History of Philosophy Lecture 10 Writing Philosophy Papers

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History of PhilosophyLecture 10Writing
Philosophy Papers

• By David Kelsey

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Guidelines

• Here are some general guidelines for writing a
  philosophy paper
• 1. Your philosophy paper will make an argument.
• 2. The philosophy paper you will write in this
  course will be of 2 kinds
• a. The positive approach
• b. The negative approach

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Keep it modest starting the writing process

• 3. Keep the scope of your paper modest.
• 4. How do you start the paper writing process?
• Read and think about it
• Work backwards

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Start early be simple

• 5. Start the paper early, at least a few weeks in
  advance of the due date.
• Finding your thoughts on a subject can be
  difficult.
• 6. Be Simple
• Simple straightforward prose

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Make the structure obvious and Be concise yet
fully explain

• 7. Make the structure of your paper obvious
• 8. Be concise yet fully explain
• Cover one or two small points but do fully
  explore them

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Chuck out whats unnecessary

• 9. Chuck out unnecessary paragraphs
• Each paragraph should be necessary in making your
  argument
• Each sentence should be a necessary part of its
  paragraph
• Each word should be a necessary part of its
  sentence

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Avoid vagueness and ambiguity, anticipate
objections editing your draft

• 10. Avoid vagueness and ambiguity.
• 11. Anticipate objectionsImagine the reader of
  your paper is a devils advocate in the worst
  kind of way.
• 12. Read and re-read your draft

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Vagueness

• A vague statement is one whose meaning is
  indistinct, imprecise or lacks details.
• Degrees Vagueness isnt all or nothing. It
  comes in degrees.
• Apartment example

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Clarifying vagueness

• Desirable vagueness sometimes vagueness is
  actually desirable.
• Being Romantic
• Clarify If we come across a vague statement we
  can simply try to clarify the lack of detail or
  indistinct-ness.
• Job example

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Vagueness and Propositions

• A vague statement
• it is unclear what proposition the sentence
  asserts at all.
• It could be any one of a number of propositions

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Ambiguous Claims

• An ambiguous claim is one that is subject to more
  than one interpretation.
• Claim x
• ? ?
• P1 P2

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Semantic Ambiguity

• A sentence that is semantically ambiguous is one
  which contains an ambiguous word or phrase.
• For example

• Fixing the ambiguous word

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Syntactic Ambiguity

• A sentence is syntactically ambiguous when it is
  ambiguous because of its grammar or the way it
  has been structured or put together.

• When you have come across a semantic ambiguity
  you can simply alter the grammar
• Or you might need to re-write the claim
  altogether.

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Grouping Ambiguity

• Grouping ambiguity
• unclear whether some word in the sentence is
  referring to a group or an individual.
• Secretaries and Physicians
• Lawnmowers and dirt bikes