OhioLINK History of Philosophy Website
Professor Deborah Smith
There are, roughly, four kinds of philosophical paper: Critical papers--papers which focus on a particular argument or view and provide a critical analysis of the strength of the argument or the coherence of or support for the view. Comparative papers-- papers which compare two or more competing views and evaluate the relative strengths and weakness of the views. Interpretive papers-- papers which focus on an argument or view and try to figure out how best to interpret it or what motivated the philosopher to use such an argument or hold such a view. Theory advancing papers-- papers which make a wonderfully original and important contribution to some area of philosophy.
Long papers, such as master's theses, and books will often exhibit aspects of more than one of these approaches to a philosophical topic. In writing a shorter paper for a class (say, one that is less than 30 pages), it is best to choose just one of these approaches and do it well. Very few professional philosophers (let alone undergraduate philosophy majors) are creative (and lucky) enough to make a wholly original and important contribution to philosophy. So, it is unlikely that you would every be asked to write a theory advancing paper in a class. In this class you will have an opportunity to write one of each of the first three kinds of philosophical paper. Your first paper will be a critical paper.
The basic elements of a critical philosophy paper:
In most cases, a critical paper assignment will indicate a particular argument or view and ask you to provide a critical analysis of it. (For your first Macro writing assignment, I have provided a short list of topics concerning various aspects of Locke's view for you to choose from.) Although your paper should read like a single coherent essay, there are three essential elements involved in writing such a critical analysis:
1) In your own words and with a minimum of quotations, explicate the target argument or view. This explication should make the relevant aspects of the view clear to a reader who is not already familiar with the view. As was mentioned in the second micro assignment, this explication of the view or argument is essential if your reader is to have any idea what the view is that you are criticizing. On a somewhat different note, this aspect of the paper will allow you to practice expressing your grasp of a given philosophical problem or view in the way in which you will need to for the final exam. Note that you haven't demonstrated an understanding of a given passage, view, or argument if you have relied too heavily on quotations or if you have merely gone through a passage in the original source replacing synonym for synonym while otherwise borrowing your basic sentence construction directly from the passage.
2) As clearly and concisely as possible explain for the reader what you take to be the strongest objection to the view or argument sketched above. This may be an objection that you have seen discussed in the secondary literature, or that we discussed in class, or one that you have come up with on your own. In either or the first two cases, give credit to the philosopher who's objection you borrow. In the latter case, make it plain that the objection is one that originates with you. Be aware that if you use your own objection, you will get some points for originality, but that there is a danger that the objection will not be nearly as strong as another objection which was discussed in class. This may cost you some points. It is probably wise to discuss an original objection with me before writing your paper. On the other hand, while using an objection discussed in the secondary literature or in lecture is safer (the objection is guaranteed to be fairly strong), you will need to spell out the objection clearly and correctly to get full credit on this section. Occasionally, the paper topic will specify which objection you are to concentrate on.
In any case, make sure that you spell out the objection in detail and state clearly what aspects of the view or argument are brought into question by the objection. Perhaps one of the premises of the argument is arguably false or inconsistent with other assumptions made by a proponent of the argument. Perhaps the conclusion does not follow from the premises, or the argument begs the question. Perhaps the view is inconsistent with things that we intuitively believe to be true, or there are counter-examples to the view. These are just some of the many kinds of objections that can be leveled against a view or argument. Avoid raising more than one objection in a short paper (say less than five pages). Often when more than one objection is raised in a short paper, none gets spelled out in enough detail to be clear.
3) As clearly and concisely as possible consider various ways that a proponent of the argument or view might respond to the objection you have raised and evaluate the success of such a response. Can the proponent provide an argument in support of a questionable premise? If his or her argument is weak, are there other good arguments that support his or her conclusion? Can he or she subtly modify the view to avoid an inconsistency with either other aspects of his view or any of our common-sense intuitions? Are the alleged counter-examples really decisive? You only want to consider the strongest response that a proponent of the view could make. After you have set out the proposed response, you need to consider whether or not the proposed response works and explain why or why not. That is, you need to critically evaluate the adequacy of the proposed response. Make it clear to the reader not only that the response succeeds or fails, but also why the response succeeds or fails.
General hints for writing a philosophy paper: (Most of these hints apply to all four kinds of philosophical paper.)
1) Avoiding padding your paper with unnecessary fluff such as sentences that begin, 'Since the dawn of time philosophers have wondered....' Strive for concise, formal prose. However, it is often a good idea to provide an example or two to illustrate a concept or clarify a distinction that you have introduced.
2) The scope of a critical philosophy paper should be quite narrow. You want to focus on a single aspect of or argument for the view in question and raise a single, philosophically interesting problem for that aspect of or argument for the view. In the third part of your paper you will look at this single objection in a fair amount of detail--detail, not scope, is the key to writing a good critical philosophical paper.
3) When you write your paper, pretend that you are writing it for an audience that has not read any of the material for this class. Better yet, have someone who is not taking the class read your paper and see if he or she can understand it. Too often, students fail to include relevant details in their philosophical writing because they take it for granted that the reader (usually the instructor) knows the material that they are addressing. As a result, the paper commonly cannot stand on its own. Further, this kind of mistake can be fatal when it occurs in the context of an exam. While the instructor will (or should) know the relevant material, the only way he or she has of determining that the student knows the relevant material is if the student has included it in sufficient detail in his or her explication.
4) Remember that whenever you quote or paraphrase a philosopher (or me) or attribute to a philosopher a particular claim or view, you will want to cite the page of the work wherein a reader will find the philosopher making such a claim. Quoting or paraphrasing a philosopher (or anyone) without attributing the point to that person constitutes plagiarism. Please be advised that an instructor is not obliged to give you a grade on any work that is the result of cheating or plagiarism.
5) Write a rough draft of the paper several days before it is due. Put it aside for 24 hours and then reread it. Does it still make sense to you? Often reading your paper out loud will help you to identify awkward sentence constructions and ungrammatical sentences. Write a new draft correcting for any problems that you have identified. Make sure to spell check your final draft. Finally, before you print it out, reread the paper to make sure that there are no errors that have been caused by your editing or that have been missed by the spell checker.
The assignment:
In a paper of between five and ten pages (length is less important than content) which exhibits the style and format discussed in Micro 1 and the basic structure of a critical paper discussed above, address one of the following sets of questions. This paper is due in class on Monday, September 29th.
a. What is an innate idea? What is Locke's best argument for thinking that there aren't any innate ideas. What is the strongest response a proponent of innate ideas could make to Locke? What, if anything can Locke say in defense of his rejection of innate ideas? How adequate is Locke's response?
b. What is the distinction that Locke draws between primary and secondary qualities? What is Locke's best argument for thinking that such a distinction needs to be made? What is the strongest argument for thinking that no such distinction can be maintained? What if anything can Locke say in defense of his distinction? How adequate is Locke's response?
c. What is the distinction that Locke makes between nominal and real essence? What is Locke's best argument for thinking that real essence is unknowable? (Note that this might be an argument for the conclusion that real essence does not exist at all, but it need not be.) What is the strongest argument for thinking that knowledge of real essence is possible or perhaps even that we do in fact know something about the real essence of various types of substance? What, if anything can Locke say in defense of his skepticism concerning knowledge of real essence? How adequate is Locke's defense?
d. What is Locke's theory of personal identity? (Note, it might be useful to contrast it with one or more competing views of personal identity discussed by Locke.) What is Locke's strongest argument in favor of his theory of personal identity? What is the strongest objection to Locke's theory of personal identity? What if anything can Locke say in response to this objection? How adequate is Locke's response?
This page is part of the OhioLINK History of Philosophy Instructional Website designed and developed by the Department of Philosophy at Kent State University. We are interested in any comments you may have concerning this Macro Writing Exercise. Send e-mail to the KSU Department of Philosophy Instructional Website Development Team or directly to Professor Deborah Smith, who designed this exercise.
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