Introduction to Philosophy Assignment | Get Paper Help

Hello looking to have a philosophy paper done the defends or supports a thesis on any intro to philosophy topic i.e plato/aristotle meta physics, descartes/humes epistemology, or mills ethics. has to be at least 750 words. Not a research paper. Attached is the paper outline and instructions.

Critical Paper

            All PHL 1301 classes are required to have a writing assignment of at least 750 words and in which the student defends and supports a thesis across multiple paragraphs. Years ago, the department came up with an assignment that incorporates those requirements but that was also a bit more precise in terms of paper type: a four page compare / contrast essay. Since I’ve been using that assignment with some success for the last six or seven years, I’m going to keep it as the model for our final paper assignment, and that is what this handout will address in detail. It is not the case that you have to write such a paper. So long as you write a four page paper wherein you state, defend, and support a thesis across the length of the paper, you should be fine. I would urge all students to have a conversation with me about paper topics and plans to develop those topics, but especially so if you plan on deviating from the script laid out in this handout. Again, please write the paper you want to write, but let’s have a conversation about it so you don’t veer off into a paper that will not meet the requirements laid out here.

As a quick note, before launching into a detailed examination of how a version of a satisfactory paper should be constructed, let me just note a couple of other ways you could complete the assignment. The first detail to note, and this goes for whatever paper you might write, is that your paper must be a philosophy paper. This is not a class in physics, psychology, mysticism, mathematics, etc. There are clear connections between philosophy and these other areas of study, so you could potentially write about them in relation to philosophy, but make sure that your approach to the topic is philosophical in nature. Beyond the compare and contrast paper detailed below, you could write a paper wherein you exemplify some philosophical idea in practice or as played out in a piece of fiction so long as your ultimate goal is to comment on the philosophical position in the end. You could also write a paper that relies on only one thinker, though such a paper would have to be more detailed and thorough with respect to that one thinker than a compare / contrast paper would demand. As long as the paper meets the basic requirements detailed above, you are welcome to have at it. Again, the best advice I can give you is to talk to me in advance about your paper topic – either in person or through email – so that you know that what you’re undertaking will be acceptable.

Whatever type of paper you decide to write, you will first need to figure out a topic. I hope we will have covered something during the semester that interests you enough to want to spend some more time thinking about it, but if not, we can always have a topic discussion. Your topic will likely dictate what sort of paper you wish to write. If, for example, you are particularly interested in the philosophy of someone with whom you’re already familiar but whose philosophy was not covered in class, say Gandhi, Bruce Lee, Malcom X, Flannery O’Connor, bell hooks, Wonder Woman, or whomever else you may find to have an interesting philosophical take on something, then a compare / contrast paper using someone for our class might work out well for you. You could potentially just write about that one thinker and your own thoughts about that person, too. This assignment is intended to give you the leeway to approach your topic in whatever way you see fit. Some topics that fit the compare / contrast description I’ll be giving in this handout include topics like the way Plato and Aristotle treat the (im)mortality of the soul, Descartes’ multiple arguments for God’s existence, the ways that Descartes and Hume understand the role of experience in what we come to know, and the differing ways that Kant and Mill approach answering questions of ethical significance. Whatever you can dream up, you can likely write about . . . as long as it’s philosophical in nature.

Just so we’re clear on this matter: this is not a research assignment. For whatever reason, the last few years I’ve had a problem with students turning in plagiarized work. I may be wrong about this, but in my estimation the more research you do on these sorts of topics the more likely you will be to either purposively or accidentally appropriate someone else’s ideas. For the purposes of our paper, then, you are allowed to reference only the following sources: (a) anything said during class about the material, (b) the specific texts we read for the class, and (c) you may also make use of the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://www.iep.utm.edu) if you need additional help with the material. This means you can use the IEP, not the many sources linked by it! The IEP sometimes gives more information than you probably need and other times gives too little. If that occurs then we can certainly talk about it. Whatever you do, though, please don’t submit someone else’s work as though it’s yours as that will result in a failing grade for the assignment and the class as a whole.

Finally, here are my instruction for the compare / contrast paper. If you write a different type of paper some of what follows will change – the body paragraphs – but most of it should apply to any paper you choose to write. My expectation will be that you write a very brief introductory paragraph (three or four sentences should handle it), body paragraphs for each of the parts of the assignment that take a little less than a page apiece, a paragraph comparing and contrasting the two solutions to the philosophical problem under consideration, your own thoughts on the topic, and a very brief conclusion. Let’s now turn to a more detailed account of how each of these tasks should be carried out and how they will be evaluated.

Introduction:

All you’re doing here is telling me what the topic of your paper is going to be. This is just a setup for what is to come, so it need not be incredibly detailed or labored – just a short explanation of the topic is all that’s required. There is one thing that happens in the introductory paragraph that’s of considerable importance for a good philosophy essay: a thesis statement. Your thesis statement tells me exactly what it is you will be arguing in your paper (basically the fourth and fifth points in the assignment description). It’s often useful to write your complete paper before constructing a thesis statement to ensure that the two match. At the very least, reread your thesis statement after you’ve finished the paper to be sure you didn’t change your position somewhere along the way.

Positions One and Two:

You have two thinkers whose theories have to be explained here, and each receives his own paragraph. How does thinker A respond to the philosophical problem? What arguments does he / she give for his / her position? At this point you should be summing up thinker A’s position in your own terms. Feel free to use a short quotation or two from our texts to support your claim that the philosopher says / argues x, y, or z, but don’t go overboard with quotations. The key thing here is to demonstrate that you grasp both the philosopher’s position and his / her reasons for holding it in your own terms. If you cite a paragraph that someone else wrote, then you’re probably not doing an acceptable job of showing your own understanding of the position, so keep the quotations to a reasonable size and number. You must also do the same thing for thinker B. The key issues here will be just how well you explain the two positions in terms of accuracy, completeness, and depth of understanding.

Comparison:

Looking back at the two positions you just explained, in what ways are they similar / different? How well does each do what it sets out to do? You might think here about which aspects of the problem are more important to you and which of the two responses better addresses your own concerns. Choosing one side over another is all well and good, but be fair to both sides. It is, of course, perfectly permissible for you to find neither side completely compelling and you may think the strengths and weaknesses of each theory end up cancelling one another out leading to somewhat of a draw. The key considerations for this part of the paper will revolve around how well you grasp the nuances of the problem and the proposed responses. Obviously these thinkers don’t agree on how to solve the problem, but do you comprehend why there is this disagreement? There’s also the question of whether or not you treat both theories in a fair manner (give due credit even to theories with which you don’t agree). It’s also important that you maintain consistency in this section with the previous ones as regards your take on their positions.

Your Thought:

This is where you can interject yourself into the conversation. If you have some thoughts on the matter that differ from the thinkers in question, here is your space to express them. You could, for example, bring in some of your own thoughts from outside the scope of the class, from other classes / readings you’ve taken / done, you could elaborate on what you began in the previous section, you could just completely reject the question as meaningful, or any of a variety of other paths. The key point here is to argue for whatever you wish to say. The idea is that you’re trying to convince someone who doesn’t necessarily agree with you that you’re right, so give the best arguments you can for your position. Just because you believe x is no reason for anyone else to believe x. Now if you can cite some evidence as to why you think x is true, note some authoritative figures who agree with you (making sure, of course, that they’re authorities on the topic at hand – don’t appeal to a mathematician’s beliefs as evidence outside of math, for instance, or you’re in the realm of the fallacy of appeal to authority), or maybe even purely deduce the necessity of the truth of your position, then you’ll have something. You want to be convincing, but not in a rhetorical way, in a logical way. You’re unlikely to impress a philosopher with an emotional appeal, or an appeal to what most people believe, or by noting that you’ve always been taught something is true. It’s fine, and natural, to start with whatever you happen to believe about some matter, but in a philosophy paper you’re expected to think about how you would support your position by appealing to evidence / reasons / arguments.

Conclusion:

Wrap it up. The first sentence in your conclusion is expected to be a restatement of your thesis statement. When I say “restatement” I don’t mean cut and paste, I mean say the same thing in a different way. You are concluding your paper after all, so state, once more, what you’ve done in your paper. Much like the introduction, this should be on the extremely brief side. You might note how thinking about this topic has helped shape your beliefs, how your paper topic opens the door to some other issues that might be related (or not) and deserving of further exploration, how the answers you wrote about have impacted thought since their time, etc. Your concluding paragraph just needs to bring your paper to a reasonable stopping place.

If these instructions aren’t sufficient to make the assignment clear, please talk to me in class, after class, during office hours, or email me. It’s far better to ask a question you think is silly than to just assume you know what you’re doing and end up with an unsatisfactory paper. Feel free to take advantage of the Learning Lab as there are folks over there who can help you with the basic mechanics of writing a paper as well as philosophy tutors who can provide help with content as well. This should provide you with a good idea of how to construct your paper, but there are a couple of related topics I need to address: citation and plagiarism.

Citations:

Since this is not a research paper you need not provide a citations page. If you are using the books ordered for the class (or handouts provided in class) then you need only note the text and the page number from which your citation originated immediately after the quotation in parentheses. If you are using the web versions of the texts then you just need to note after the quotation the text and that you used the online version. So, for example, if you quoted Plato’s Meno from the book it would look like this: “ ___ ____ ____ ____.” (Meno, 77). If you use the web version then it would be the same except you’d type “web” where “77” is in the previous example. If you need to quote the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy then you can just type up your citation and put (IEP) behind it. The web sources are easily enough searched that no more information is needed. It probably should be apparent that no works cited page will be required for this paper if you stick to the resources noted above. If I approve a topic beyond the scope of our class, though, you will need to supply such a page.

Plagiarism:

Presumably everyone should have some idea of what plagiarism is. You can do a search on ACC’s home page for more information about it and the Learning Lab folks can tell you more than you’d ever want to know about it. When you write a paper you are representing its contents as your work unless you specifically note that you’re citing another source. Plagiarism occurs when you use someone else’s words or ideas without giving credit to that source. Clearly in such an instance the ideas / words you’re claiming are yours are not, and ACC does not tolerate this variety of dishonesty. If you commit plagiarism in your paper you will be given a failing grade for the class. Plagiarism is considered a very serious offense in the academic world so please consult with your instructor or other authority (the Learning Lab is a great resource for this) if you have any question at all about whether your work could be considered plagiarism or not.