- Faculty of Arts
- School of Historical and Philosophical Studies
![](http://serviteca.online/777/templates/cheerup2/res/banner1.gif)
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?
You'll be graded on three basic criteria:
![how to start a philosophy essay University of Cambridge](https://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/profiles/cambridge/themes/cambridge_theme/images/interface/main-logo-small.png)
Study at Cambridge
About the university, research at cambridge.
- Undergraduate courses
- Events and open days
- Fees and finance
- Postgraduate courses
- How to apply
- Postgraduate events
- Fees and funding
- International students
- Continuing education
- Executive and professional education
- Courses in education
- How the University and Colleges work
- Term dates and calendars
- Visiting the University
- Annual reports
- Equality and diversity
- A global university
- Public engagement
- Give to Cambridge
- For Cambridge students
- For our researchers
- Business and enterprise
- Colleges & departments
- Email & phone search
- Museums & collections
- Current Students
- Undergraduate Writing Skills
- Faculty of Philosophy
- About Us overview
- Academic Visitors
- Administration overview
- Accessible Documents Checklist
- Video conferencing accessibility assessment guide
- Cambridge Women Philosophers
- Disability Access Guide
- Health and Safety
- How to find us
Important Dates
- Information Technology overview
- Using Google Meet
- Zoom User Guide
- Skype & PhoneConference Call and Screen Sharing
- Microsoft Teams getting started
- Panopto Recording & Publishing Overview
- Zoom Security Tips for public meetings
- Job Opportunities
- Newsletters
- Philosophy Green Team overview
- Waste & Recyling
- Green Team Events
- Welfare overview
- Welfare for Students
- Welfare for Staff
- People overview
- Teaching & Research Staff
- Director of Studies Area overview
- Director of Studies Part 1B
- Director of Studies Part II
- Postgraduate Advisors Area
- Support Staff
- Current Academic Visitors
- Academic Staff Administrative Roles
- Paper Co-Ordinators
- Research overview
- Research Projects and Networks
- Seminars and Discussion Groups
- Employment destinations of recent Faculty PhD students
- Research Funding Opportunities
- Recent Faculty books
- Open access at Cambridge
- Current Students overview
- Postgraduates overview
- MPhil Course Information (Includes examination protocols)
- PhD Course Information
- Organisational Matters
- Supervision
- Lectures and Seminars
- Faculty Resources
- Advice and Support
- PG Training Guide
- Room Booking Guidance
- Working Away
- Working While Studying
- Financial Support
- Postgraduate Calendar
- Deposit of Electronic PhD Theses
- Postgraduate Forms overview
- Appointment of PhD Examiners Form
- Risk assessment form RA1
- Risk assessment examples
- Conference expenses funding application form
- Postgraduate hardship funding application form
- MPhil Essays and Dissertations (Raven Login)
- MPhil Data Retention
- University Timetable
- Part IA Seminar (Discussion Group) Readings
- Undergraduate Tripos Students Information
- Lecture List
- Course Outlines and Reading Lists (for Philosophy Students and Staff)
- Course Outlines and Reading Lists (for auditors)
- Undergraduate Exams overview
- Sample Answers
- Craig Taylor Prize
- Extended Essays & Dissertations
- Data Retention Policy
- Part IA Past Exam Papers
- Faculty Plagiarism Policy
- Part IB Past Exam Papers
- Part II Past Exam Papers
- Guidelines for Examiners & Assessors (including Marking Criteria)
- Sample paper for Part II paper 9
- IB5 Sample Exam
- Undergraduate Writing Skills overview
- Tackling the Philosophy Essay Guide
- Tackling the Philosophy Essay Guide (mobi version)
- Tackling the Philosophy Essay Guide (epub version)
- Tackling the Philosophy Essay Guide (Word version)
- 09 Plagiarism 2018revJuly18
- Student Feedback & Support overview
- Student Representation & Student-Staff Committee
- Philosophy Student-Staff Committee Meeting Minutes
- SSC minutes 1May18
- Final SSCMinutes 30Oct18
- SSC Unconfirmed minutes 05 Feb 19
- SSC unconfirmedminutes 7May19
- Student Complaints Procedure
- SSC unconfirmed minutes 5Nov19
- SSC minutes 04 Feb 2020 4
- SSC minutes 5May2020 1
- Philosophy Faculty Guidelines for Discussion Sessions
- Prospective Students overview
- Prospective Postgraduates
- Prospective Undergraduates
- Suggested Preliminary Readings
- Prospective Undergraduate students - Frequently asked questions
- Prospective Postgraduate students – Frequently asked questions
- Events overview
- Past Events overview
- Past Events - Conferences, Workshops and Special Lectures
- The Roles of Knowledge
- The Roles of Knowledge Abstracts
- Limits of Duty programme
- The Limits of Duty
- Decision Theory Seminar
- No-platform and Hate Speech
- What is Domination?
- 6th Cambridge Graduate Conference on the Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics
- Universals_v2.pdf
- JohnSearle Lecture
- Immateriality, Thinking and the Self in the Long Middle Ages
- Papers Heal Metaphysical atomism and the attraction of materialism
- Oelze Summary of Talk
- WIP Conference Poster
- GoodmakersandgoodtakersTextsHO2.pdf
- Minorities and Philosophy (MAP) Cambridge Conference 2018
- Shyane Personal Identity handout 6th form conf 2019
- Richard Holton Handout 6th form conf 2019
- Library overview
- Accessibility
- Joining the library
- Borrowing from the library
- Philosophy eresources
- IT, printing and copying facilities
- Resources for undergraduates
- Resources for researchers
- Contact the library
- Intranet overview
- Undergraduate Teaching and Support Arrangements (including exam updates)
- Director of Studies Area
- Academic Teaching Resources and Protocols.
- Samples for MPhil Examiners overview
- Philosophy File Share overview
- Postgraduates
- Undergraduate Exams
- Student Feedback & Support
![application/pdf PDF icon](https://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/modules/file/icons/application-pdf.png)
Latest news
Quick links.
All News Items
Moral Sciences Club
Philosophy Lecture List
Philosophy Podcasts
Moodle Undergraduate Site
Intranet Teaching and Examining Arrangements
Follow us on Twitter
Tweets by @CambridgePhilos
![how to start a philosophy essay Athena Swan Bronze Logo](https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/sites/default/files/styles/full_width_image/public/2021-03/Advance-HE-Membership-logo_Standalone_AS-Bronze_Colour.png?itok=tHzPYCBA)
Information
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Use
- Photos by Ben Colburn displayed with his permission
- Philosophy Contact Details
- [email protected]
- Map of Sidgwick Site
- University Map
Other Links
- Email & Phone Search
© 2024 University of Cambridge
- Contact the University
- Freedom of information
- Privacy policy and cookies
- Statement on Modern Slavery
- Terms and conditions
- University A-Z
- Undergraduate
- Postgraduate
- Research news
- About research at Cambridge
- Spotlight on...
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.
How to Write a Philosophy Essay: Ultimate Guide
![how to start a philosophy essay](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e5d43546b94f97f39c228fa/664584fe87188723dd6f7a83_Adam%20Jason.webp)
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
Have a Tight Deadline?
Our PRO writers will quickly produce a unique paper for you based on your specifications!
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.
![how to start a philosophy essay guide philosophy essay](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e5d43546b94f97f39c228fa/6512f6a47fce88e050986076_Guidelines%20on%20How%20to%20Write%20a%20Philosophy%20Essay.webp)
- 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!
![](http://serviteca.online/777/templates/cheerup2/res/banner1.gif)
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:
![how to start a philosophy essay guide philosophy essay](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e5d43546b94f97f39c228fa/6512f6b88b3513883deeb26b_7%20Common%20Mistakes%20to%20Avoid%20in%20Philosophy%20Writing.webp)
- 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!
Worried About All of the Approaching Assignments?
We provide the top writing services you've been searching for! Our experts can deliver your coursework swiftly!
![how to start a philosophy essay Daniel Parker](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e5d43546b94f97f39c228fa/664585124776bc0664a74017_Daniel%20Parker.webp)
Daniel Parker
is a seasoned educational writer focusing on scholarship guidance, research papers, and various forms of academic essays including reflective and narrative essays. His expertise also extends to detailed case studies. A scholar with a background in English Literature and Education, Daniel’s work on EssayPro blog aims to support students in achieving academic excellence and securing scholarships. His hobbies include reading classic literature and participating in academic forums.
![how to start a philosophy essay](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e5d43546b94f97f39c228fa/664584fe87188723dd6f7a83_Adam%20Jason.webp)
is an expert in nursing and healthcare, with a strong background in history, law, and literature. Holding advanced degrees in nursing and public health, his analytical approach and comprehensive knowledge help students navigate complex topics. On EssayPro blog, Adam provides insightful articles on everything from historical analysis to the intricacies of healthcare policies. In his downtime, he enjoys historical documentaries and volunteering at local clinics.
![how to start a philosophy essay How to Write a Critical Thinking Essay](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e5d43546b94f97f39c228fa/66991d238ef95ab90dd5788f_banner%20%20%20How%20to%20Write%20a%20Critical%20Thinking%20Essay%20-(Compressify.io).webp)
![how to start a philosophy essay 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology](https://i0.wp.com/1000wordphilosophy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/1000-word-philosophy-logo.jpeg?fit=936%2C300&ssl=1)
1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology
Philosophy, One Thousand Words at a Time
How to Write a Philosophical Essay
Authors: The Editors of 1000-Word Philosophy [1] Category: Student Resources Word Count: 998
If you want to convince someone of a philosophical thesis, such as that God exists , that abortion is morally acceptable , or that we have free will , you can write a philosophy essay. [2]
Philosophy essays are different from essays in many other fields, but with planning and practice, anyone can write a good one. This essay provides some basic instructions. [3]
![how to start a philosophy essay An image of an open, blank notebook with a black pen lying on the right-side page.](https://i0.wp.com/1000wordphilosophy.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/open-blank-notebook-black-amp-white.jpg?resize=615%2C307&ssl=1)
1. Planning
Typically, your purpose in writing an essay will be to argue for a certain thesis, i.e., to support a conclusion about a philosophical claim, argument, or theory. [4] You may also be asked to carefully explain someone else’s essay or argument. [5]
To begin, select a topic. Most instructors will be happy to discuss your topic with you before you start writing. Sometimes instructors give specific prompts with topics to choose from.
It’s generally best to select a topic that you’re interested in; you’ll put more energy into writing it. Your topic will determine what kind of research or preparation you need to do before writing, although in undergraduate philosophy courses, you usually don’t need to do outside research. [6]
Essays that defend or attack entire theories tend to be longer, and are more difficult to write convincingly, than essays that defend or attack particular arguments or objections: narrower is usually better than broader.
After selecting a topic, complete these steps:
- Ensure that you understand the relevant issues and arguments. Usually, it’s enough to carefully read and take notes on the assigned readings on your essay’s topic.
- Choose an initial thesis. Generally, you should choose a thesis that’s interesting, but not extremely controversial. [7] You don’t have to choose a thesis that you agree with, but it can help. (As you plan and write, you may decide to revise your thesis. This may require revising the rest of your essay, but sometimes that’s necessary, if you realize you want to defend a different thesis than the one you initially chose.)
- Ensure that your thesis is a philosophical thesis. Natural-scientific or social-scientific claims, such as that global warming is occurring or that people like to hang out with their friends , are not philosophical theses. [8] Philosophical theses are typically defended using careful reasoning, and not primarily by citing scientific observations.
Instructors will usually not ask you to come up with some argument that no philosopher has discovered before. But if your essay ignores what the assigned readings say, that suggests that you haven’t learned from those readings.
2. Structure
Develop an outline, rather than immediately launching into writing the whole essay; this helps with organizing the sections of your essay.
Your structure will probably look something like the following, but follow your assignment’s directions carefully. [9]
2.1. Introduction and Thesis
Write a short introductory paragraph that includes your thesis statement (e.g., “I will argue that eating meat is morally wrong”). The thesis statement is not a preview nor a plan; it’s not “I will consider whether eating meat is morally wrong.”
If your thesis statement is difficult to condense into one sentence, then it’s likely that you’re trying to argue for more than one thesis. [10]
2.2. Arguments
Include at least one paragraph that presents and explains an argument. It should be totally clear what reasons or evidence you’re offering to support your thesis.
In most essays for philosophy courses, you only need one central argument for your thesis. It’s better to present one argument and defend it well than present many arguments in superficial and incomplete ways.
2.3. Objection
Unless the essay must be extremely short, raise an objection to your argument. [11] Be clear exactly which part of the other argument (a premise, or the form) is being questioned or denied and why. [12]
It’s usually best to choose either one of the most common or one of the best objections. Imagine what a smart person who disagreed with you would say in response to your arguments, and respond to them.
Offer your own reply to any objections you considered. If you don’t have a convincing reply to the objection, you might want to go back and change your thesis to something more defensible.
2.5. Additional Objections and Replies
If you have space, you might consider and respond to the second-best or second-most-common objection to your argument, and so on.
2.6. Conclusion
To conclude, offer a paragraph summarizing what you did. Don’t include any new or controversial claims here, and don’t claim that you did more than you actually accomplished. There should be no surprises at the end of a philosophy essay.
Make your writing extremely clear and straightforward. Use simple sentences and don’t worry if they seem boring: this improves readability. [13] Every sentence should contribute in an obvious way towards supporting your thesis. If a claim might be confusing, state it in more than one way and then choose the best version.
To check for readability, you might read the essay aloud to an audience. Don’t try to make your writing entertaining: in philosophy, clear arguments are fun in themselves.
Concerning objections, treat those who disagree with you charitably. Make it seem as if you think they’re smart, careful, and nice, which is why you are responding to them.
Your readers, if they’re typical philosophers, will be looking for any possible way to object to what you say. Try to make your arguments “airtight.”
4. Citations
If your instructor tells you to use a certain citation style, use it. No citation style is universally accepted in philosophy. [14]
You usually don’t need to directly quote anyone. [15] You can paraphrase other authors; where you do, cite them.
Don’t plagiarize . [16] Most institutions impose severe penalties for academic dishonesty.
5. Conclusion
A well-written philosophy essay can help people gain a new perspective on some important issue; it might even change their minds. [17] And engaging in the process of writing a philosophical essay is one of the best ways to develop, understand, test, and sometimes change, your own philosophical views. They are well worth the time and effort.
[1] Primary author: Thomas Metcalf. Contributing authors: Chelsea Haramia, Dan Lowe, Nathan Nobis, Kristin Seemuth Whaley.
[2] You can also do some kind of oral presentation, either “live” in person or recorded on video. An effective presentation, however, requires the type of planning and preparation that’s needed to develop an effective philosophy paper: indeed, you may have to first write a paper and then use it as something like a script for your presentation. Some parts of the paper, e.g., section headings, statements of arguments, key quotes, and so on, you may want to use as visual aids in your presentation to help your audience better follow along and understand.
[3] Many of these recommendations are, however, based on the material in Horban (1993), Huemer (n.d.), Pryor (n.d.), and Rippon (2008). There is very little published research to cite about the claims in this essay, because these claims are typically justified by instructors’ experience, not, say, controlled experiments on different approaches to teaching philosophical writing. Therefore, the guidance offered here has been vetted by many professional philosophers with a collective hundreds of hours of undergraduate teaching experience and further collective hundreds of hours of taking philosophy courses. The editors of 1000-Word Philosophy also collectively have thousands of hours of experience in writing philosophy essays.
[4] For more about the areas of philosophy, see What is Philosophy? by Thomas Metcalf.
[5] For an explanation of what is meant by an “argument” in philosophy, see Arguments: Why Do You Believe What You Believe? by Thomas Metcalf.
[6] Outside research is sometimes discouraged, and even prohibited, for philosophy papers in introductory courses because a common goal of a philosophy paper is not to report on a number of views on a philosophical issue—so philosophy papers usually are not “research reports”—but to rather engage a specific argument or claim or theory, in a more narrow and focused way, and show that you understand the issue and have engaged in critically. If a paper engages in too much reporting of outside research, that can get in the way of this critical evaluation task.
[7] There are two reasons to avoid extremely controversial theses. First, such theses are usually more difficult to defend adequately. Second, you might offend your instructor, who might (fairly or not) give you a worse grade. So, for example, you might argue that abortion is usually permissible, or usually wrong, but you probably shouldn’t argue that anyone who has ever said the word ‘abortion’ should be tortured to death, and you probably shouldn’t argue that anyone who’s ever pregnant should immediately be forced to abort the pregnancy, because both of these claims are extremely implausible and so it’s very unlikely that good arguments could be developed for them. But theses that are controversial without being implausible can be interesting for both you and the instructor, depending on how you develop and defend your argument or arguments for that thesis.
[8] Whether a thesis is philosophical mostly depends on whether it is a lot like theses that have been defended in important works of philosophy. That means it would be a thesis about metaphysics, epistemology, value theory, logic, history of philosophy, or something therein. For more information, see Philosophy and Its Contrast with Science and What is Philosophy? both by Thomas Metcalf.
[9] Also, read the grading rubric, if it’s available. If your course uses an online learning environment, such as Canvas, Moodle, or Schoology, then the rubric will often be visible as attached to the assignment itself. The rubric is a breakdown of the different requirements of the essay and how each is weighted and evaluated by the instructor. So, for example, if some requirement has a relatively high weight, you should put more effort into doing a good job. Similarly, some requirement might explicitly mention some step for the assignment that you need to complete in order to get full credit.
[10] In some academic fields, a “thesis” or “thesis statement” is considered both your conclusion and a statement of the basic support you will give for that conclusion. In philosophy, your thesis is usually just that conclusion: e..g, “Eating meat is wrong,” “God exists,” “Nobody has free will,” and so on: the support given for that conclusion is the support for your thesis.
[11] To be especially clear, this should be an objection to the argument given for your thesis or conclusion, not an objection to your thesis or conclusion itself. This is because you don’t want to give an argument and then have an objection that does not engage that argument, but instead engages something else, since that won’t help your reader or audience better understand and evaluate that argument.
[12] For more information about premises, forms, and objections, see Arguments: Why do You Believe What You Believe? by Thomas Metcalf.
[13] For a philosophical argument in favor of clear philosophical writing, and guidance on producing such writing, see Fischer and Nobis (2019).
[14] The most common styles in philosophy are APA (Purdue Online Writing Lab, n.d.a) and Chicago (Purdue Online Writing Lab, n.d.b.).
[15] You might choose to directly quote someone when it’s very important that the reader know that the quoted author actually said what you claim they said. For example, if you’re discussing some author who made some startling claim, you can directly quote them to show that they really said that. You might also directly quote someone when they presented some information or argument in a very concise, well-stated way, such that paraphrasing it would take up more space than simply quoting them would.
[16] Plagiarism, in general, occurs when someone submits written or spoken work that is largely copied, in style, substance, or both, from some other author’s work, and does not attribute it to that author. However, your institution or instructor may define “plagiarism” somewhat differently, so you should check with their definitions. When in doubt, check with your instructor first.
[17] These are instructions for relatively short, introductory-level philosophy essays. For more guidance, there are many useful philosophy-writing guides online to consult, e.g.: Horban (1993); Huemer (n.d.); Pryor (n.d.); Rippon (2008); Weinberg (2019).
Fischer, Bob and Nobis, Nathan. (2019, June 4). Why writing better will make you a better person. The Chronicle of Higher Education .
Horban, Peter. (1993). Writing a philosophy paper. Simon Fraser University Department of Philosophy .
Huemer, Michael. (N.d.). A guide to writing. Owl232.net .
Pryor, Jim. (N.d.). Guidelines on writing a philosophy paper. Jimpryor.net .
Purdue Online Writing Lab. (N.d.a.). General format. Purdue Online Writing Lab .
Purdue Online Writing Lab. (N.d.b.). General format. Purdue Online Writing Lab .
Rippon, Simon. (2008). A brief guide to writing the philosophy paper. Harvard College Writing Center .
Weinberg, Justin. (2019, January 15). How to write a philosophy paper: Online guides. Daily Nous .
Related Essays
Arguments: Why do You Believe What You Believe? by Thomas Metcalf
Philosophy and its Contrast with Science by Thomas Metcalf
What is Philosophy? By Thomas Metcalf
Translation
Pdf download.
Download this essay in PDF .
Follow 1000-Word Philosophy on Facebook and Twitter and subscribe to receive email notifications of new essays at 1000WordPhilosophy.com .
Share this:.
- Writing Home
- Writing Advice Home
Writing a Philosophy Essay
- Printable PDF Version
- Fair-Use Policy
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 start a philosophy essay University of Cambridge](https://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/profiles/cambridge/themes/cambridge_theme/images/interface/main-logo-small.png)
Study at Cambridge
About the university, research at cambridge.
- Undergraduate courses
- Events and open days
- Fees and finance
- Postgraduate courses
- How to apply
- Postgraduate events
- Fees and funding
- International students
- Continuing education
- Executive and professional education
- Courses in education
- How the University and Colleges work
- Term dates and calendars
- Visiting the University
- Annual reports
- Equality and diversity
- A global university
- Public engagement
- Give to Cambridge
- For Cambridge students
- For our researchers
- Business and enterprise
- Colleges & departments
- Email & phone search
- Museums & collections
- Student information
Department of History and Philosophy of Science
- About the Department overview
- How to find the Department
- Annual Report
- HPS Discussion email list
- Becoming a Visiting Scholar or Visiting Student overview
- Visitor fee payment
- Becoming an Affiliate
- Applying for research grants and post-doctoral fellowships
- Administration overview
- Information for new staff
- Information for examiners and assessors overview
- Operation of the HPS plagiarism policy
- Information for supervisors overview
- Supervising Part IB and Part II students
- Supervising MPhil and Part III students
- Supervising PhD students
- People overview
- Teaching Officers
- Research Fellows and Teaching Associates
- Professional Services Staff
- PhD Students
- Research overview
- Research projects overview
- Digitising Philippine Flora
- Colonial Natures overview
- The Challenge of Conservation
- Natural History in the Age of Revolutions, 1776–1848
- In the Shadow of the Tree: The Diagrammatics of Relatedness as Scientific, Scholarly and Popular Practice
- The Many Births of the Test-Tube Baby
- Culture at the Macro-Scale: Boundaries, Barriers and Endogenous Change
- Making Climate History overview
- Project summary
- Workstreams
- Works cited and project literature
- Histories of Artificial Intelligence: A Genealogy of Power overview
- From Collection to Cultivation: Historical Perspectives on Crop Diversity and Food Security overview
- Call for papers
- How Collections End: Objects, Meaning and Loss in Laboratories and Museums
- Tools in Materials Research
- Epsilon: A Collaborative Digital Framework for Nineteenth-Century Letters of Science
- Contingency in the History and Philosophy of Science
- Industrial Patronage and the Cold War University
- FlyBase: Communicating Drosophila Genetics on Paper and Online, 1970–2000
- The Lost Museums of Cambridge Science, 1865–1936
- From Hansa to Lufthansa: Transportation Technologies and the Mobility of Knowledge in Germanic Lands and Beyond, 1300–2018
- Medical Publishers, Obscenity Law and the Business of Sexual Knowledge in Victorian Britain
- Kinds of Intelligence
- Varieties of Social Knowledge
- The Vesalius Census
- Histories of Biodiversity and Agriculture
- Investigating Fake Scientific Instruments in the Whipple Museum Collection
- Before HIV: Homosex and Venereal Disease, c.1939–1984
- The Casebooks Project
- Generation to Reproduction
- The Darwin Correspondence Project
- History of Medicine overview
- Events overview
- Past events
- Philosophy of Science overview
- Study HPS overview
- Undergraduate study overview
- Introducing History and Philosophy of Science
- Frequently asked questions
- Routes into History and Philosophy of Science
- Part II overview
- Distribution of Part II marks
- BBS options
- Postgraduate study overview
- Why study HPS at Cambridge?
- MPhil in History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine overview
- A typical day for an MPhil student
- MPhil in Health, Medicine and Society
- PhD in History and Philosophy of Science overview
- Part-time PhD
PhD placement record
- Funding for postgraduate students
- Student information overview
- Timetable overview
- Primary source seminars
- Research methods seminars
- Writing support seminars
- Dissertation seminars
- BBS Part II overview
- Early Medicine
- Modern Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
- Philosophy of Science and Medicine
- Ethics of Medicine
- Philosophy and Ethics of Medicine
- Part III and MPhil
- Single-paper options
- Part IB students' guide overview
- About the course
- Supervisions
- Libraries and readings
- Scheme of examination
- Part II students' guide overview
- Primary sources
- Dissertation
- Key dates and deadlines
- Advice overview
- Examination advice
- Learning strategies and exam skills
- Advice from students
- Part III students' guide overview
- Essays and dissertation
- Subject areas
- MPhil students' guide overview
- Essays and dissertation overview
- How to choose the topic of your essays and dissertation
- PhD students' guide overview
- Welcome to new PhDs
- Registration exercise and annual reviews
- Your supervisor and advisor
- Progress log
- Intermission and working away from Cambridge
- The PhD thesis
- Submitting your thesis
- Examination
- News and events overview
- Seminars and reading groups overview
- Departmental Seminars
- Coffee with Scientists
- Cabinet of Natural History overview
- Publications
History of Medicine
- Purpose and Progress in Science
- The Anthropocene
- Measurement Reading Group
- Teaching Global HPSTM
- Pragmatism Reading Group
- History of Science and Medicine in Southeast Asia
- Atmospheric Humanities Reading Group
- Science Fiction & HPS Reading Group
- Values in Science Reading Group
- Cambridge Reading Group on Reproduction
- HPS Workshop
- Postgraduate Seminars overview
- Images of Science
- Language Groups overview
- Latin Therapy overview
- Bibliography of Latin language resources
- Fun with Latin
- Archive overview
- Easter Term 2024
- Lent Term 2024
- Michaelmas Term 2023
- Easter Term 2023
- Lent Term 2023
- Michaelmas Term 2022
- Easter Term 2022
- Lent Term 2022
- Michaelmas Term 2021
- Easter Term 2021
- Lent Term 2021
- Michaelmas Term 2020
- Easter Term 2020
- Lent Term 2020
- Michaelmas Term 2019
- Easter Term 2019
- Lent Term 2019
- Michaelmas Term 2018
- Easter Term 2018
- Lent Term 2018
- Michaelmas Term 2017
- Easter Term 2017
- Lent Term 2017
- Michaelmas Term 2016
- Easter Term 2016
- Lent Term 2016
- Michaelmas Term 2015
- Postgraduate and postdoc training overview
- Induction sessions
- Academic skills and career development
- Print & Material Sources
- Other events and resources
Writing philosophy
- About the Department
- News and events
![how to start a philosophy essay Research guide](https://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/files/media/research-guide.png)
Peter Lipton
Style is the feather in the arrow, not the feather in the cap.
I. Awkwardness
Awkward writing makes the reader uncomfortable. It is ungrammatical, unclear, choppy, or just too difficult to follow. One case of awkward writing is not using your own words . Instead, you rely on the phrases and constructions of the author you are discussing. The resulting mixture of your author's style and your own is almost always awkward. Even if you are describing someone else's views, use your words. The most general and important cause of awkwardness, however, is simply the failure to revise . Most writers produce awkward sentences the first time around; good writers take the time to review their writing and know how to spot awkwardness and how to eliminate it. You should assume that the first draft of each sentence will have to be fixed up. Writing on a word processor may make the revision easier and less time-consuming. The best way to test for awkwardness is to read your draft aloud . Most people have a better ear than eye, and if it sounds good it will usually read well. If you do have any doubts about your ear, W. Strunk and E.B. White, The Elements of Style , London: Macmillan, 1979 (3rd ed.) is a good guide to awkwardness.
II. Empathy
Once you understand something, it is difficult to remember what it was like not to understand it; but you have to do this to get your point across. To write effectively you must put yourself in the reader's shoes . (Pretend that your reader is a friend not in the class rather than the teacher.) The reader cannot read your mind and she hasn't just spent five hours thinking about your topic. So she needs plenty of help. Don't just make your point, explain it. Give an example. Approach it from several angles. Above all, keep your writing concrete , even in as abstract a subject as philosophy, because abstract writing loses the reader. In addition to keeping your reader on board, empathy helps you to figure out what it will take to convince her that what you write is true. You already believe it yourself, but your reader needs an argument. Think of yourself as selling your point of view, or as defending yourself in front of a jury.
III. Choreography
An essay is not a list of sentences: it has structure . The structure should be obvious to the reader. Write informative introductions and conclusions. The introduction should not only introduce the topic, it should introduce your argument. That means that you should tell the reader what you are going to prove and how you are going to prove it. Unless the introduction gives the reader a clear map of the essay, she is likely to get lost. Be direct and specific. Replace sentences like 'Throughout the centuries, the greatest minds have pondered the intractable problem of free will' with 'In this essay, I will show that free will is impossible'. The conclusion of the essay should tell the reader what has been accomplished and why the struggle was worthwhile. It should remind the reader how the different moves in the body of the essay fit together to form a coherent argument.
Think of your essay as composed of a series of descriptive and argumentative moves. Each major move deserves a paragraph. Generally speaking, a paragraph should start with a transition sentence or a topic sentence. A transition sentence indicates how the paragraph follows from the previous one; a topic sentence says what the paragraph is about. Both types of sentences are really miniature maps . In the middle of a paragraph you may want to give another map, explaining how the move you are making here is connected to others you have made or will make. The order of your paragraphs is crucial. The reader should have a clear sense of development and progress as she reads. Later paragraphs should build on what has come before, and the reader should have a feeling of steady forward motion. To achieve this effect, you must make sure that your sentences hang together. Think about glue . You can get glue from maps, from transition sentences and words, and especially from the logic of your argument.
IV. Originality
There is room for originality even when you are out to give an accurate description of someone else's position. You can be original by using your own words, your own explanations, and your own examples. Of course in a critical essay there is much more scope for original work: most of the arguments should be your own. This worries some beginning philosophy students, who think they don't know how to come up with their own arguments. Do not deceive yourself: Plato did not use up all the good and easy moves, nor do you have to be a Plato to come up with original philosophy. It is difficult to teach creativity, but here are three techniques that may help. First, make distinctions . For example, instead of talking about knowledge in general, distinguish knowledge based on what others tell you from knowledge based on your own observation. Often, once you make a good distinction, you will see a fruitful and original line of argument. Second, consider comebacks . If you make an objection to one of Plato's arguments, do not suppose that he would immediately admit defeat. Instead, make a reply on his behalf: the resulting 'dialectic' will help you with your own arguments. Lastly, play the why game. As you learned as a child, whatever someone says, you can always ask why. Play that game with your own claims. By forcing yourself to answer a few of those 'why's' you will push your own creativity. The technique of the why game suggests a more general point. Often the problem is not lack of originality; it is rather that the originality is not exploited. When you have a good point, don't throw it away in one sentence. Make the most of it: explain it, extend it, give an example, and show connections. Push your own good ideas as deep as they will go.
Some online resources:
- Tackling the Philosophy Essay is a comprehensive guide to writing, produced by experienced supervisors from the Faculty of Philosophy.
- When you are ready to think about publishing there are many good guides online such as Publishing Advice for Graduate Students or Publishing Your Philosophy . But beware of publishing scams and consult your supervisor when in doubt.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy : High quality state-of-the-art articles with very useful bibliographies.
- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- PhilPapers is an open and comprehensive bibliography covering all areas of academic philosophy.
- Google Scholar : It's worth learning a little technique here, e.g. using quotation marks to get an exact match and using '+' and '-' to narrow the search. Once you have found a relevant article, clicking on the number of citations will give you all the articles that cite that article, plus the number of citations those articles have, which permits what can be a very productive regress.
- And for fun, AskPhilosophers
Email search
Privacy and cookie policies
Study History and Philosophy of Science
Undergraduate study
Postgraduate study
Library and Museum
Whipple Library
Whipple Museum
Museum Collections Portal
Research projects
Philosophy of Science
© 2024 University of Cambridge
- Contact the University
- Accessibility
- Freedom of information
- Privacy policy and cookies
- Statement on Modern Slavery
- Terms and conditions
- University A-Z
- Undergraduate
- Postgraduate
- Research news
- About research at Cambridge
- Spotlight on...
- Department of Philosophy
University | A to Z | Departments
- Current staff and students
- Current students
Writing Philosophy essays
- Current undergraduates
- Current research students
- Current taught MA and Graduate Diploma students
- Visiting students
- Elective Modules
- Current staff
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]
Legal statements | Privacy | Cookies | Accessibility © University of York | Modify | Direct Edit
- EXPLORE Random Article
- Happiness Hub
How to Write a Philosophy Paper (for Beginners)
Last Updated: May 6, 2021 References
This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Amy Bobinger . Amy Bobinger has been a writer and editor at wikiHow since 2017. She especially enjoys writing articles that help people overcome interpersonal hurdles but frequently covers a variety of subjects, including health and wellness, spirituality, gardening, and more. Amy graduated with a B.A. in English Lit from Mississippi College in 2011 and now lives in her hometown with her husband and two young sons. There are 7 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 93,408 times.
Writing a philosophy paper is different from writing other papers. Instead of simply summarizing ideas or information, in a philosophy paper you must present and defend an argument. To write a strong philosophy paper, start by outlining your paper. Support your argument with multiple points of view and relevant context, present your argument clearly, and anticipate objections others might bring up. Polish your paper and proofread before you turn it in!
Creating an Outline
![how to start a philosophy essay Step 1 Find reliable, relevant sources, and read them carefully.](https://www.wikihow.com/images/thumb/1/14/Write-a-Philosophy-Paper-%28for-Beginners%29-Step-1-Version-3.jpg/v4-460px-Write-a-Philosophy-Paper-%28for-Beginners%29-Step-1-Version-3.jpg)
- When using the internet, be sure to only use scholarly articles. Ask your instructor if your school offers access to an academic search engine like JSTOR or LexisNexis. Avoid blogs or websites which are crowdsourced, as they may contain inaccuracies.
- When you're doing your research, look for references to other scholars or experts. What do they have to say about the subject? The more points of view you find, the stronger your own paper will be. [1] X Research source
![how to start a philosophy essay Step 2 Make thorough notes as you read.](https://www.wikihow.com/images/thumb/3/37/Write-a-Philosophy-Paper-%28for-Beginners%29-Step-2-Version-2.jpg/v4-460px-Write-a-Philosophy-Paper-%28for-Beginners%29-Step-2-Version-2.jpg)
- A thesis may change several times during the research process. That's fine, as long as you can fully support your position in the final paper.
- Some examples of a strong thesis include: "It is immoral to deny oneself anything which brings happiness, even at the expense of others,” "Mercy has more value than justice,” or "Humans have a soul which exists both before and after death.”
![how to start a philosophy essay Step 4 Organize your notes into a rough outline.](https://www.wikihow.com/images/thumb/3/39/Write-a-Philosophy-Paper-%28for-Beginners%29-Step-4-Version-2.jpg/v4-460px-Write-a-Philosophy-Paper-%28for-Beginners%29-Step-4-Version-2.jpg)
Making Your Argument
![how to start a philosophy essay Step 1 Clearly state the thesis early in the paper.](https://www.wikihow.com/images/thumb/2/2c/Write-a-Philosophy-Paper-%28for-Beginners%29-Step-6-Version-2.jpg/v4-460px-Write-a-Philosophy-Paper-%28for-Beginners%29-Step-6-Version-2.jpg)
- Occasionally, some papers will present all of the arguments first and state the thesis at the end, but this is not recommended for college-level papers.
- If your thesis is “Mercy has more value than justice,” you could follow that with a motivating statement such as: “In a system rules purely by justice, there is no room for humanity. A mother who steals a loaf of bread for her starving child would be treated as harshly as a person who shoplifts for a thrill. Although both should face consequences, mercy would dictate that the mother be given a lesser penalty than the shoplifter.”
![how to start a philosophy essay Step 2 Define technical or ambiguous terms.](https://www.wikihow.com/images/thumb/a/a0/Write-a-Philosophy-Paper-%28for-Beginners%29-Step-7-Version-2.jpg/v4-460px-Write-a-Philosophy-Paper-%28for-Beginners%29-Step-7-Version-2.jpg)
- In the case of the paper on mercy vs justice, you would keep coming back to your position that mercy has more value than justice no matter how many objections you address. There will certainly be situations where justice must be implemented and a merciful approach is not appropriate. You can acknowledge that, because your argument is not that justice is never necessary, but that the quality of mercy has more intrinsic value than retributive justice.
![how to start a philosophy essay Step 5 Anticipate and answer questions.](https://www.wikihow.com/images/thumb/b/be/Write-a-Philosophy-Paper-%28for-Beginners%29-Step-10-Version-2.jpg/v4-460px-Write-a-Philosophy-Paper-%28for-Beginners%29-Step-10-Version-2.jpg)
- Some questions your readers might have could include: “How do you define the terms 'mercy' and 'justice'?”, “Does an emphasis on mercy only apply to everyday situations or does it extend to the justice system?”, or “In what situations would you choose justice over mercy?”
![how to start a philosophy essay Step 6 Use examples and analogies to support your point.](https://www.wikihow.com/images/thumb/6/60/Write-a-Philosophy-Paper-%28for-Beginners%29-Step-11-Version-2.jpg/v4-460px-Write-a-Philosophy-Paper-%28for-Beginners%29-Step-11-Version-2.jpg)
- An analogy demonstrating the value of mercy might be that of a mother who forgives her child when the child has misbehaved, not because the child is blameless but because the mother loves the child and believes the child is remorseful and will do better next time.
Anticipating Objections
![how to start a philosophy essay Step 1 Anticipate objections to your arguments.](https://www.wikihow.com/images/thumb/7/7b/Write-a-Philosophy-Paper-%28for-Beginners%29-Step-12.jpg/v4-460px-Write-a-Philosophy-Paper-%28for-Beginners%29-Step-12.jpg)
- Imagine that you are having a rational argument with an educated person who disagrees with you. What might that person say to each of the points that you make?
- A counter to your thesis that “Mercy has more value than justice” might be that a serial killer who preyed on children does not deserve mercy.
![how to start a philosophy essay Step 2 Respond to each counter-objection.](https://www.wikihow.com/images/thumb/d/d8/Write-a-Philosophy-Paper-%28for-Beginners%29-Step-13.jpg/v4-460px-Write-a-Philosophy-Paper-%28for-Beginners%29-Step-13.jpg)
- One response to the counter about the serial killer could be that by serving the serial killer with a just sentence, you are showing mercy to the family and friends of his victims.
![how to start a philosophy essay Step 3 Do not ignore any obvious criticisms against your thesis.](https://www.wikihow.com/images/thumb/5/55/Write-a-Philosophy-Paper-%28for-Beginners%29-Step-14.jpg/v4-460px-Write-a-Philosophy-Paper-%28for-Beginners%29-Step-14.jpg)
- After addressing the counter about the serial killer, follow up with a strong argument in defense of a merciful approach. Use specific examples, such as a case of a reformed criminal who changed his ways, was pardoned from prison, and went on to do great things.
- Another example could be the Biblical story of Moses and the Egyptians - God showed mercy to Moses and the Hebrews by freeing them from slavery. This resulted in punishment for the Egyptians who were holding the Hebrews captive.
Polishing the Piece
![how to start a philosophy essay Step 1 Be consistent in your language.](https://www.wikihow.com/images/thumb/4/4d/Write-a-Philosophy-Paper-%28for-Beginners%29-Step-16.jpg/v4-460px-Write-a-Philosophy-Paper-%28for-Beginners%29-Step-16.jpg)
Community Q&A
![how to start a philosophy essay Community Answer](https://www.wikihow.life/images/thumb/0/0a/CommunityAvatar1.png/-crop-104-104-104px-CommunityAvatar1.png)
- Leave out your personal feelings. Use reason and logic to defend against counter-objections. Avoid emotional appeals or autobiographical reasons for your beliefs, which often seem like a last resort for a weak argument. [15] X Research source
- Avoid direct quotes. Instead, use the information in the quote to strengthen your claims. Long blocks of direct quotes are often seen as lazy writing and might affect your grade.
- Sacrifice stylistic/poetic writing for the sake of clarity.
- Citing your sources will be much easier if you do it as you go.
You Might Also Like
![how to start a philosophy essay Fry Chicken Livers](https://www.wikihow.com/images/thumb/8/8b/Fry-Chicken-Livers-Step-11.jpg/-crop-342-184-245px-Fry-Chicken-Livers-Step-11.jpg)
- ↑ https://philosophy.fas.harvard.edu/files/phildept/files/brief_guide_to_writing_philosophy_paper.pdf
- ↑ http://sites.sandiego.edu/mzwolinski/files/2015/04/Advice-on-Writing-a-Philosophical-Paper-22-Aug-16.pdf
- ↑ http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Epistemology_Context.html
- ↑ http://www.mit.edu/~yablo/writing.html
- ↑ http://www.sfu.ca/philosophy/resources/writing.html
- ↑ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/
- ↑ http://faculty.georgetown.edu/blattnew/tips.htm
About this article
![how to start a philosophy essay Amy Bobinger](https://www.wikihow.life/images/thumb/c/c3/Amy_Bobinger.png/-crop-100-100-90px-Amy_Bobinger.png)
Did this article help you?
![how to start a philosophy essay Fry Chicken Livers](https://www.wikihow.com/images/thumb/8/8b/Fry-Chicken-Livers-Step-11.jpg/-crop-127-140-127px-Fry-Chicken-Livers-Step-11.jpg)
- About wikiHow
- Terms of Use
- Privacy Policy
- Do Not Sell or Share My Info
- Not Selling Info
The Dynamics of Ancient Greek Government: a Historical Perspective
This essay is about the various forms of government in ancient Greece and their impact on modern political systems. It explores Athenian democracy, where citizens directly participated in decision-making, and contrasts it with Sparta’s mixed government, which combined monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy. It also discusses other city-states that experimented with oligarchies and tyrannies. The political landscape was dynamic, constantly evolving due to conflicts and internal strife, ultimately leading to Macedonian dominance. The essay highlights the lasting influence of Greek political ideas, particularly democracy, on contemporary governance. Understanding these ancient systems provides insights into the complexities of political power and governance.
How it works
Ancient Greece isn’t just about fancy art and deep thoughts—it’s also where some of today’s political ideas got their start. Greeks weren’t just building statues and debating philosophy; they were figuring out how to run things, and their government game was next-level.
Let’s start with Athens, the star of the democracy show. Back in the 5th century BCE, folks like Cleisthenes and Pericles cooked up a direct democracy where regular Joes—well, regular dudes, since women, slaves, and non-citizens were left out—got to vote and yap about laws right in the Assembly (Ekklesia).
No elected reps here; it was citizens running the show. They even had a Council of 500 (Boule) to set the agenda and random folks picked to do government gigs, proving Athens thought anyone could do the job.
Sparta, though, took a different route with its mix-and-match government. They had not one, but two kings, who handled military stuff and religion. Then came the Gerousia, a group of old-timers who advised the kings and acted like a fancy court. But don’t forget the Apella, a gang of male citizens who gave the thumbs up—or down—to the Gerousia’s decisions. Real power, though, often sat with the five Ephors, picked each year, who watched over the kings and could even kick them out. It was all about keeping things steady and not letting one crew get too powerful.
Besides Athens and Sparta, other Greek cities were trying out their own government recipes. Oligarchy, where a few rich folks held the reins, was popular in places like Corinth, where the elite ran the show. Then there were the tyrants, not like the mean bosses we think of today, but rulers like Pisistratus and Polycrates who grabbed power in unconventional ways and actually did some good stuff, despite the bad rep.
Greek politics wasn’t a snooze; it was a wild ride of changes and experiments. Wars, both between cities and inside them, shook things up big time. Take the Peloponnesian War—Athens versus Sparta—which rocked the boat and sent city-states scrambling for new ways to govern. After that mess, Macedonian bigwigs like Philip II and his son, Alexander the Great, took charge, mixing Greek ideas with others to make the Hellenistic period.
Greek government wasn’t just history; it was the blueprint for how we do things now. Athens’ direct democracy, where citizens call the shots, has been a hit with politicos ever since. Sparta’s mixed bag of kings, councils, and elected watchers shaped how later republics balanced power.
So, when we talk ancient Greek government, we’re not just chatting about old-time politics. We’re diving into a world where ideas shaped nations, and where figuring out who runs what is still a big deal today.
![how to start a philosophy essay owl](https://papersowl.com/examples/wp-content/themes/papersowl/assets/img/paperowl-s.png)
Cite this page
The Dynamics of Ancient Greek Government: A Historical Perspective. (2024, Jul 21). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/the-dynamics-of-ancient-greek-government-a-historical-perspective/
"The Dynamics of Ancient Greek Government: A Historical Perspective." PapersOwl.com , 21 Jul 2024, https://papersowl.com/examples/the-dynamics-of-ancient-greek-government-a-historical-perspective/
PapersOwl.com. (2024). The Dynamics of Ancient Greek Government: A Historical Perspective . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-dynamics-of-ancient-greek-government-a-historical-perspective/ [Accessed: 25 Jul. 2024]
"The Dynamics of Ancient Greek Government: A Historical Perspective." PapersOwl.com, Jul 21, 2024. Accessed July 25, 2024. https://papersowl.com/examples/the-dynamics-of-ancient-greek-government-a-historical-perspective/
"The Dynamics of Ancient Greek Government: A Historical Perspective," PapersOwl.com , 21-Jul-2024. [Online]. Available: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-dynamics-of-ancient-greek-government-a-historical-perspective/. [Accessed: 25-Jul-2024]
PapersOwl.com. (2024). The Dynamics of Ancient Greek Government: A Historical Perspective . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-dynamics-of-ancient-greek-government-a-historical-perspective/ [Accessed: 25-Jul-2024]
Don't let plagiarism ruin your grade
Hire a writer to get a unique paper crafted to your needs.
![image owl](https://papersowl.com/examples/wp-content/uploads/cache/thumb/3b/f5fc338141cf43b_350x350.png)
Our writers will help you fix any mistakes and get an A+!
Please check your inbox.
You can order an original essay written according to your instructions.
Trusted by over 1 million students worldwide
1. Tell Us Your Requirements
2. Pick your perfect writer
3. Get Your Paper and Pay
Hi! I'm Amy, your personal assistant!
Don't know where to start? Give me your paper requirements and I connect you to an academic expert.
short deadlines
100% Plagiarism-Free
Certified writers
Advertisement
Amid the Mayhem, Trump Pumped His Fist and Revealed His Instincts
A bloodied Donald J. Trump made Secret Service agents wait while he expressed his defiance. The moment epitomized his visceral connection with his supporters, and his mastery of the modern media age.
- Share full article
![how to start a philosophy essay Donald Trump raising his fist as he is surrounded by Secret Service agents, his face visibly bloodied.](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2024/07/13/multimedia/pol-scene-1-hqgz/pol-scene-1-hqgz-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale)
By Shawn McCreesh
- July 13, 2024
Donald J. Trump was back on his feet. He had just been shot at, his white shirt was undone and his red hat was no longer on his head. Blood streaked across his face as riflemen patrolled the perimeter of the stage. A pack of Secret Service agents pressed their bodies against his. “We’ve got to move, we’ve got to move,” one pleaded.
“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” the former president instructed, his voice a harried — but startlingly clear — command. Reluctantly, they halted. He peered out into the crowd.
And then his arm reached toward the sky, and he began punching the air.
The crowd started to chant — “ U-S-A! U-S-A! ” — as the agents inched Mr. Trump toward the stairs. When they reached the top step, they paused once more, so Mr. Trump could lift his arm a little higher, and pump his fist a little faster. The crowd roared a little louder.
It’s difficult to imagine a moment that more fully epitomizes Mr. Trump’s visceral connection with his supporters, and his mastery of the modern media age.
Mr. Trump would not leave the stage without signaling to his fans that he was OK — even as some were still wailing in fear. And he did not just wave or nod, he raised his fist in defiance above his bloodied face — making an image history will not forget.
He has always been highly conscious of how he looks in big moments, practicing his Clint Eastwood squint and preparing for his mean mug-shot grimace. But there was no time to prepare for this.
This was instinct.
As the agents coaxed him onto his feet, he stammered, “Let me get my shoes on, let me get my shoes on.”
“I got you, sir, I got you, sir,” an agent replied. Mr. Trump rose, his voice uneven at first, still repeating himself: “Let me get my shoes on.”
“Hold that on your head,” an agent told him, “it’s bloody.”
“Sir, we’ve got to move to the cars,” another said.
“Let me get my shoes on,” Mr. Trump said again.
Fierce one moment, he looked drained and stricken the next.
After the agents managed to hustle him off the stage, they led him toward an idling Chevrolet Suburban. He began to clamber inside, but before the door could close, he turned back toward the crowd again. His head appeared more blood-soaked than before. He raised his fist one more time.
![](http://serviteca.online/777/templates/cheerup2/res/banner1.gif)
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
n philosophical writing:Avoid direct quotes. If you need to quote, quote sparingly, and follow your quotes by expla. ning what the author means in your own words. (There are times when brief direct quotes can be helpful, for example when you want to present and interpret a potential amb.
RCES303234CONTACT THE AUTHORS35From the AuthorsThis guide began as a collection of supplementary mater. al for a one-off workshop on essay-writing in philosophy. It is now presented to you as a han. book for students on the basics of philosophical writing. As supervisors ourselves, the four of us began the project out of a desire to offer extra ...
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.
This short book, written by recent Cambridge PhD students, is designed to introduce students to the process of writing an essay in philosophy. Containing many annotated examples, this guide demonstrates some of the Do's and Don'ts of essay writing, with particular attention paid to the early stages of the writing process (including the creation ...
A philosophy paper consists of the reasoned defense of some claim. Your paper must offer an argument. It can't consist in the mere report of your opinions, nor in a mere report of the opinions of the philosophers we discuss. You have to defend the claims you make. You have to offer reasons to believe them.
The first thing you should do is this: think. You should do a lot of thinking before you try to write anything. You need to think about the topic. You need to think about the particular issue you will be writing on. You need to think about the specific assignment (if there is one). You need to think about your views.
Tackling the Philosophy Essay Guide (Word version) 09 Plagiarism 2018revJuly18. Student Feedback & Support. Student Feedback & Support overview. Student Representation & Student-Staff Committee. Philosophy Student-Staff Committee Meeting Minutes. SSC minutes 1May18. Final SSCMinutes 30Oct18.
Generally speaking, the aim of every philosophy paper is to defend some thesis by setting out reasons in favor of it. This statement is too general to be of much use. But it can be of some use. For example, topics are not theses. A topic is a broad area of concern. The nature of time is a topic. Hume on induction is a topic. They are not theses.
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.
Summary—summarize your main position in response to the topic. step 3: structure your essay. The next step is to decide on a clear structure for your essay. If your essay has a clear and logical structure, your reader or judges will follow your argument more easily and reduce the chances that you will confuse them.
A philosophy paper consists of the reasoned defense of some claim. Your paper must offer an argument. It can't consist in the mere report of your opinions, nor in a mere report of the opinions of the philosophers we discuss. You have to defend the claims you make. You have to offer reasons to believe them.
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 and only then, start writing an introduction and conclusion to your paper. It takes time to write philosophy essays Writing philosophical essays requires careful and extended reflections on philosophical problems. One should give herself enough time to contemplate on the topic and prepare a detailed outline.
1. Planning. Typically, your purpose in writing an essay will be to argue for a certain thesis, i.e., to support a conclusion about a philosophical claim, argument, or theory.[4] You may also be asked to carefully explain someone else's essay or argument.[5] To begin, select a topic. Most instructors will be happy to discuss your topic with ...
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.
Generally speaking, the aim of every philosophy paper is to defend some thesis by setting out reasons in favor of it. !is statement is too general to be of much use. But it can be of some use. For example, topics are not theses. A topic is a broad area of concern. !e nature of time is a topic. Hume on induc-tion is a topic. !ey are not theses.
It should remind the reader how the different moves in the body of the essay fit together to form a coherent argument. Think of your essay as composed of a series of descriptive and argumentative moves. Each major move deserves a paragraph. Generally speaking, a paragraph should start with a transition sentence or a topic sentence.
philosophy - every word matters. Philosophical writing consists primarily of arguments in support of a major conclusion. You always want to keep in mind that the aim of any philosophy you are reading is to rationally convince you to accept the main conclusion of the essay, book, etc. You are reading an attempt to persuade you of a conclusion. This
This series covers the basics of how to write a philosophy paper, including the basic structure, how to summarize an argument, and how to write objections.Sp...
Structure Structure. 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.
Making Your Argument. 1. Clearly state the thesis early in the paper. This is the central theme of the whole paper, so include it in the first or second paragraph. After you state your thesis, tell the reader why they should care about the points you are making, and explain the arguments you are critiquing.
How to conceive of and write your paper. Answer the question, the whole question, and nothing but the question. First, address the question that is asked. (This again points to the need to understand what the question is asking.) Second, be sure that your answer is complete. If the question has different parts, be sure that you have addressed ...
To sum up, a good introduction should: (1) be concise, (2) contain a clear statement of your thesis, (3) introduce, very succinctly, your topic and explain why it is important, (4) indicate, very briefly, what the main line of argument will be, and (5) map out the overall structure of your paper.
Essay Example: Ancient Greece isn't just about fancy art and deep thoughts—it's also where some of today's political ideas got their start. Greeks weren't just building statues and debating philosophy; they were figuring out how to run things, and their government game was next-level.
"Let me get my shoes on," Mr. Trump said again. Fierce one moment, he looked drained and stricken the next. After the agents managed to hustle him off the stage, they led him toward an idling ...