Essay Expectations

Philosophy Essay Expectations:

At its core (for our purposes), a philosophical essay will be a more sophisticated argumentative essay. You’ll be expected to choose a topic of interest for you and then give a persuasive argument on its behalf.

After presenting a series of “pro” arguments for your particular position, you’ll then offer counter arguments. What would an opponent say about the topic and position? Make sure to give well-developed arguments for the opposition. One of the things I’ll be looking for is how well you addressed the counter arguments.

After you develop the counter arguments, you will then provide “counter” counter-arguments. How does the position you’ve argued for respond to the counter arguments of an opponent? Why is your position still the better position? A good philosophical argument can respond to intellectual attacks from a differing position and provide reasonable answers.

Make sure to include citations for any information you provide. This is one of the key elements. Any time that you make a claim, especially if there are statistics, there needs to be evidence in order to support it, and that evidence needs to be cited properly.

Philosophy Essay General Outline:

Question:

• What is the philosophical question? Why is it important (Why is it interesting)?
• Choose a topic that is interesting to you. Philosophy is interesting in that it can be applied to almost any topic or idea. What is something that you find interesting, what’s a philosophical question that can be applied to your interests?
• Note: this can include sports, music, art, television, social media, smart phones
• What does a particular type of music say about the culture?
• How does social media affect our views of privacy?
• Why do certain forms of art appear during specific cultural timeframes or phenomena?
• Ex: what does the appearance of Rick and Morty say about the current American culture?

Position:

• Choose a position related to your topic and then argue for it
• Note: You do not have to agree with the position you are arguing. In fact, it is often better if you disagree with the position you are arguing for, because you will learn the arguments more thoroughly.
• Make sure to support your argument with evidence and logic.
• Using Philosophical Theories to support your claims is an important strategy.
• It’s often a good idea to quote the texts we’ve read, as well as other sources as they relate to philosophy
• Ex: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Utilitarianism, Rawls, etc.
• Make sure to avoid logical fallacies
• These are arguments made from bad reasoning
• Ex: Ad hominem, circular reasoning, strawman, red herring, slippery slope, etc.

Counter argument:

• Give counter arguments to your position.
• What would someone against your position say?
• Why would they say it?
• Why is it important?
• These should be well-developed arguments.
• Don’t just look at the weakest argument in order to respond easily, I will point out that you need to address more significant arguments while grading your paper.

Counter to the Counter Arguments:

• How ought you to respond to the counter points raised to your argument?
• Have you taken their position into account already?
• Why do you hold the stronger argument?
• Note: This section and the counter argument section before it may be the most important parts of your paper. It is here that you will show how well you know your argument, by showing your opponent’s argument and how to counter them effectively.

Strengths and Weaknesses

• What are the major strengths of your arguments?
• What are the major weaknesses?
• What are the implications of your argument?
• If we implemented your position, what would happen to our values, society, etc.?
• This doesn’t need to be a separate section, but rather should be worked in throughout your essay as you’re analyzing the arguments for and against. One of the more important aspects of engaging in philosophical arguments is being aware of your position’s shortcomings and then accounting for them.

Conclusion

• It’s here that you’ll summarize the basics of your arguments and why they’re the superior position, include anything that may have altered your original thinking or approach. (Remember to still avoid 1stperson perspective.)

Citations:

• You need at least 3 citations within your essay either from the textbook, the sources supplied in blackboard, or a source you have found elsewhere. (Not Wikipedia.)
• You also need to include a “Works Cited” list at the end of your essay.
• Note: You do not need threesources, but merely threecitations.

Formatting:

• Four (4)fullpages
• Your works cited page doesn’t count towards your page number
• Times New Roman
• 12 Point Font
• Standard margins

Key Elements:

• Never assume the reader knows your assumptions. Explain everything.
  • This is the number one area where 101 students get into trouble with a philosophy essay
  • You are going to make claims, that’s expected of you, however, you then need to explainwhythe claim is true and why a reader should believe you that it’s true.
    • Ex: Solar panels are superior to nuclear power.
      • “Why?”
  • I usually tell students, “imagine you’re having a conversation with a smart toddler. They’re favorite question is ‘why?’” So, you need to explain ‘why’ for every claim you make.
  • Exception: Most rules have exceptions and this one is no different. There are times when writing about particular topics where the original framework may have to be assumed for the purposes of the argument.
    • Ex: If you write about how the presence of evil is problematic with an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good God, you don’t need to prove the existence of God in this specific case.

• Avoid using 1st person; especially I think, I feel, I believe.
  • Using these phrases take away from your argument, thereby weakening it.

• Avoid writing a 5-paragraph essay.
• I understand that this is a common formula in high school in order to train students in how to write, however, it’s not an effective format for philosophy papers.
• Use as many paragraphs as necessary. This isn’t high school.

• Avoid simply summarizing a person’s ideas or theories.
• The whole point of philosophy is to discover truth and this will require an analysis of ideas presented.
• Just summarizing a person’s position or statement says nothing about whether or not the position is persuasive let alone true.

• Avoid writing a book report, that’s what biographies and 101 books are for.
• Thankfully, this doesn’t happen often, but it does show up every now and again.

• Avoid phrases like “In this essay...” or “This essay will...” It’s distracting & detracts from the essay.

• Use Block Quotes: More than 3 lines on the page; make it a Block Quote.

Spelling and grammar count!

If at any time you are confused, you wish to discuss a particular topic, or you need help brainstorming (or any other reason) don’t hesitate to contact me to talk about your paper.