The following is a description of what TAs, instructors, and professors are usually looking for in a philosophy essay, as adapted from a document prepared and shared by a recent PhD graduate colleague here at UWO, Ryan Robb. It tries to include all the basic points about writing good essays. Although it is offered as a guide, rather than as an official ‘how to’, it is intended to be generally applicable to every essay you ever have to write in every class that you ever take. There’s nothing mysterious in any of the following – this description is a set of guidelines that you’ve all heard or seen before, though maybe not laid out in exactly this way. That is, what you’re about to read is a guide to success on every ‘argumentative’ essay assignment you ever write (it is hoped). Please don’t hesitate to ask further questions if you are unsure of something.
The following is a description of the parts of an 'argumentative' essay, that is, an essay wherein you are, at the very least, trying to convince your reader that your point of view is the point of view they ought to adopt, using an argument/the power of reason. That is, the goal of your paper is to convince every person that ever reads your paper that your position is the position they should adopt. The means by which you will achieve that goal is by presenting an argument that provides a rational basis for your position. In an ideal universe, you might also be stumbling on to some previously unknown ‘T’ruth about the world. The main goal is to improve upon your written philosophical skills (i.e., ability to make convincing arguments) so for now, don’t be too concerned with the ‘T’ruth.
There are three major parts to every argumentative essay:
1. The thesis/point of view
If you are going to convince your reader of something, you must have something to convince them of, i.e., a point. Because your essays are short, and the goal of these papers is to improve upon your ability to make focused arguments in a way that convinces others to accept your conclusion, you should start by explicitly stating your thesis. For example, an essay from an intro course in philosophy might begin with the claim:
“The coherence theory best equips us with evaluating the statement ‘there is milk in the fridge’ by informing us how such a truth is in fact established.”
Starting an essay this way is generally recognized as good form. This is because argumentative essays are not mystery novels; it's best to begin every essay by telling your reader precisely what it is you'll be trying to convince them of. It's also important that your point is clear, and bluntly stating your conclusion at the beginning of your paper should make it clear.
In the interest of clarity, you can also take the opportunity to outline the steps you’ll be taking to reach your conclusion, i.e., present a more complete introduction. Following the above example, you could say something like:
“According to Russell, the correspondence theory of truth does not ask whether a statement such as the one we are considering is true or false, but rather asks what it means for such a claim to be true or false. I will argue that the correspondence theory is insufficient for evaluating claims about the world when our goal is to determine whether they are true or not, rather than what it means for them to be true. I will then focus more precisely on the issue of how the truth of such statements are established, showing that the correspondence theory is useless to us when it comes to verifying the truth or falsity of a claim. I will argue that the coherence theory, as advanced by Bradley, allows us to understand facts about the world as true or false based on fallible judgements we make about particular claims such as ‘there is milk in the fridge’.”
(Please note that this example isn’t necessarily a ‘good’ one in the sense of being original, engaging, and rigorous, but is rather offered as a ‘good’ example of the basic approach.)
NOTE: The grader does not care what your particular thesis/point of view is, or what strategy you use to support that thesis/point of view; but does care that your thesis/point of view and your strategy are clear and easily identifiable.
Also, having a thesis statement doesn’t actually get you grades; ultimately, your thesis is nothing more than your opinion, and you don’t get grades for having an opinion – you get grades for providing a position that is supported by a set of reasons, i.e., an argument. However, if your opinion is unclear/hidden in your essay, then that’s a serious problem, one that will cost you grades. Why? Because the purpose of your essay is to defend your opinion using an argument. If the grader is unable to determine what your position actually is, you’ll have a really difficult time convincing them of it.
One last thing to consider once you have presented your thesis statement, that is, once you’ve decided on your point/opinion: Since the purpose of everything that follows is to make your opinion convincing to the reader, as you write and when you’re reviewing your work, you should be asking yourself, ‘How does this paragraph/sentence/word contribute to making my thesis more convincing?’ If you can’t answer that question, then there’s a good chance that the paragraph/sentence/word in question does not belong in your essay.
Before you can present your argument, you need to identify what your argument is going to be about. That is, you need to do an exegesis, the second part of every argumentative essay.
2. The exegesis/exposition
The purpose/goal of an exegesis is based on an obvious point, but it is a point that people frequently overlook; before anyone is ever going to be convinced by an argument you present, they need to know exactly what you're argument is going to be about. That is, once you’ve stated you’re position (thesis) with respect to some issue, you need to then describe the issue. 'Exegesis' is just a fancy way of saying that it's a description of the argument/issue you'll be talking about in your essay.
Every exegesis should have at least two distinct parts; the first part will involve a general description, or overview of the paper/position/problem you’re going to be addressing. The second part of your exegesis will be more precise, a detailed account of the specific aspect of the argument you intend to either criticize or support, along with a detailed explanation of any terms that might come up that could be thought to have ambiguous or controversial meanings.
So if, for example, you’re doing an essay on whether Taylor’s materialism can effectively respond to Descartes’ argument for the distinction between mind and body, you’ll start the first part of the exegesis with a general explanation of Descartes’ argument for this distinction, followed by an explanation of Taylor’s materialism. This step tends to take 1 – 2 paragraphs (though it could be more), and is merely an attempt to set a context for your reader. That is, you describe the overall argument as a means of setting the context for your more detailed analysis.
Apart from describing the nature of the issue you’ll be addressing, your exegesis is also the point in which you want to DEFINE YOUR TERMS. That is, you want to take the opportunity to define any ambiguous or unclear terms upon which you’ll be relying in your essay as those terms arise in your exegesis. Since the essays are short, you will want to be concise about this, perhaps by quoting explicit definitions offered by the philosopher you’re considering, or by a brief explanatory sentence.
The second part of your exegesis will focus on the specific aspect(s) of the argument that you’ve chosen to analyze. This is an important point; your exegesis is intended to ‘foreshadow’ or ‘set-up’ the argument you intend to make, so you need a detailed description of the particular feature of the argument you intend to analyze. That is, DO NOT DESCRIBE IN DETAIL EVERYTHING THAT IS SAID IN THE ARTICLE YOU’RE ADDRESSING. YOU DON’T HAVE THE SPACE TO DO SO IN 4 – 5 PAGES AND DOING SO WILL CAUSE YOU TO LOSE FOCUS (AND GRADES). As with the rest of the essay, you should be able to explain how each aspect of your exegesis contributes to the argument you’re going to make in the last section.
So, at the end of my exegesis, I will have provided an overview of the general argument the philosopher(s) I am considering make, along with an explicit account of their relevant claim(s) concerning the position I am arguing for.
QUOTES: The exegesis is the place in the essay where the most quotes are expected. The purpose of a quote is essentially to provide evidence that your presentation of an author’s view is accurate. With that in mind, there are two basic strategies for incorporating quotes into the body of an essay. The first approach involves paraphrasing the view that you’re presenting in your own words, and then including a quote from the author that restates what you’ve just said in the author’s own words. The second strategy for including quotes is a little more stylistically pleasing because it doesn’t require that you paraphrase, but instead involves including the words of the author within your own sentence structure. BE CAREFUL IF YOU ADOPT THIS SECOND APPROACH!!! It is nice to be able to avoid paraphrasing, but you can only avoid paraphrasing if the meaning of the quote is extremely clear.
THE PRINCIPLE OF CHARITABLE CONSTRUAL: Always provide the most compelling reading of any view you’re presenting, whether you’re trying to criticize or support the view. If you criticize an objection that no one does/would accept, or you support an objection that no one does/would accept, you’re ‘cheating’. That is, you’re committing the fallacy of ‘the Straw-Figure’; you’re setting up a position that no one holds, then claiming either that it is bad, or that you can fix it … Obviously, this isn’t as impressive as undermining or supporting the really hard position, i.e., the position that at least appears right to most people.
Typically, for these sorts of essays, the exegesis/exposition will make up between a third and half of the essay’s length. The purpose for the exegesis/exposition is to get your reader up to speed and clarify your understanding of the material you’ll be discussing. You are not simply required to do an exegesis to prove that you have read the material and understand it. Every person writing an argumentative piece has to do an exegesis, because this is the means by which the context of the argument to be presented is established. That way, you can proceed to the next and most important part, of any argumentative essay....
3. Your argument/reasons in defense of your opinion.
Again, this is the last AND MOST IMPORTANT PART of any essay. It is at this point that you need to respond to the point of view you outlined in your exegesis, with reasons of your own that are intended to convince your reader that your conclusion is the one they ought to accept. We've talked a bit in class about what counts as a GOOD reason, but this is admittedly the most difficult part of a philosophy essay to describe. The reason a description is so hard is because there are so many possible ‘good reasons’; which is why this is the section of your essay where you need to be the most creative. The basic rule of thumb is that the best reason is one that any RATIONAL person would accept (a ‘rational’ person is anyone that can follow the logic/steps of a rational argument, i.e., pretty much anyone except children and the mentally incapacitated). So ‘good reasons’ might be empirical facts that are thought to be beyond dispute, e.g., every time I drop an object on the planet earth, it falls. ‘Good reasons’ might also be intuitions that (nearly) all of us share, e.g., apartheid was wrong, or facts of logic, e.g., any position that generates a logical contradiction provides a good reason for the grader rejecting it. ‘Good reasons’ can either be presented by means of a direct statement, or by means of a hypothetical example. Of course, these are merely a set of examples of possible specific ‘good reasons’.
The second thing you’ll need to keep in mind is that you’ll be directing your good reasons at the argument you’ve chosen to analyze, and you’ll need a strategy for doing so …
There are two (extremely) broad strategic approaches to critically analyzing an argument, which apply regardless of whether you’re negatively criticizing a position or positively supporting it:
You could focus on one or several of the premises upon which the conclusion is based.
You could also focus on the relationship between the premises and the conclusion. All good arguments work in the following way: if the premises of the argument are true, then the conclusion must necessarily be true. So one way to criticize or support a position is to talk about whether the conclusion follows from the truth of the premises.
So this last section of your essay is the most important part because it requires you to develop the argument, whatever it may be, that supports your thesis; this section is what turns your essay into more than just a statement of your opinion, it makes it into an argument!
The ‘Cardinal Virtues’ of writing in philosophy are: be clear and be concise. That is, you need to make your point in the clearest, most focused manner that you can. Here are some things you should be thinking about as you try to realize these two virtues.
Grammar: While there are no marks dedicated to assessing your grammar for these essays, you need to realize that this does not make your grammar unimportant. The rules of grammar are in fact designed to provide clarity of expression. So grammar DOES COUNT because bad grammar will make your point unclear. What’s the best way to check your grammar? READ A DRAFT OUTLOUD TO YOURSELF. If your grammar is poor, you’ll hear it when you’re reading – it will sound wrong.
NO FLUFF!!!!!!!!!! – don’t include irrelevant things like the dates of an author’s life or the University at which they taught/teach – this is nothing more than wasted space, space you could have dedicated to improving your argument.
It’s perfectly acceptable to write these essays from a first person point of view, arguably it’s preferable. Why? Because ultimately what the grader wants to know is what YOU think, and WHY you think it.
MORE IS NOT NECESSARILY BETTER: Just because you can think of several reasons that would support your analysis of a specific position, you do not, and maybe even SHOULD NOT include them all. One extremely clear and well-developed response to an objection over the course of 4 – 5 pages is certainly one way to get an A.
Because this is an argumentative essay and not a research essay, you are NOT REQUIRED TO USE SOURCES BEYOND THE TEXT FOR THIS COURSE. You are welcome to present examples in support of your argument that depend on ‘common knowledge’, i.e., that which it can be reasonably expected everyone (most) would know. You are also free to incorporate outside sources if you feel it is necessary, or refer to other readings in the text to highlight a point, or insight, or interesting connection relevant to your argument.
You might be asking yourself at this point how what you’ve just read applies beyond this course. Think of it this way: (almost) every essay you’re asked to write asks you to defend a position, whether in an English class, History class, business class, psychology, etc… That is, (almost) every essay you’ll be asked to write at university is an argumentative essay; you’re simply asked to make arguments with respect to different subject matter. So whether you’re being asked to interpret a novel, or explain a specific historical incident, or defend a particular course of action in a business decision, or support a psychological theory, you’re being asked to make an argument. And every argument requires a thesis/point of view, an explanation of the subject matter you’re addressing (an exegesis), and a set of reasons/evidence that supports the thesis you’re seeking to defend.
So, there ya have it. Hopefully this has clarified what is generally expected. If something has been left out or if this is particularly confusing, feel free to ask me during or after class, over email, in office hours, or by appointment.