Example 3

  Writing for Philosophy Class

Introduction.  Writing a paper for a Philosophy Class has both similarities and differences to writing for other classes, for instance a Literature Class.  Like writing in other contexts, you must articulate a topic, an issue, about which you make a controversial claim which you must defend with argumentative support.  A controversial claim is any claim that is not simplistic (e.g., "The Federal Reserve Board plays an important role in the American economy") or trivial (e.g., "Most Sophists use rhetoric").  A controversial claim is one with which you cannot expect others to concur automatically and hence is one for which you will have to argue.  For example, if one claims that the ending of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn reinforces racial stereotypes, undermining the meaning and importance of Jim's escape from slavery, then one will have made a claim with which others may not agree and for which one will have to argue.  So far, in writing a philosophy paper, you are following a pattern of presenting a proposition, a claim, a thesis, and providing reasons to accept that thesis - a pattern which you have followed in other writing contexts.

Writing a philosophical paper differs, however, from other contexts of writing both in content and motivation.  The content of writing a philosophical paper is driven by the philosophical topics which you will confront in reading and discussing the works of Plato, Descartes, and Nietzsche, for example, and by those that are generally thought to be "philosophical."  The motivation for writing a philosophical paper (apart from the obvious fulfilling of an assignment) is to explore a topic as the limit of human reason in its most minuscule detail for its most monumental implications.

Picking a Topic.  In beginning to explore a philosophical topic in your own writing, first begin with the work or the statement of a problem with which you wish to engage (e.g., Plato's theory of Justice).  Try to understand what the author is seeking to accomplish and why he or she is trying to accomplish that particular goal rather than another.  Try to understand the reasons which the author gives to support his or her position.  Try to understand some of the implications of taking the author's view rather than another.  Once you begin to see the motivations, goals, and reasons in an author's confrontation with a philosophical perplexity, ask yourself what you find most interesting about the issue.  Are you, for example, most interested in the method the author uses, the reasons the author adduces, the goals the author sets, or the conclusions the author reaches?  Once you find that aspect of the issue which most interests you, you have found a topic for your philosophical essay.

Thesis Construction.  One you have decided on a topic, you must focus that topic into a concise thesis statement.  The process of thesis formation follows the same pattern as it does in other contexts of writing.  You must articulate a thesis which you can define in the space of your essay assignment.  If you are assigned a twenty page paper, the scope of your claim can be much more broad than if you are assigned a five page paper.  If you pick a broad thesis, one appropriate for a much longer essay, when assigned a short paper, you will inevitably write a very general and poorly defended essay.  Thus, given the topic on which you wish to write, isolate a claim within that topic which you can effectively defend in the space allotted by the assignment.

Thesis Defense.  You defend your thesis by providing an argument or arguments in the body of the paper which support the truth of your claim.  Your thesis is what your paper seeks to establish, and the body of your paper sets about the task of establishing your thesis.  Thus, there is already a certain amount of logical structure to one's essay simply in the requirement that the body must defend the thesis.  The primary question which one should ask oneself in developing the paper is how does each sentence and paragraph fit together towards establishing the truth of one's thesis.  In defending your thesis, however, you must avoid committing errors in reasoning or logical fallacies.  For instance, if your argument is that either X or Y must be true, and since X is false, Y must be true, make sure that in presenting X you do not present a weak or caricatured version of X (to do so would be to commit the "straw man " fallacy).  Weak arguments produce only weak support for one's thesis, and this situation is to be avoided in good philosophical writing.

Conclusions.  Your thesis is your conclusion -- it is the conclusion to the argument presented in the main body of your paper.  The conclusion to your paper will make clear the argument and also try to indicate the significance of your conclusion for the reader.  What implications does your conclusion have and how might it interest others in thinking about your topic?  Yet, in having reached a conclusion to your paper you are not finished.  Once you have reached a conclusion, you must go back to the beginning and revise the introduction in light of how your paper has developed.  You must also go back to your arguments and examine them more carefully to determine whether or not they are sound.  Thus, on reaching the conclusion, you have not concluded the process of writing.