On Writing Philosophy Papers (adapted from McHenry, Hole and Barnett)

I.  What is a philosophical writing?

A philosophy paper is perhaps best characterized as a demonstration of your critical thinking ability.  It is the result of your (1) taking up a particular problem, issue, or interpretation; (2) subjecting it to careful analysis; and (3) identifying, developing and (possibly) defending your own position.  Thus, your thesis (which ought to be stated in some form in the introduction to your paper) is the main conclusion of your paper that you support throughout with premises.  In other words, a good philosophical essay should have a clearly discernible logical structure through which you demonstrate to your reader why (s/he ought to take your conclusion as true.

While philosophical writing greatly emphasizes argumentation, it should nonetheless be understood as an exploration--one through which you identify and articulate your own beliefs in relation to the issue at hand and reflect upon those beliefs critically.  This is more challenging than it might sound:  taking one's convictions regarding, say, the nature of 'right' and 'wrong' and subjecting them to serious critical scrutiny, thus throwing them into question, takes extraordinary honesty and courage as well as intellectual ability. [...]

Your writing in this course will deal with the philosophical issues we confront in the course texts, and it will be of two main types.  The first is expository or interpretive.  Expository or interpretive papers concentrate on elucidating what an author is saying (e.g., How should we understand Locke's theory of property?).  The main task is to illuminate and expose key ideas, assumptions, implications, or meanings of terms  The most common error in writing this kind of paper is the failure to actually argue for a thesis.  Since philosophical texts are always open to a variety of interpretations, you must argue for yours.  The second type of paper you will write in this course is evaluative in nature.  Such essays require you not only to understand what a philosopher wrote on a given issue--but also to think about the issue itself and the philosopher's approach to it, and to evaluate the philosopher's argument in terms of strengths and weaknesses (e.g., Is Locke's theory of property a coherent and sensible one?  Why or why not?  Are there better alternatives?).

II.  The Steps

A.  Free-writing.  This is the initial exploratory or brain-storming stage in a writing assignment.  With the assigned topic in mind (or right in front of you), simply begin writing.  Do not worry at this stage about organization.  You may begin by writing down some ideas you have already formulated in relation to the topic.  Or you may attempt to formulate them for the first time.  Articulate for yourself questions or confusion you may have, or examples or arguments that occur to you.  Allow yourself to go off on tangents and see where they lead.  You may want to repeat this process several times.  This stage is important because writing is not merely the recording of ideas already formulated and organized.  It can also be a vehicle for generating ideas and insights.

B.  Formulating a thesis.  Hopefully, the free-writing stage will help you to locate your thesis or position with respect to the assigned topic.  This is the view or conclusion for which you are going to argue.  Do make sure that you thesis directly addresses the topic at hand; i.e., if the topic is given in the form of a question, your thesis should answer the question.

C.  Building an argument.  Your argument in the body of the paper is comprised primarily of reasons why your thesis ought to be believed.  These are the premises that support your general conclusion.  Take care here to avoid committing fallacies (see 'Writing Guidelines').  One way to do this is to put your main argument in the following form:

            Premise 1....
            Premise 2....
            Premise 3....
            -----------------------

            Conclusion (Thesis)

By making your argument explicit in this way, you will be better able to judge its strength.  You may find that a premise can be eliminated or that the argument would work better if the order of the premises is changed.

D.  Explaining your argument.  The fact that your philosophy paper is essentially an argument does not mean that writing it is merely a matter of stating an argument.  Tell your reader about the argument's structure; identify the premises and conclusion; explain its logical merits.  Use examples to illustrate important ideas in the argument.  Make sure to clarify key terms:  if a term important to your argument is open to multiple interpretations, then it deserves a reasonably thorough explanation; tell your reader from the outset the specific meaning you intend it to have.  Pitch your tone to the strength of your argument.  If you think your argument is strong, state it in strong terms.  If you think your argument has weaknesses, acknowledge them.  This relates to another key element of solid argumentation, the anticipation of counterarguments. What objections would someone who disagrees with you be most likely to raise, and for what reasons?  More importantly, how would you reply to such a challenge to your argument?