Unit 13: Feminism and the #MeToo Movement
• Unit 14: Sex and Marriage
• Unit 15: Climate Change
• Unit 16: Is Utopia Possible?
• Lesson 1 Introduction
• Lesson 2: Utilitarianism
• Lecture 3 Notes (Contractarianism/Hobbesian Social Contract Theory)
• Lecture 4 Notes (Contractualism/Kantian Ethics)
• Lecture 5 Notes: Judith Jarvis Thomson and Don Marquis
• Lecture 6 Notes (Warren and Singer)
• Lecture 7 (Tooley and English)
• Lecture 8 (Norcross and Regan)
• Lecture 9 (Machan and Cohen)
• Lecture 10 (Rawls and Nozick)
• Lecture 11 (Singer)
• Lecture 12 (Occupy the Future)
• Final Exam Review
• Course Readings
• Euthyphro: Summary
• Euthyphro: Dialogue
• Euthyphro: Notes
• Apology: Summary
• Apology: Dialogue
• Apology: Notes
• Crito: Summary
• Crito: Dialogue
• Crito: Notes
• Phaedo: Summary
• Phaedo: Dialogue
• Phaedo: Notes
• Gorgias: Summary
• Gorgias: Dialogue
• Gorgias: Notes
• Plato’s Allegory of the Cave
• Allegory of the Cave Notes
• SEP – The Cosmological Argument
• The No Infinite Regress Argument
• The Contingency Argument
• Russell and Copleston Debate
• The Inductive Argument
• Overview of Design Arguments
• SEP: Design Arguments
• Hume Reading Intro and Notes
• Paley Reading Intro and Notes
• Behe Reading Intro and Notes
• Kitcher Reading Intro and Notes
• SEP: The Ontological Argument
• Ontological Argument Notes
• IEP: The Problem of Evil
• Dostoyevsky’s Rebellion Chapter from The Brothers Karamazov
• Rebellion Notes
• Mackie and Swinburne Reading Notes and Intro
• SEP: Pascal’s Wager
• Pascal’s Wager Notes
• SEP: Mind-Body Dualism
• Parallelism and Occasionalism
• SEP: Mind-Body Dualism Notes
• Foster and Churchland Notes
• Physicalism: Mind Brain Identity Theory (Type Identity Theory)
• Smart and Place Notes
• Multiple Realizability and Functionalism
• Token Identity Theory and Token Physicalism
• Searle Notes
• Jackson Notes
• Chalmers Notes
• Descartes’ Meditations 1 & 2
• Descartes’ Meditations Notes
• Skepticism Notes
• Notes on Moore’s Proof of the Existence of the an External World
• Naive Realism and Representational Realism
• Transcendental Idealism
• Logical Positivism
• The Euthyphro Dilema Notes
• Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan
• SEP: Hobbes’s Political and Moral Philosophy
• Leviathan Notes
• Gauthier Notes
• Objections: The Fool Argument
• Lesson 1 Lecture Notes
• Immanuel Kant – What is Enlightenment?
• Lesson 2 Lecture Notes
• Lesson 3 Lecture Notes
• Lesson 4 Lecture Notes (Kantian Ethics part I)
• Lesson 5 Lecture Notes (Kantian Ethics part II)
• Allen Wood – Kantian Ethics (excerpts)
• Lesson 6 Lecture Notes (Social Contract Theory par I)
• Lesson 7 Lecture Notes (Social Contract Theory part II)
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau – The Social Contract
• Lesson 8 Lecture Notes (Applied Ethics part 1)
• Lesson 9 Lecture Notes (Applied Ethics part II)
• Peter Singer – Unsanctifying Human Life
• Mary Anne Warren – On the Legal and Moral Status of Abortion
• Lesson 10 Lecture Notes (Applied Ethics part III)
• Lesson 11 Lecture Notes (Metaethics)
• Reagan – The Case for Animal Rights
• Lesson 12 Lecture Notes (Political Philosophy)
• John Rawls – A Theory of Justice (excerpts)
• Robert Nozick – Anarchy, State, Utopia
• Cumulative Final Review
• Cumulative Final

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Writing A Philosophy Paper

Copyright © 1993 by Peter Horban Simon Fraser University

THINGS TO AVOID IN YOUR PHILOSOPHY ESSAY

• Lengthy introductions. These are entirely unnecessary and of no interest to the informed reader. There is no need to point out that your topic is an important one, and one that has interested philosophers for hundreds of years. Introductions should be as brief as possible. In fact, I recommend that you think of your paper as not having an introduction at all. Go directly to your topic.
• Lengthy quotations. Inexperienced writers rely too heavily on quotations and paraphrases. Direct quotation is best restricted to those cases where it is essential to establish another writer's exact selection of words. Even paraphrasing should be kept to a minimum. After all, it is your paper. It is your thoughts that your instructor is concerned with. Keep that in mind, especially when your essay topic requires you to critically assess someone else's views.
• Fence sitting. Do not present a number of positions in your paper and then end by saying that you are not qualified to settle the matter. In particular, do not close by saying that philosophers have been divided over this issue for as long as humans have been keeping record and you cannot be expected to resolve the dispute in a few short pages. Your instructor knows that. But you can be expected to take a clear stand based on an evaluation of the argument(s) presented. Go out on a limb. If you have argued well, it will support you.
• Cuteness. Good philosophical writing usually has an air of simple dignity about it. Your topic is no joke. No writers whose views you have been asked to read are idiots. (If you think they are, then you have not understood them.) Name calling is inappropriate and could never substitute for careful argumentation anyway.
• Begging the question. You are guilty of begging the question (or circular reasoning) on a particular issue if you somehow presuppose the truth of whatever it is that you are trying to show in the course of arguing for it. Here is a quick example. If Smith argues that abortion is morally wrong on the grounds that it amounts to murder, Smith begs the question. Smith presupposes a particular stand on the moral status of abortion - the stand represented by the conclusion of the argument. To see that this is so, notice that the person who denies the conclusion - that abortion is morally wrong - will not accept Smith's premise that it amounts to murder, since murder is, by definition, morally wrong.
• When arguing against other positions, it is important to realize that you cannot show that your opponents are mistaken just by claiming that their overall conclusions are false. Nor will it do simply to claim that at least one of their premises is false. You must demonstrate these sorts of things, and in a fashion that does not presuppose that your position is correct.

SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING YOUR PHILOSOPHY PAPER

• Organize carefully. Before you start to write make an outline of how you want to argue. There should be a logical progression of ideas - one that will be easy for the reader to follow. If your paper is well organized, the reader will be led along in what seems a natural way. If you jump about in your essay, the reader will balk. It will take a real effort to follow you, and he or she may feel it not worthwhile. It is a good idea to let your outline simmer for a few days before you write your first draft. Does it still seem to flow smoothly when you come back to it? If not, the best prose in the world will not be enough to make it work.
• Use the right words. Once you have determined your outline, you must select the exact words that will convey your meaning to the reader. A dictionary is almost essential here. Do not settle for a word that (you think) comes close to capturing the sense you have in mind. Notice that "infer" does not mean "imply"; "disinterested" does not mean "uninterested"; and "reference" does not mean either "illusion" or "allusion." Make certain that you can use "its" and "it's" correctly. Notice that certain words such as "therefore," "hence," "since," and "follows from" are strong logical connectives. When you use such expressions you are asserting that certain tight logical relations hold between the claims in question. You had better be right. Finally, check the spelling of any word you are not sure of. There is no excuse for "existance" appearing in any philosophy essay.
• Support your claims. Assume that your reader is constantly asking such questions as "Why should I accept that?" If you presuppose that he or she is at least mildly skeptical of most of your claims, you are more likely to succeed in writing a paper that argues for a position. Most first attempts at writing philosophy essays fall down on this point. Substantiate your claims whenever there is reason to think that your critics would not grant them.
• Give credit. When quoting or paraphrasing, always give some citation. Indicate your indebtedness, whether it is for specific words, general ideas, or a particular line of argument. To use another writer's words, ideas, or arguments as if they were your own is to plagiarize. Plagiarism is against the rules of academic institutions and is dishonest. It can jeopardize or even terminate your academic career. Why run that risk when your paper is improved (it appears stronger not weaker) if you give credit where credit is due? That is because appropriately citing the works of others indicates an awareness of some of the relevant literature on the subject.
• Anticipate objections. If your position is worth arguing for, there are going to be reasons which have led some people to reject it. Such reasons will amount to criticisms of your stand. A good way to demonstrate the strength of your position is to consider one or two of the best of these objections and show how they can be overcome. This amounts to rejecting the grounds for rejecting your case, and is analogous to stealing your enemies' ammunition before they have a chance to fire it at you. The trick here is to anticipate the kinds of objections that your critics would actually raise against you if you did not disarm them first. The other challenge is to come to grips with the criticisms you have cited. You must argue that these criticisms miss the mark as far as your case is concerned, or that they are in some sense ill-conceived despite their plausibility. It takes considerable practice and exposure to philosophical writing to develop this engaging style of argumentation, but it is worth it.
• Edit boldly. I have never met a person whose first draft of a paper could not be improved significantly by rewriting. The secret to good writing is rewriting - often. Of course it will not do just to reproduce the same thing again. Better drafts are almost always shorter drafts - not because ideas have been left out, but because words have been cut out as ideas have been clarified. Every word that is not needed only clutters. Clear sentences do not just happen. They are the result of tough-minded editing.

There is much more that could be said about clear writing. I have not stopped to talk about grammatical and stylistic points. For help in these matters (and we all need reference works in these areas) I recommend a few of the many helpful books available in the campus bookstore. My favorite little book on good writing is The Elements of Style , by William Strunk and E.B. White. Another good book, more general in scope, is William Zinsser's, On Writing Well . Both of these books have gone through several editions. More advanced students might do well to read Philosophical Writing: An Introduction , by A.P. Martinich. Some final words should be added about proofreading. Do it. Again. After that, have someone else read your paper. Is this person able to understand you completely? Can he or she read your entire paper through without getting stuck on a single sentence? If not, go back and smooth it out. In general terms, do not be content simply to get your paper out of your hands. Take pride in it. Clear writing reflects clear thinking; and that, after all, is what you are really trying to show.

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Preparation

Referencing & help.

• Good essay writing begins with good course preparation. You should remember that just attending courses is not enough. You will engage with the lectures and seminars only if you do the required primary and secondary reading. By the time you come to write your first essay you should already know enough to approach the subject confidently.
• Make sure you have properly understood the question. If you do not, ask. Review your lecture notes and the course outline in order to put the question into context and to relate it to other aspects of the subject. If you can break down the question into parts, do so. Decide which are the most important and weight each part accordingly.
• Read the suggested texts with your question or questions in mind. If you find the reading hard to understand, try reading a whole article or chapter to get the gist and then re-read slowly, making notes.
• Think for yourself. Don't borrow thought or ideas without giving yourself time to digest them. Discuss them with your fellow students. It can be very helpful to discuss the articles and books you read with others. Also, when you take notes, don't simply excerpt long passages, write them in your own words.
• Always start from a plan, however rudimentary; but you will inevitably find your argument developing a dynamic of its own, so do not be afraid to revise your plan as you go along. As Socrates says in Plato's Republic: 'Where the argument takes us, like a wind, hither we must go.'
• Write a draft, leave it for a while, then come back and revise it. On the first draft concentrate on getting the content and structure right and do not dwell on the style. Do not be held up by the precise formulation of a sentence, jot down a phrase and move on.
• Write the final draft. Check the spelling, grammar and make sure all the bibliographical details are correct. leave a wide margin on the right hand side of your page for the marker's comments. Be kind on your marker: use a font that is easy to read and a line spacing of at least 1.5 or 2. Make a photocopy of your essay as a precaution, since they sometimes can go astray.
• Your essay should contain a clear exposition of the theory you are studying, a detailed discussion and critical assessment of that theory. The criticisms you look at may be your own, or those of other philosophers.
• Make sure you indicate when you are expounding the view of someone else and when you are writing in your own voice. Don't just write a long list of objections to a particular argument. Indicate whether you endorse or reject them and give your reasons.
• Use examples to illustrate your point. Preferably, choose your own examples. Always make the point of your example clear to the reader.
• Don't worry too much about the 'originality' of the content of your essay. Nobody expects you to come up with a new philosophical theory in your first four pages of writing. Your essay will be original enough if you think for yourself, use your own words, give your own examples and always provide reasons for accepting or rejecting a particular view.
• Avoid rambling introductions and conclusions. Some books begin with a portentous opening sentence e.g., 'Philosophy, from the earliest times, has made greater claims, and achieved fewer results, than any other branch of learning.' (B. Russell) You can get away with such a sentence as the opening line of a 400 page book, but not as the opening line of a 4 page essay. State briefly what you think the question involves, if this is not obvious, and get stuck in to your answer. With conclusions, sum up your argument if you want to and leave it at that.
• Think small or be methodical. There is a gap between your brain's ability to grasp something and your ability to express in writing what you have already understood. It is as if your intuition can leap up whole flights of stairs at once, whereas your written explanations climb one step at a time. This means that you can easily get ahead of yourself, producing the illusion that your ideas are far more lofty than they really are. Only by patiently stepping through the details of an argument can you avoid such illusions. So be patient! If you are not sure whether you have made your point, try putting it another way; 'The upshot of this argument is...', 'the point of this example is...'. Do not simply repeat yourself, try instead to look at your subject from different angles. Sometimes it will feel as if your point is trivial and not worth making. But a trivial point can be a solid step in an interesting argument. The ability to tease out the subtleties of a small point will serve you better than a grand philosophy of life, the universe and everything.
• One way to structure your essay is to outline an argument, consider an objection, then reply to the objection and then move on to the next point. Avoid the two extremes of length and unbroken paragraphs on the one hand, and staccato sound bytes on the other. Divide your essay into clearly defined paragraphs and devote a whole paragraph to each point. Make the connections between them explicit, by telling the reader what they are. Write things like, 'There are two major objections to this line of thought...' or 'what this example shows is...' Think of these connections as signposts telling the reader where she is, where she has been or reminding her where she is heading.
• 'Style is the feather in the arrow, not the feather in the cap.' Do not worry about repeating important words or phrases. In philosophy it is more important to be consistent in your terminology than to find new and imaginative ways of saying the same thing. Clear prose has its own elegance, wordiness can sometimes cloud the issue.
• Empathise with your reader. Once you understand something, you forget what it was like not to understand it; but doing just this will help you to get your point across. To write clearly you have to put yourself in the place of your reader. Imagine the reader is someone who knows nothing about the subject. What would you have to do firstly to convince them and secondly to maintain their interest. Generally speaking a concrete example will get you much further than a passage of purple prose or a string of high-falutin' epithets. One useful way to attain clarity and simplicity of style is to write in short sentences. It is easier to waffle in long rambling sentences.
• Use 'signposts' to let the reader know what you are trying to do. You can say things like , 'one objection is...', 'A possible reply to this is...', 'What this example shows...', 'This importance of this point is that...', 'What X is assuming is that...'. Be explicit about what you are arguing and why.
• Stylistically it is vital to use your own words. Quite apart from the dangers of plagiarism, if you borrow chunks of text from another author and then insert them into your essay, you will end up with a patchwork of different styles that reads awkwardly. By all means paraphrase someone else's view, although make it clear that you are paraphrasing. This will help you to understand the position you are adumbrating; and there is a lot of skill involved in a lucid and concise exposition of somebody else's argument.
• Occasionally you will want to cite somebody else's words directly. Be sparing in your use of quotation. There is much less skill to quotation than to paraphrase or précis. When you select a passage for quotation, make sure it is both brief and relevant. There is nothing worse than reading a string of long quotations interspersed with brief and gnomic comments.
• Use a dictionary (or spell check) and a grammar. Good spelling and good grammar are not wholly unrelated to the content of your essay. The thread of an essay is easier to follow if the reader does not have to guess the word which you actually meant to write. Good grammar makes not only for elegant but for precise prose. So do not be ashamed to use a dictionary. I prefer the Chambers to the Collins single volume dictionary, but both are good. (Webster's and M.S. Word dictionaries are American.) Michael Dummet, the philosopher, has written an excellent little English grammar for his students, published by Duckworth.

Use of sources

• All verbatim quotations, whether long or short should be enclosed in inverted commas or indented, and the precise source given. Make sure that you give enough information for the reader to find the passage, i.e. author, work, edition page number or section.
• Passages of close paraphrase should be acknowledged, and the purpose of these paraphrases made clear e.g. as a summary of a view to be discussed disputed or agreed with.
• When a point has been derived directly from an author, even though it mode of expression may be original, this should be acknowledged in a footnote or parenthesis.
• Extensive use of an essay written by another student should be acknowledged. This applies to essays borrowed from the 'Essay Bank' and to essays which are borrowed on a personal basis. Just as the rule that you should acknowledge your dependence on published sources is not supposed to discourage you from reading widely, the rule that you should acknowledge your dependence where it exists, on other students' essays, is not supposed to discourage you from reading each others' essays. In the end however the only thing of value to you and of interest to us is work in which you express and develop your own thoughts.
• At the end of any essay to be submitted for formal assessment (not tutorial essays) write a list in alphabetical order of all the works consulted or read during the preparation and writing of the essay, as well as those from which you quote directly (see Referencing).

Referencing

The Philosophy Department accepts the Harvard or MLA styles of referencing.  Please refer to the specific information below on each permitted style.

Additional help

You may find the extra help below useful when writing Philosohy essays.

This guide to writing Philosophy essays was written by Gordon Finlayson

Department of Philosophy University of York , York , YO10 5DD , UK Tel: work +44 (0)1904 323251 | Fax: fax +44 (0)1904 324023 | [email protected]

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Writing a Philosophy Essay

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Is there a God? Are there objective, universal moral norms or rules? What is meant by ‘reality’? Do we have free will? In studying philosophy, students aim to do the following:

• understand such philosophical questions and the concepts, arguments, and theories that philosophers use to address them
• think critically about such arguments and theories
• develop their own answers to philosophical questions

Writing philosophy essays is a key part of studying philosophy. Make sure first to understand the assignment, looking out for the questions asked and paying attention to prompts such as “outline” or “evaluate” or “compare”. Most philosophy assignments will ask you to demonstrate your understanding of the subject through exposition of arguments and theories, and many will also test your ability to assess these arguments and theories by writing a critical evaluation of them. Write your paper so that the reader understands how your exposition and evaluation answer the questions and address all parts of the assignment.

Read the Texts Carefully, Asking Questions

Before you write a paper, though, you need to understand the course texts and recommended readings. Philosophical works need to be read slowly and with focused attention. As you read, ask yourself the following:

• What philosophical question(s) is the author addressing?
• What exactly is meant by key ideas or concepts in the text (e.g., Plato’s “Forms”, Aristotle’s “substance” and “accident”, Kant’s “categorical imperative,” Sartre’s “being-for-itself”)? Each discipline has its own technical language, which students must learn.
• What arguments does the author make (e.g., Aquinas’s five arguments for the existence of God)?
• What theories does the author propose (e.g., a dualist mind-body theory or—one of its competitors—a physicalist theory of mind)?

Organize Your Ideas into a Logical Structure

Take notes as you read. Then put your ideas for the essay into a logical order. Because philosophy papers proceed by logical argument, creating a point-form outline that captures the structure of your argument is generally a good strategy. An outline will allow you to spot problems in your argument more easily.

Augment Your Thesis with a Road Map that Reveals the Structure of Your Argument

Most assignments will require you to present a clear thesis statement that sums up the position for which you are arguing. In the introduction you should also provide a ‘road map’—a few sentences that announce in sequence what you intend to accomplish in each of the key stages of your paper. Road maps often rely on first person (“First, I will analyze . . . “), but if your professor prefers that you don’t use the first person, you can instead describe what your essay will accomplish (“First, the essay will analyze . . . “).

Show Your Understanding through Clear and Accurate Exposition

Try to make your expository writing as clear and accurate as possible, and try to show the logical connections between the different parts of a philosophical system. Avoid vague or overly brief exposition, serious omissions, or misunderstandings.

In some first year courses, an early assignment may ask you to write a short paper expounding but not evaluating a concept or theory. For example: “Explain what Plato means by Forms.” Subsequent assignments in the course usually involve evaluation as well as exposition (e.g., “Outline and evaluate Plato’s theory of Forms”). In some courses, assignments may call for detailed interpretation of a text rather than an assessment of it. “Was Hume an idealist?”, “Was Wittgenstein a behaviourist?” and “Was Marx a nihilist about morality?” are examples. Such questions are posed when there is disagreement among scholars about how to interpret a philosopher. In such essays, you will need to examine texts very closely, find passages which support a yes or no answer, choose where you stand in the debate, and defend your answer.

Critically Evaluate a Philosophical Theory

When studying a philosophical theory, you will need to think about both its strengths and weaknesses. For example, is a particular theory of art (such as the view that art is the expression of emotion) comprehensive: does it apply to all the arts and all types of art, or only to some? Is it logically consistent or does it contain contradictions? Are there counterexamples to it?

As you think about your topic, read the course materials, and take notes, you should work out and assemble the following:

• the strengths of a philosopher’s theory
• the arguments the philosopher gives in support of the theory and those the philosopher did not provide but which might still support it
• possible criticisms of those arguments
• how the philosopher has replied or could reply to these criticisms

Finally, ask yourself how you would evaluate those replies: do they work or not? Be selective, especially in a shorter paper. In a 1,000-word essay, for instance, discuss one or two arguments in favour and one or two against. In a 2,000- or 2,500-word paper, you can include more arguments and possible replies. Finally, plan carefully: leave enough space for your assessment.

A different type of critical evaluation assignment may ask for a comparative appraisal of two or more theories. For example, “Which account of human decision-making is stronger: X’s free will theory or Y’s determinist theory?” In such essays, your thesis could be that one account is better than the other or, perhaps, that neither account is clearly superior. You might argue that each has different strengths and weaknesses.

Develop Your Own Answers to Philosophical Questions

In the type of critical assessments above, you are already, to some extent, articulating your own philosophical positions. As you read texts in a course on, say, philosophy of mind or philosophy of art, you should be asking, based on what you have read so far, which theory is the best? Don’t be content to just understand theories and know their strengths and weaknesses. Push yourself to think out your own account of mind or art.

Some upper-year essay assignments may throw a fundamental philosophical question at you: “What is art?”, “Do we have free will?”, “What is morality?”, or “What is reality?”. Here, you will present your own answer, giving reasons, answering objections, and critically evaluating alternative approaches. Your answer/thesis might be an existing theory or a synthesis of two or more theories, or (more rarely) a completely new theory. Now you are not only expounding theories or critically evaluating them; you are also developing your own philosophy!

How to Write a Philosophy Paper: Bridging Minds

Table of contents

• 1 What is a Philosophy Paper?
• 2.1 Philosophy Research Paper Introduction
• 2.2 Body Sections
• 2.3 Writing a Philosophy Paper Conclusion
• 3 Template for a Philosophy Essay Structure
• 4 How to Format a Philosophy Research Paper
• 5.1 Choose a Topic
• 5.2 Read the Material and Take Notes
• 5.3 Think about Your Thesis
• 5.4 Make an Outline
• 5.5 Make a First Draft
• 5.6 Work on the Sections
• 5.7 Engage with Counterarguments
• 5.8 Don’t Niglet Citations
• 5.9 Check Formatting Guidelines.
• 5.10 Revise and Proofread
• 6 How to Select the Best Philosophy Essay Topic?
• 7.1 Argumentative Philosophy Essay Topics
• 7.2 Plato Essay Topics
• 7.3 Worldview Essay Topics
• 7.4 Transcendentalism Essay Topics
• 7.5 Practical Philosophy Essay Topics
• 7.6 Enlightenment Essay Topics
• 8 Let Your Philosophy Paper Shine

As a college student who has decided to take a philosophy course, you may be new to this science. A philosophy assignment may seem hard, and this subject is indeed pretty difficult. You read some text, but what you read is just one level of the text, as you need to think critically and analyze what the author is trying to get across. It also involves a lot of analytical and deep thinking. Thus, it is difficult to do an assignment unless you fully understand the text. Don’t freak out if you have little experience with this subject, as we have prepared a comprehensive guide on how to write a philosophy paper, from which you will know:

• The essence of philosophy paper, its structure and format
• Why it is important not to omit the outline stage
• Practical tips on writing a philosophy research paper.

What is a Philosophy Paper?

A philosophy research paper is an academic work that presents a comprehensive exploration of a specific philosophical question , topic, or thinker. It typically involves the analysis of arguments, the articulation of one’s own positions or perspectives, and the evaluation of philosophical texts and ideas. The primary objective of such a paper is to contribute to the understanding of philosophical issues by critically examining existing views, offering new interpretations, or developing novel arguments. The paper is characterized by rigorous logical reasoning, clear articulation of ideas, and grounding in relevant philosophical literature.

Drafting a philosophy essay begins with appreciating precisely what a philosophy research paper entails. It involves taking a definite position on a philosophical topic and defending that viewpoint with a logical, irrefutable claim. A good research essay generally uses rational arguments to lead readers down a path to a conclusive, hard-to-contradict resolution.

Philosophy Paper Outline Structure

Writing a quality philosophy paper means beginning with a first-rate outline. The best philosophy paper outline is straightforward in its intent, takes up a position, and is uncomplicated in its language. A proper outline makes drafting easier and less time-consuming. Moreover, philosophical writing with a clear-cut outline will lend assurance that your end result is condensed yet enlightening.

After determining a format, you are ready to begin writing out your philosophy paper outline. The first step in this process is to determine how to choose a topic for a paper. Great papers are those that the writer is most interested in. Once your topic has been chosen, your outline can be written with specific details and facts. Said specifics will take your introduction, body, and conclusion through an easy-to-follow guide.

Philosophy Research Paper Introduction

Your research essay should begin with a striking and  attention-grabbing hook . It should identify your topic of focus in some way and ensure that readers have the desire to continue on. The hook is intended to smoothly transition to your thesis statement, which is the claim your thesis is venturing to prove. Your thesis statement should lead readers to  the question of research – the distinct question that will be wholly explained in the body of writing. Finally, your  introduction for the research paper will close with your stance on the question.

Body Sections

The body aspect of a philosophy thesis is considered the meat of any paper. It is hard unless you find someone to  write my philosophy paper for me . This element is where most of the logic behind your stance is contained. Typically, bodies are made up of 3 sections, each explaining the explicit reasoning behind your position. For instance, the first chunk of the body will directly and logically answer the question posed.

In your second body section, use statements that argue why your position is correct. These statements should be informed, prudent, and concise in their reasoning, yet still presented without overly fancy lingo. The explanation of your argument should not be easily opposed. It should also be succinct and without fluff, insulating the explanatory material.

The third portion of the body section should defend your thesis against those that may have counterarguments. This will be the backbone of the essay – the portion that is too hard to refute. By ensuring that criticisms are properly and utterly denounced and the thesis is ratified, philosophical writing will begin to reach its end – the conclusion.

Writing a Philosophy Paper Conclusion

The conclusion is ultimately meant to tie the entire work together in a nice, coherent fashion. It should start with a brief rehash of the body section of your essay. Then, it will move into explaining the importance of the thesis and argument as a whole.  Quality conclusions are ones that will offer a sense of closure.

Template for a Philosophy Essay Structure

A suggested template to help guide you when writing out a philosophy outline is as follows:

The use of the above outline template is sure to help with the overall drafting procedure of philosophical writing. Understanding the proper use of the outline is ideal for the best end product.

Putting an outline to use makes the process of writing a philosophy paper much more simple. By using an outline to navigate your thoughts as you write, your essay nearly composes itself. The addition of detail to an outline as it is written provides pronounced facts and a full outline. Take the outline chock full of thoughts and ideas, add words and transitions, and you have a complete paper.

How to Format a Philosophy Research Paper

Formatting a philosophy paper starts with choosing a citation style . The choice between APA, MLA, and Chicago styles simply lay out citations in contrasting manners for your philosophical writing. Each of these styles requires a differing method of citing sources and varying types of organization. Most commonly, philosophy research paper citations are done in MLA or Chicago. While both are accepted, it may be best to choose which your supervisor requires.

Luckily, you can  APA research papers for sale and forget about this stress.

10 Steps to Write a Great Philosophy Paper Like a Pro

Learning how to write a philosophy research paper outline is a skill that can be carried over to numerous other subjects. While philosophical writing is a bit different than most other topics of discussion, the outline can be applied to others fairly easily. Proper utilization of outlines makes for a well-thought-out and structured thesis work that a writer can be proud of.

Choose a Topic

One of the primary steps is choosing a topic, and that is the first thing college students get stuck on. If you can not choose a topic you are interested in, talk to your university professor. You can also take a look at different lists of ideas on the Internet.

Read the Material and Take Notes

Read all materials carefully and take notes of important ideas. It is a good idea to read the material a couple of times as there will always be something you don’t notice at first. It is important to have a clear understanding of what you read to nail your assignment. If you feel like you don’t understand anything, then Google ‘ write my philosophy paper for me ’ and get help from real professionals.

Think about Your Thesis

Before you start writing, realize what you are going to show. Your work should have a strong thesis that states your position. The central component of the work is a clear thesis statement followed by supporting claims.

Make an Outline

An outline should include your ideas for the introduction, your thesis, main points, and conclusion. Having a philosophy paper outline before working on the assignment can help you stay focused and ensure you include all major points.

Make a First Draft

Don’t worry about perfection at this stage. Instead, focus on getting your ideas on paper. Following your outline, start building your arguments. Make sure to provide evidence or reasons for your claims.

Work on the Sections

Introduction: An introduction for a research paper is an essential part of any assignment because it gives your readers an overview of your work. It is your opportunity to grab their attention, so take this step seriously. Remember the thesis statement? You should present it here.

Main body: In this part, you need to present arguments and support your thesis. Start with providing a clear explanation of the philosopher’s ideas and move to the evaluation. Support your thesis by using examples.

Conclusion: A conclusion for any research paper is where you restate your central thesis. It should look like a mirror image of the introduction. Here you need to summarize the major points of your work.

Engage with Counterarguments

A good philosophy paper acknowledges opposing views. Make sure to address these counterarguments and provide reasons for why you believe your stance is more compelling.

Don’t Niglet Citations

Citations serve as a bridge. They link your ideas to the broader world of philosophical discourse, allowing readers to trace back your sources and delve deeper if they wish. Always remember, that citations are more than a mere formality. They correspond to specific ideas, arguments, or facts you present in your paper. This means every claim, idea, or quote you borrow from a philosopher needs to be clearly linked to its source. In this way, you will be sure that your work will be free of plagiarism .

Check Formatting Guidelines.

It’s also crucial to maintain consistency in your citation style. Whether you use APA, MLA, or Chicago, stick to one style throughout your paper.

Revise and Proofread

Once you finish your masterpiece, it is time to  edit and proofread the research paper . We recommend you put your work aside for a few days to have a fresh perspective when start editing it.

How to Select the Best Philosophy Essay Topic?

First of all, we recommend deciding on a direction that interests you more. It can be a theoretical aspect, applicative use of philosophy or even the integration of this science with others – for example, ontology or metaphysics. After all, it is essential to reflect your thoughts correctly in writing for any direction. You will need to use writing tools for students to show your judgments accurately in the essay. Sometimes this can be a difficult task when the authors of the papers get into a so-called flow state.

Secondly, choosing a good topic that can be compared with the opinions of already-known thinkers is necessary for a deeper justification of your point of view. To do this, use the appropriate essay quotation format to make your paper easy to read. After all, while we are not recognized philosophers, proving our claims will be helpful to get the highest score.

If you still need to get philosophy essay ideas, continue reading this article. Here you will find 70 interesting topics that you can use as a topic for your essay or get inspired to create your own.

Easy Philosophy Paper Topics

Often we want to avoid reinventing the wheel. We are interested in writing an exciting but easy essay. So, if you were looking for simple philosophical essay topics, here is the list of the top 10 topics in philosophy for your paper:

• Human Responsibilities in Different World Religions: Why are They Distinct?
• Good and Evil: Do They Have Anything in Common? Will They Be Able to Insulate One without the Other?
• Advantages and Disadvantages of a Hedonistic Approach to Life
• Life after Death: Should We Endure the Circumstances of the X-axis for a Better Future on the Y-axis?
• Why Ancient People Asked Themselves the Same Questions as We Do: Isn’t Humanity Progressing?
• Do We Fulfill Our Moral Obligation to Parents by Helping Children?
• Three Features: Each from an Animal and an Angel. What is the Nature of Man?
• Is Genetic Engineering Ethical with Respect to the Laws of Nature?
• How Society Can Influence the Personal Choice of the Sense of Life for Each of Us
• Self-Determination of a Person & the Formation of our Microuniverse

Argumentative Philosophy Essay Topics

If you think more analytically, use it to your advantage. The argumentative type of philosophy essay is an unusual and exciting option for such papers since it requires strong thesis statement points. If you want to write exactly this sort of essay, these essay topics ideas will come in handy to decide on the topic of your work:

• Peaceful Protests/Desperate Battle: a Critical Analysis of the Philosophy of Resistance
• The Borderland Situation and Absurdity: Analytical Review.
• Explanation of the Path of any Subject to the Point of No Return. A Critical Analysis of “The Myth of Sisyphus” 1942.
• The Paradox of Absurdity and How to Find a Way Out of It: Follow the Rules or Set Yours
• Comparative Analysis of Forms of Globalization from the Point of View of Philosophy
• E. Leroy, P. Teilhard de Shader and Volodymyr Vernandskyi: Together About the Noosphere, Separately About its Functioning.
• Analysis of the Origins of the First Thinkers from the Point of View of Metaphysics.
• The Legal Aspect of Organ Cloning and Entire Human Cloning. Does it Make a Difference?
• Are People Obliged to Always Tell the Truth and Nothing But the Truth?
• Is Experience Acquired through Lived Years or Situations? Explanation of Each of the Parties.

Plato Essay Topics

Plato and Aristotle were the founders of philosophy in their classical sense. That is why writing an essay that will outline or refute Plato’s reasoning is a surefire option to impress your teacher and stand out from the rest of the group. If you still don’t know what to write about, below are the topics in the philosophy type of paper:

• Understanding a Being as a Multiplicity of Organic Elements According to Plato’s Postulates.
• Reflection of the Philosophy of Truth As an Idea: Plato’s Teaching
• Plato’s way of Familiarizing themself with the Truth through Memories
• Is It Possible to Trace the Influence of Socrates on Plato’s Philosophy: a Detailed Analysis
• Truth Exists, but It does not Exist until Being Developed – the Main Contradiction of Plato’s System of Philosophy Understanding
• “Phaedo”: Philosophy is the Science of Death.
• Plato’s Dialectic: Philosophy is the Cornice that Crowns All Our Knowledge
• Platonic Vision of Four Types of Dialectics as Four Modes of the Soul Activity
• A Move Against Democracy from the Platonic Postulates of Understanding the State and Society According to Personal Philosophy
• Plato and the “Ladder of Love” in the “Banquet”: Beautiful Bodies, Souls, Tempers and Sciences.

Worldview Essay Topics

Worldview and philosophy are similar concepts; they are rooted in the history of the human race. That is why this type of essay is interesting for both writing and reading. Choose your worldview essay topic from the options below to create your perfect piece of writing:

• Three-Aspect Structure of Worldview: Elements, Levels, Main Subsystems
• Mythological and Religious Types of Worldview: What do They Have in Common?
• Worldview as an Individual Prism of Multilevel Interaction Between Man and the World
• The Influence of Previous Generations on Modern Prejudices of our Outlook
• Ideological Form of Globalization. How does Social Media Affect It?
• The Noosphere as a Part of Countering Global Warming
• Modern Beauty Standards and the Bodily Phenomenon of Existence: What is the Connection between Them?
• Human Rights. Philosophy and Ethics
• Religious Beliefs as a Form of Philosophy Existence
• A Complex and Fragmented Approach to Studying the Worldview of Different Nations

Transcendentalism Essay Topics

Transcendentalism, as a new stage in the formation of philosophy, played a key role in its modern appearance. If you are more inclined towards more modernist lines of philosophy, these topics will suit you perfectly:

• Classical German Philosophy. Rational and Intelligent Thinking
• Subjectively Realistic Description of the Environment According to Categories of Philosophy
• The Influence of Transcendentalism on the Ongoing Development of Philosophy Accordingly to the Categories of Multiplicity and Necessity
• 10 Categories Denoting Deep Connections in being Relative to Transcendentalism: What Unites and Distinguishes Them
• Scientific Contemplation as a Mental Category through the Prism of the 20s Years of the 20th Century
• Life at the Intersection of the Past and the Future: Influence on Currents of American Transcendentalism Philosophy
• Modes of Perception of Time & Time as Duration: New ideas of Transcendentalists or Paraphrasing of Hegel’s Postulates?
• Ontological Doctrines and their Essential Characteristics: Henry David Thoreau
• Concepts of Understanding Space and their Qualitative Changes Relative to New Views on Philosophy
• Nature for Self-Sufficiency as the Main Myth of Philosophy Currents at the Beginning of the 20th Century

Practical Philosophy Essay Topics

The theory is great. However, any science’s practical and applied meaning is interesting for each of us. If you are interested in delving into the use of philosophy in modern society, these topics will not leave you indifferent:

• Everyday/Life Level of Philosophy
• Philosophy of Principles. What does It Mean to be Guided by a Certain Life Principle?
• Approach of Philosophy to the Life of Tibetan Monks – does It Correlate with Reality?
• Prejudice against Residents of Third World Countries: Reasons for Contempt for Their Mentality and Lifestyle
• Unpreparedness of College Teachers for Changes in the Education System: What are They Afraid of?
• Truth as the Last Instance of Communication with People. Is It Always Necessary?
• The Philosophy of Excessive Consumption in the USA. What Basis does it Have?
• Does the Concept of One’s Opinion Exist in the Era of Oversaturation of Information?
• The use of Ancient Greek Postulates in Philosophy Today – is the Appeal to Classical Canons Still Relevant?
• The Concept of Ethical and Moral Principles in the Era of Excessive Permissiveness.

Enlightenment Essay Topics

Enlightenment played a huge role in all sciences and spheres of human life. It’s a mind-blowing theme to write about. So, if you were looking for some ideas for your Enlightenment essay topic, we’ve prepared the best ones for you:

• Does the Urge to Study and Develop the Beautiful in Man Still Influence Modern Philosophy?
• Empiricism and Rationalism: Julien Aufre de Lametre’s Attempt to Unite Them
• The Concept of Atheistic Speech of Enlightenment: Religious Dogmatics Debunktion by Voltaire
• Voltaire: Ignorance, Fanaticism, Delusion and Lies Are Cultivated by Christianity
• The State as a Level of Inequality between the Rich and the Poor, According to Rousseau’s Views.
• The Immense Book of Nature as an Object of Knowledge According to Denis Diderot
• The Structure of Existence through Its Concepts: Elements, Substratum, Substance, Objective Reality beyond Human Consciousness and the Condition of Multiplicity.
• Concepts of Understanding Space and Time in Enlightenment Philosophy
• “Molecular Motion” by Paul Holbach: What is It?
• Social Life Based on the Principles of Reason and Justice – “About Reason” Andrian Helvetius

Let Your Philosophy Paper Shine

Good philosophy research paper writing requires some craft and care. Edit your work until it feels right, and make sure you are confident about your claims. If this science is just not your thing, or you struggle to understand it and doing assignments is sheer torture for you, then order a philosophical work crafted by real professionals! The best way to do your assignment is to leave it to experts and forget about your problems.

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1.1 What Is Philosophy?

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Identify sages (early philosophers) across historical traditions.
• Explain the connection between ancient philosophy and the origin of the sciences.
• Describe philosophy as a discipline that makes coherent sense of a whole.
• Summarize the broad and diverse origins of philosophy.

It is difficult to define philosophy. In fact, to do so is itself a philosophical activity, since philosophers are attempting to gain the broadest and most fundamental conception of the world as it exists. The world includes nature, consciousness, morality, beauty, and social organizations. So the content available for philosophy is both broad and deep. Because of its very nature, philosophy considers a range of subjects, and philosophers cannot automatically rule anything out. Whereas other disciplines allow for basic assumptions, philosophers cannot be bound by such assumptions. This open-endedness makes philosophy a somewhat awkward and confusing subject for students. There are no easy answers to the questions of what philosophy studies or how one does philosophy. Nevertheless, in this chapter, we can make some progress on these questions by (1) looking at past examples of philosophers, (2) considering one compelling definition of philosophy, and (3) looking at the way academic philosophers today actually practice philosophy.

Historical Origins of Philosophy

One way to begin to understand philosophy is to look at its history. The historical origins of philosophical thinking and exploration vary around the globe. The word philosophy derives from ancient Greek, in which the philosopher is a lover or pursuer ( philia ) of wisdom ( sophia ). But the earliest Greek philosophers were not known as philosophers; they were simply known as sages . The sage tradition provides an early glimpse of philosophical thought in action. Sages are sometimes associated with mathematical and scientific discoveries and at other times with their political impact. What unites these figures is that they demonstrate a willingness to be skeptical of traditions, a curiosity about the natural world and our place in it, and a commitment to applying reason to understand nature, human nature, and society better. The overview of the sage tradition that follows will give you a taste of philosophy’s broad ambitions as well as its focus on complex relations between different areas of human knowledge. There are some examples of women who made contributions to philosophy and the sage tradition in Greece, India, and China, but these were patriarchal societies that did not provide many opportunities for women to participate in philosophical and political discussions.

The Sages of India, China, Africa, and Greece

In classical Indian philosophy and religion, sages play a central role in both religious mythology and in the practice of passing down teaching and instruction through generations. The Seven Sages, or Saptarishi (seven rishis in the Sanskrit language), play an important role in sanatana dharma , the eternal duties that have come to be identified with Hinduism but that predate the establishment of the religion. The Seven Sages are partially considered wise men and are said to be the authors of the ancient Indian texts known as the Vedas . But they are partly mythic figures as well, who are said to have descended from the gods and whose reincarnation marks the passing of each age of Manu (age of man or epoch of humanity). The rishis tended to live monastic lives, and together they are thought of as the spiritual and practical forerunners of Indian gurus or teachers, even up to today. They derive their wisdom, in part, from spiritual forces, but also from tapas , or the meditative, ascetic, and spiritual practices they perform to gain control over their bodies and minds. The stories of the rishis are part of the teachings that constitute spiritual and philosophical practice in contemporary Hinduism.

Figure 1.2 depicts a scene from the Matsya Purana, where Manu, the first man whose succession marks the prehistorical ages of Earth, sits with the Seven Sages in a boat to protect them from a mythic flood that is said to have submerged the world. The king of serpents guides the boat, which is said to have also contained seeds, plants, and animals saved by Manu from the flood.

Despite the fact that classical Indian culture is patriarchal, women figures play an important role in the earliest writings of the Vedic tradition (the classical Indian religious and philosophical tradition). These women figures are partly connected to the Indian conception of the fundamental forces of nature—energy, ability, strength, effort, and power—as feminine. This aspect of God was thought to be present at the creation of the world. The Rig Veda, the oldest Vedic writings, contains hymns that tell the story of Ghosha, a daughter of Rishi Kakshivan, who had a debilitating skin condition (probably leprosy) but devoted herself to spiritual practices to learn how to heal herself and eventually marry. Another woman, Maitreyi, is said to have married the Rishi Yajnavalkya (himself a god who was cast into mortality by a rival) for the purpose of continuing her spiritual training. She was a devoted ascetic and is said to have composed 10 of the hymns in the Rig Veda. Additionally, there is a famous dialogue between Maitreyi and Yajnavalkya in the Upanishads (another early, foundational collection of texts in the Vedic tradition) about attachment to material possessions, which cannot give a person happiness, and the achievement of ultimate bliss through knowledge of the Absolute (God).

Another woman sage named Gargi also participates in a celebrated dialogue with Yajnavalkya on natural philosophy and the fundamental elements and forces of the universe. Gargi is characterized as one of the most knowledgeable sages on the topic, though she ultimately concedes that Yajnavalkya has greater knowledge. In these brief episodes, these ancient Indian texts record instances of key women who attained a level of enlightenment and learning similar to their male counterparts. Unfortunately, this early equality between the sexes did not last. Over time Indian culture became more patriarchal, confining women to a dependent and subservient role. Perhaps the most dramatic and cruel example of the effects of Indian patriarchy was the ritual practice of sati , in which a widow would sometimes immolate herself, partly in recognition of the “fact” that following the death of her husband, her current life on Earth served no further purpose (Rout 2016). Neither a widow’s in-laws nor society recognized her value.

In similar fashion to the Indian tradition, the sage ( sheng ) tradition is important for Chinese philosophy . Confucius , one of the greatest Chinese writers, often refers to ancient sages, emphasizing their importance for their discovery of technical skills essential to human civilization, for their role as rulers and wise leaders, and for their wisdom. This emphasis is in alignment with the Confucian appeal to a well-ordered state under the guidance of a “ philosopher-king .” This point of view can be seen in early sage figures identified by one of the greatest classical authors in the Chinese tradition, as the “Nest Builder” and “Fire Maker” or, in another case, the “Flood Controller.” These names identify wise individuals with early technological discoveries. The Book of Changes , a classical Chinese text, identifies the Five (mythic) Emperors as sages, including Yao and Shun, who are said to have built canoes and oars, attached carts to oxen, built double gates for defense, and fashioned bows and arrows (Cheng 1983). Emperor Shun is also said to have ruled during the time of a great flood, when all of China was submerged. Yü is credited with having saved civilization by building canals and dams.

These figures are praised not only for their political wisdom and long rule, but also for their filial piety and devotion to work. For instance, Mencius, a Confucian philosopher, relates a story of Shun’s care for his blind father and wicked stepmother, while Yü is praised for his selfless devotion to work. In these ways, the Chinese philosophical traditions, such as Confucianism and Mohism, associate key values of their philosophical enterprises with the great sages of their history. Whether the sages were, in fact, actual people or, as many scholars have concluded, mythical forebearers, they possessed the essential human virtue of listening and responding to divine voices. This attribute can be inferred from the Chinese script for sheng , which bears the symbol of an ear as a prominent feature. So the sage is one who listens to insight from the heavens and then is capable of sharing that wisdom or acting upon it to the benefit of his society (Cheng 1983). This idea is similar to one found in the Indian tradition, where the most important texts, the Vedas, are known as shruti , or works that were heard through divine revelation and only later written down.

Although Confucianism is a venerable world philosophy, it is also highly patriarchal and resulted in the widespread subordination of women. The position of women in China began to change only after the Communist Revolution (1945–1952). While some accounts of Confucianism characterize men and women as emblematic of two opposing forces in the natural world, the Yin and Yang, this view of the sexes developed over time and was not consistently applied. Chinese women did see a measure of independence and freedom with the influence of Buddhism and Daoism, each of which had a more liberal view of the role of women (Adler 2006).

A detailed and important study of the sage tradition in Africa is provided by Henry Odera Oruka (1990), who makes the case that prominent folk sages in African tribal history developed complex philosophical ideas. Oruka interviewed tribal Africans identified by their communities as sages, and he recorded their sayings and ideas, confining himself to those sayings that demonstrated “a rational method of inquiry into the real nature of things” (Oruka 1990, 150). He recognized a tension in what made these sages philosophically interesting: they articulated the received wisdom of their tradition and culture while at the same time maintaining a critical distance from that culture, seeking a rational justification for the beliefs held by the culture.

Connections

The chapter on the early history of philosophy covers this topic in greater detail.

Among the ancient Greeks, it is common to identify seven sages. The best-known account is provided by Diogenes Laërtius, whose text Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is a canonical resource on early Greek philosophy. The first and most important sage is Thales of Miletus . Thales traveled to Egypt to study with the Egyptian priests, where he became one of the first Greeks to learn astronomy. He is known for bringing back to Greece knowledge of the calendar, dividing the year into 365 days, tracking the progress of the sun from solstice to solstice, and—somewhat dramatically—predicting a solar eclipse in 585 BCE. The eclipse occurred on the day of a battle between the Medes and Lydians. It is possible that Thales used knowledge of Babylonian astronomical records to guess the year and location of the eclipse. This mathematical and astronomical feat is one of Thales’s several claims to sagacity. In addition, he is said to have calculated the height of the pyramids using the basic geometry of similar triangles and measuring shadows at a certain time of day. He is also reported to have predicted a particularly good year for olives: he bought up all the olive presses and then made a fortune selling those presses to farmers wanting to turn their olives into oil. Together, these scientific and technical achievements suggest that at least part of Thales’s wisdom can be attributed to a very practical, scientific, and mathematical knowledge of the natural world. If that were all Thales was known for, he might be called the first scientist or engineer. But he also made more basic claims about the nature and composition of the universe; for instance, he claimed that all matter was fundamentally made of up water. He also argued that everything that moved on its own possessed a soul and that the soul itself was immortal. These claims demonstrate a concern about the fundamental nature of reality.

Another of the seven sages was Solon , a famed political leader. He introduced the “Law of Release” to Athens, which cancelled all personal debts and freed indentured servants, or “debt-slaves” who had been consigned to service based on a personal debt they were unable to repay. In addition, he established a constitutional government in Athens with a representative body, a procedure for taxation, and a series of economic reforms. He was widely admired as a political leader but voluntarily stepped down so that he would not become a tyrant. He was finally forced to flee Athens when he was unable to persuade the members of the Assembly (the ruling body) to resist the rising tyranny of one of his relatives, Pisistratus. When he arrived in exile, he was reportedly asked whom he considered to be happy, to which he replied, “One ought to count no man happy until he is dead.” Aristotle interpreted this statement to mean that happiness was not a momentary experience, but a quality reflective of someone’s entire life.

Beginnings of Natural Philosophy

The sage tradition is a largely prehistoric tradition that provides a narrative about how intellect, wisdom, piety, and virtue led to the innovations central to flourishing of ancient civilizations. Particularly in Greece, the sage tradition blends into a period of natural philosophy, where ancient scientists or philosophers try to explain nature using rational methods. Several of the early Greek schools of philosophy were centered on their respective views of nature. Followers of Thales, known as the Milesians , were particularly interested in the underlying causes of natural change. Why does water turn to ice? What happens when winter passes into spring? Why does it seem like the stars and planets orbit Earth in predictable patterns? From Aristotle we know that Thales thought there was a difference between material elements that participate in change and elements that contain their own source of motion. This early use of the term element did not have the same meaning as the scientific meaning of the word today in a field like chemistry. But Thales thought material elements bear some fundamental connection to water in that they have the capacity to move and alter their state. By contrast, other elements had their own internal source of motion, of which he cites the magnet and amber (which exhibits forces of static electricity when rubbed against other materials). He said that these elements have “soul.” This notion of soul, as a principle of internal motion, was influential across ancient and medieval natural philosophy. In fact, the English language words animal and animation are derived from the Latin word for soul ( anima ).

Similarly, early thinkers like Xenophanes began to formulate explanations for natural phenomena. For instance, he explained rainbows, the sun, the moon, and St. Elmo’s fire (luminous, electrical discharges) as apparitions of the clouds. This form of explanation, describing some apparent phenomenon as the result of an underlying mechanism, is paradigmatic of scientific explanation even today. Parmenides, the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy, used logic to conclude that whatever fundamentally exists must be unchanging because if it ever did change, then at least some aspect of it would cease to exist. But that would imply that what exists could not exist—which seems to defy logic. Parmenides is not saying that there is no change, but that the changes we observe are a kind of illusion. Indeed, this point of view was highly influential, not only for Plato and Aristotle, but also for the early atomists, like Democritus , who held that all perceived qualities are merely human conventions. Underlying all these appearances, Democritus reasoned, are only atomic, unchanging bits of matter flowing through a void. While this ancient Greek view of atoms is quite different from the modern model of atoms, the very idea that every observable phenomenon has a basis in underlying pieces of matter in various configurations clearly connects modern science to the earliest Greek philosophers.

Along these lines, the Pythagoreans provide a very interesting example of a community of philosophers engaged in understanding the natural world and how best to live in it. You may be familiar with Pythagoras from his Pythagorean theorem, a key principle in geometry establishing a relationship between the sides of a right-angled triangle. Specifically, the square formed by the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the two squares formed by the remaining two sides. In the figure below, the area of the square formed by c is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares formed by a and b. The figure represents how Pythagoras would have conceptualized the theorem.

The Pythagoreans were excellent mathematicians, but they were more interested in how mathematics explained the natural world. In particular, Pythagoras recognized relationships between line segments and shapes, such as the Pythagorean theorem describes, but also between numbers and sounds, by virtue of harmonics and the intervals between notes. Similar regularities can be found in astronomy. As a result, Pythagoras reasoned that all of nature is generated according to mathematical regularities. This view led the Pythagoreans to believe that there was a unified, rational structure to the universe, that the planets and stars exhibit harmonic properties and may even produce music, that musical tones and harmonies could have healing powers, that the soul is immortal and continuously reincarnated, and that animals possess souls that ought to be respected and valued. As a result, the Pythagorean community was defined by serious scholarship as well as strict rules about diet, clothing, and behavior.

Additionally, in the early Pythagorean communities, it was possible for women to participate and contribute to philosophical thought and discovery. Pythagoras himself was said to have been inspired to study philosophy by the Delphic priestess Themistoclea. His wife Theano is credited with contributing to important discoveries in the realms of numbers and optics. She is said to have written a treatise, On Piety , which further applies Pythagorean philosophy to various aspects of practical life (Waithe 1987). Myia, the daughter of this illustrious couple, was also an active and productive part of the community. At least one of her letters has survived in which she discusses the application of Pythagorean philosophy to motherhood. The Pythagorean school is an example of how early philosophical and scientific thinking combines with religious, cultural, and ethical beliefs and practices to embrace many different aspects of life.

How It All Hangs Together

Closer to the present day, in 1962, Wilfrid Sellars , a highly influential 20th-century American philosopher, wrote a chapter called “Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man” in Frontiers of Science and Philosophy . He opens the essay with a dramatic and concise description of philosophy: “The aim of philosophy, abstractly formulated, is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term.” If we spend some time trying to understand what Sellars means by this definition, we will be in a better position to understand the academic discipline of philosophy. First, Sellars emphasizes that philosophy’s goal is to understand a very wide range of topics—in fact, the widest possible range. That is to say, philosophers are committed to understanding everything insofar as it can be understood. This is important because it means that, on principle, philosophers cannot rule out any topic of study. However, for a philosopher not every topic of study deserves equal attention. Some things, like conspiracy theories or paranoid delusions, are not worth studying because they are not real. It may be worth understanding why some people are prone to paranoid delusions or conspiratorial thinking, but the content of these ideas is not worth investigating. Other things may be factually true, such as the daily change in number of the grains of sand on a particular stretch of beach, but they are not worth studying because knowing that information will not teach us about how things hang together. So a philosopher chooses to study things that are informative and interesting—things that provide a better understanding of the world and our place in it.

To make judgments about which areas are interesting or worthy of study, philosophers need to cultivate a special skill. Sellars describes this philosophical skill as a kind of know-how (a practical, engaged type of knowledge, similar to riding a bike or learning to swim). Philosophical know-how, Sellars says, has to do with knowing your way around the world of concepts and being able to understand and think about how concepts connect, link up, support, and rely upon one another—in short, how things hang together. Knowing one’s way around the world of concepts also involves knowing where to look to find interesting discoveries and which places to avoid, much like a good fisherman knows where to cast his line. Sellars acknowledges that other academics and scientists know their way around the concepts in their field of study much like philosophers do. The difference is that these other inquirers confine themselves to a specific field of study or a particular subject matter, while philosophers want to understand the whole. Sellars thinks that this philosophical skill is most clearly demonstrated when we try to understand the connection between the natural world as we experience it directly (the “manifest image”) and the natural world as science explains it (the “scientific image”). He suggests that we gain an understanding of the nature of philosophy by trying to reconcile these two pictures of the world that most people understand independently.

Read Like a Philosopher

“philosophy and the scientific image of man”.

This essay, “ Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man ” by Wilfrid Sellars, has been republished several times and can be found online. Read through the essay with particular focus on the first section. Consider the following study questions:

• What is the difference between knowing how and knowing that? Are these concepts always distinct? What does it mean for philosophical knowledge to be a kind of know-how?
• What do you think Sellars means when he says that philosophers “have turned other special subject-matters to non-philosophers over the past 2500 years”?
• Sellars describes philosophy as “bringing a picture into focus,” but he is also careful to recognize challenges with this metaphor as it relates to the body of human knowledge. What are those challenges? Why is it difficult to imagine all of human knowledge as a picture or image?
• What is the scientific image of man in the world? What is the manifest image of man in the world? How are they different? And why are these two images the primary images that need to be brought into focus so that philosophy may have an eye on the whole?

Unlike other subjects that have clearly defined subject matter boundaries and relatively clear methods of exploration and analysis, philosophy intentionally lacks clear boundaries or methods. For instance, your biology textbook will tell you that biology is the “science of life.” The boundaries of biology are fairly clear: it is an experimental science that studies living things and the associated material necessary for life. Similarly, biology has relatively well-defined methods. Biologists, like other experimental scientists, broadly follow something called the “scientific method.” This is a bit of a misnomer, unfortunately, because there is no single method that all the experimental sciences follow. Nevertheless, biologists have a range of methods and practices, including observation, experimentation, and theory comparison and analysis, that are fairly well established and well known among practitioners. Philosophy doesn’t have such easy prescriptions—and for good reason. Philosophers are interested in gaining the broadest possible understanding of things, whether that be nature, what is possible, morals, aesthetics, political organizations, or any other field or concept.

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1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology

Philosophy, One Thousand Words at a Time

Welcome to 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology , an ever-growing set of over 180 original 1000-word essays on philosophical questions, theories, figures, and arguments. 

We publish new essays frequently, so please check back for updates, follow us on Facebook , Twitter / X , and Instagram , and subscribe by email on this page to receive notifications of new essays.

All of our essays are now available in audio format; many of our essays are available as videos . 

Select Recent Essays

Objects and their Parts: The Problem of Material Composition by Jeremy Skrzypek

Artificial Intelligence: The Possibility of Artificial Minds by Thomas Metcalf

The Mind-Body Problem: What Are Minds? by Jacob Berger

Seemings: Justifying Beliefs Based on How Things Seem by Kaj André Zeller

Form and Matter: Hylomorphism by Jeremy W. Skrzypek

Kant’s Theory of the Sublime by Matthew Sanderson

Philosophy of Color by Tiina Carita Rosenqvist

On Karl Marx’s Slogan “From Each According to their Ability, To Each According to their Need” by Sam Badger

Philosophy as a Way of Life by Christine Darr

Philosophy of Mysticism: Do Mystical Experiences Justify Religious Beliefs? by Matthew Sanderson

Ancient Cynicism: Rejecting Civilization and Returning to Nature by G. M. Trujillo, Jr.

“Properly Basic” Belief in God: Believing in God without an Argument by Jamie B. Turner

Philosophy of Time: Time’s Arrow by Dan Peterson

W.D. Ross’s Ethics of “Prima Facie” Duties by Matthew Pianalto

Aristotle on Friendship: What Does It Take to Be a Good Friend? by G. M. Trujillo, Jr.

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave: the Journey Out of Ignorance by Spencer Case

Epistemic Justification: What is Rational Belief? by Todd R. Long

The Doctrine of Double Effect: Do Intentions Matter to Ethics? by Gabriel Andrade

The Buddhist Theory of No-Self (Anātman/Anattā) by Daniel Weltman

Self-Knowledge: Knowing Your Own Mind by Benjamin Winokur

The Meaning of Life: What’s the Point? and Meaning in Life: What Makes Our Lives Meaningful? by Matthew Pianalto

The Philosophy of Humor: What Makes Something Funny? by Chris A. Kramer

Karl Marx’s Theory of History by Angus Taylor

Saving the Many or the Few: The Moral Relevance of Numbers by Theron Pummer

Philosophy of Space and Time: What is Space? and Philosophy of Space and Time: Are the Past and Future Real ? by Dan Peterson

What Is Misogyny? by Odelia Zuckerman and Clair Morrissey

Philosophy and Race: An Introduction to Philosophy of Race by Thomas Metcalf

“Can They Suffer?”: Bentham on our Obligations to Animals  by Daniel Weltman

Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones who Walk Away from Omelas”: Would You Walk Away? by Spencer Case

Indoctrination: What is it to Indoctrinate Someone? by Chris Ranalli

Agnosticism about God’s Existence by Sylwia Wilczewska

African American Existentialism: DuBois, Locke, Thurman, and King by Anthony Sean Neal

Conspiracy Theories by Jared Millson

Philosophical Inquiry in Childhood by Jana Mohr Lone

Essay Categories

• Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
• Africana Philosophy
• Buddhist Philosophy
• Chinese Philosophy
• Epistemology, or Theory of Knowledge
• Historical Philosophy
• Islamic Philosophy
• Logic and Reasoning
• Metaphilosophy, or Philosophy of Philosophy
• Metaphysics
• Phenomenology and Existentialism
• Philosophy of Education
• Philosophy of Law
• Philosophy of Mind and Language
• Philosophy of Race
• Philosophy of Religion
• Philosophy of Science
• Philosophy of Sex and Gender
• Social and Political Philosophy

* New categories are added as the project expands. 

Popular Essays

* This is a selection of some of our most popular essays. 

Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am” by Charles Miceli and  Descartes’ Meditations by Marc Bobro

Marx’s Conception of Alienation  by Dan Lowe

John Rawls’ ‘A Theory of Justice’  by Ben Davies

The Ethics of Abortion  by Nathan Nobis

Aristotle’s Defense of Slavery  by Dan Lowe

“God is Dead”: Nietzsche and the Death of God  by Justin Remhof

Philosophy and Its Contrast with Science : Comparing Philosophical and Scientific Understanding  by Thomas Metcalf

Happiness: What is it to be Happy?  by Kiki Berk

Pascal’s Wager: A Pragmatic Argument for Belief in God  by Liz Jackson

The African Ethic of Ubuntu  by Thaddeus Metz

New to philosophy?! Perhaps begin with these essays:

What is Philosophy? by Thomas Metcalf,

Critical Thinking: What is it to be a Critical Thinker? by Carolina Flores,

Arguments: Why Do You Believe What You Believe? by Thomas Metcalf, and

Is it Wrong to Believe Without Sufficient Evidence? W.K. Clifford’s “The Ethics of Belief” by Spencer Case. 

We have resources for students on How to Write a Philosophical Essay  and How to Read Philosophy by the Editors of 1000-Word Philosophy . 

A teaching units page has resources to help instructors develop course modules.

2023 and 2022 End of Year Reports are available here . 

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