Writing a philosophy paper – whether for
university study or for publication – requires
studious attention to detail. But if you like
argument, it can be enjoyable and fun. Here are
some suggestions to guide your efforts when
compiling a philosophy paper.
!! Steps !!
Choose a topic or question. If you're an undergraduate, you may find
that the question will be set, or you may have to pick from a set of
questions. If you're doing higher level work, you'll need to pick a
topic which may then be formed into a question.
* If you're having difficulty choosing which questions to answer in
an exam or homework situation, for each question, ask yourself the
question "how difficult would it be for me to answer this
question?", and choose a number between zero and five. Put the
number next to the questions on the exam paper or homework sheet
and then choose the highest ranked questions.
Work out how to answer the actual question. Too many people fail in
academic situations because they don't answer the question on the
page. The question is set specifically to get you to think in a
certain way, not so you can spot a name or theory you know and just
write out everything you know about that person or idea. In an exam
or homework type situation, you need to answer the question that has
actually been set, not the question you wish had been set - the two
are often quite different.
* Many questions will start with a quote followed simply by the word
"Discuss." There are two possible things you need to do here:
firstly, it may be asking you to discuss the quote because it
explains a vague idea that needs explicating. In this case, your
first task is interpretative. Work out what the quote is trying to
say. It may not require any explication though – often such
questions are just a way of prompting you into having to make
reference to the person who made the quote, in which case you
should discuss what the philosopher means by the quote.
Regardless, you should then go onto discuss whether the sentiment
expressed is something the reader should agree to, and provide
reasons why you should and should not agree with the idea
expressed.
* Understand that question setters will sometimes use indirect
language. This is a way to see if you've understood the subject
matter as a whole. In the 2009 undergraduate final paper for Logic
and Metaphysics from the University of London, one of the
questions was "Could there be unicorns?". This is not a question
about unicorns. It is a question about the metaphysics of
necessity and possibility, of possible worlds and so on. If you
start talking about unicorns in depth, you're on the wrong track.
These aren't so much trick questions as they are questions
designed to test whether you're knowledgeable about a range of
different issues in the subject.
Argue coherently. A philosophy paper requires careful argument.
Don't commit logical fallacies, and don't just state your opinion.
Your opinion, if provided, needs to be carefully argued.
* The position you take in your paper need not be your opinion in
the sense that it is the sort of thing you might say if someone
said "well, what do you think about _x_?" But you do need to show
that you've thought about the various theories that have been
proposed. You may not come to a solid conclusion. Take the
existence of God: you may be agnostic, or you may be an atheist or
a theist. Your overall opinion is generally not what is being
asked for in a paper – your professor shouldn't care what
position you take overall – but you will be asked to say whether
some particular argument holds up. Whether you believe God exists
or not (or if you are agnostic), if you are asked whether the
ontological argument for the existence of God works or not, you
should ideally be able to answer that question separately from
your personal beliefs. It is perfectly possible to believe in God
but to think the arguments put forward by philosophers fail. It is
also perfectly possible to be an atheist or an agnostic and to see
merit in arguments for God's existence, or to see problems in
arguments for God's nonexistence.
* Know where philosophy ends. You are writing a philosophy paper,
not a scientific paper or a theological paper. It isn't the right
place to question the empirical findings of science or the
understanding of the Bible by religious believers or whatnot. Try
and ensure your paper is consistent with the best evidence we have
from empirical science. Your philosophy of science paper is not
the appropriate place to try and show why Einstein was wrong. On
the other hand, you can use a philosophy paper to try and imagine
other scenarios – if the universe were different, if human
beings had a different nature. In fact, imagining what things
would be like if things were a little bit different than they
currently are is an important part of philosophy: thought
experiments and counterfactuals. Also, sometimes even very
well-known philosophers can get the science wrong. There is
nothing at all wrong with pointing this out!
* Spot what crank writing looks like. These are easy to find on the
Internet, for example, look up 'Time Cube'. Don't be that guy!
Structure your arguments. The standard advice given to people
writing essays is to "make sure it has a beginning, a middle and an
end". This is not the most helpful of advice: your essay will have a
beginning and an end by default as it is of finite length. Rather,
it is more important that the work is easy to read, coherent and
well-structured.#* Learn to write clearly
* Know why everything you put into an essay is there. Quotes,
footnotes, structuring of paragraphs and so on: for every thing
you put into your writing, it should be there to serve the purpose
of explaining your thoughts. Don't just include a quote to show
off or to 'seem clever': the professor the examiner will see
through this.
* In some fields, use of jargon is encouraged. Philosophy is not one
of these fields. Jargon needs to be carefully managed and used
with caution. It is easy to spot the difference between an essay
that has thrown in jargon to make up for a lack of content and a
good essay. If you don't understand some technical term, don't use
it. Complicated arguments are much easier to follow if they use
plain language. It will be other philosophers who read and mark
your work, and philosophers much prefer well-explained arguments
to obscurantism and jargon. Try and write with clarity: read the
many guides to writing well, whether that is Strunk and White's
"The Elements of Style" or George Orwell's "Politics and the
English Language".
* If your argument is sufficiently complex, consider reformulating
it in mathematical notation. Note the first word of that sentence:
_if_. Chances are, at an undergraduate level, you will probably
not be constructing arguments that are complex enough to benefit
from using such a syntax. As with jargon, use only when necessary.
Restating a bad argument in mathematical symbols does not
magically make it a good argument.
Reference properly. Try and back up every non-trivial assertion with
reference to the relevant literature.
* In an exam situation, this isn't easy to do. You can't give exact
quotes and page numbers and the rest. But if you can remember
which book it comes from, it will do you no harm to add something
like "as Gadamer said in Truth and Method" or "Such a doctrine was
expressed in the Summa Theologica", either parenthetically, as a
separate sentence or as an extra clause in a (hopefully relatively
simple) sentence.
* In a non-exam situation, be sure to reference every direct quote,
every non-trivial paraphrase and any attribution of a position.
Some Ph.D supervisors have been known to give a trial by fire to
new candidates by requiring them to find twenty or more references
to back up assertions of the sort "many philosophers have held the
position X".
* Use whatever attribution system is specified by your university or
lecturer. If you're unsure, _ask_. The two main ones in use are
numerical footnote references and Harvard-style references.
Numerical footnotes simply add a footnote with a citation while
Harvard references are done inline using the name and year of the
author like (Smith, 1992), which can then be looked up in a
bibliography at the end of the article or book.
* Don't reference secondary material when you could reference
primary. If you're writing an essay on John Stuart Mill, quote
Mill, not a modern day commentator. By all means read the
secondary material, and use the secondary material if you need to
adjudicate on some matter of interpretation – namely, "Mill says
X, but scholars have differed on what he means. Smith has said X
implies Y and Z, but Jones has said X implies A and B. Here's why
I agree with Smith:", etc.
* Be sure to check up on translations. Some translations are
out-of-date, especially free translations that are available on
the Internet. If you're unsure what to use, ask your professor,
check academic reading lists or ask a specialist librarian.
* Don't cite Wikipedia or other general encyclopedias. If you're
writing at university level, you shouldn't be relying on what
either Wikipedia says or what other general encyclopedias say,
whether printed or online. Wikipedia and other encyclopedias are
good places to start reading, but you shouldn't be quoting or
citing them in essays: you should be quoting the original sources,
books and journal articles on the topic. The only appropriate
place to cite Wikipedia in a university essay is an essay on
Wikipedia, wikis, online culture or other such topics. Not
philosophy.
* Consider using software to keep track of your sources, footnotes
and references. Applications like EndNote, Zotero and Mendeley are
popular ways of keeping track of references and producing
scholarly work with less hassle. Many in philosophy – especially
the more logical end of philosophy – also use LaTeX, BibTeX
and/or LyX. It is quite complicated and requires some study, but
is a powerful way to produce academic work. If you're considering
studying beyond undergraduate, it may be worth using LaTeX or LyX
to format your work.
* Enjoy the study. Philosophy is one of the few disciplines where
you have a lot of freedom to think creatively, but are still bound
by logic. If you accept the constraints of having to be logical
and rational, you can have a lot of fun exploring ideas and
producing interesting and engaging arguments without having to
resort to obscurantism. Philosophy is challenging, and writing
philosophy papers can often make you angry and frustrated at
trying to solidly express very abstract ideas that one often
struggles to get a handle on. But if you can handle this, you
might find joining the great philosophical conversation that has
been going since Plato through exploring and expressing your own
ideas to be one of the most satisfying things you can do.
!! Things You\'ll Need !!
* Reference materials, both primary and secondary
!! Related WikiHows !!
* How to Express Your Feelings on Philosophy
* How to Become a Western Philosophy Guru
* How to Become a Philosopher
* How to Form a Philosophy
* How to Understand Existentialist Philosophy
!! Article Tools !!
* Read on wikiHow
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