Methodology of the Philosophy Paper

Methodology of the Philosophy Paper
Introduction
A few essential aspects of a philosophy paper:
• Develop an original line of thought. Do not recite the lectures (nor for that matter should you quote
the lectures in your papers).
• Be clear and coherent. Express yourself in the best English you can, write slowly, taking care to be
concise. Don’t make overly long sentences. If you have problems writing in English, make sure to get
help with your grammar and spelling from the Writing Center.
• Problematize. Your paper should be constructed as an elucidation and response to a philosophical
problem, which you present in the introduction. A paper is always organized around a problem. The
most important part of writing a paper is developing this problem. For example, say you want your
paper to focus on comparing Plato’s ideal city with Thomas More’s Utopia. You must ask yourself:
What is the core problem you wish to shed light on through this comparison? What’s the point of your
paper? Papers written without this core problematic drive end up being disorganized and aimless.
• Organize your thoughts. Before writing anything, you must rigorously plan the paper out. Think of
this structure as the skeleton of the paper. The writing stage fleshes out the structure you have set
down beforehand. Papers without a skeleton are formless blobs.
There are four stages to the writing of a philosophy paper.
• Finding a topic. We will discuss types of plans further down. Common themes include: the comparison
of two thinkers on a given question. E.g. Plato and Hobbes on Democracy; The Harmony of individual
interests in Smith and Mandeville, etc.. Another possible model is the application of a theory to a
specific case or non-philosophical work. E.g. On the Relevance of Peter Kropotkin theory of ‘Mutual
Aid’ to an understanding of Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed. Papers can also focus on one
philosophical idea, aiming to explicate it and critically evaluate it. E.g. Is there such a thing as a ‘general
will’?; What is justice in Hobbes’s Leviathan?
• Once you’ve chosen a topic, you must problematize it. Ask yourself the question: What am I trying to
demonstrate through this paper? Why is this interesting? What are the stakes in the point I’m trying to
make?
• The next stage is planning your paper, building the ‘skeleton’. Make a detailed plan (more on this later),
and sketch out your introduction and conclusion.
• The final stage is the writing of the paper. At this point, most of the work has been done. You have
developed the problem, planned out precisely the different parts of your paper, what quotes you’re
going to use, which examples, what books or articles you’re going to quote from. You have written
your introduction and sketched out the conclusion. The writing process is just the execution of this
plan of the plan, ‘fleshing’ out the structural skeleton.
I. Finding a topic.
An important part of doing philosophy is learning to pursue a line of thought, to engage in sustained
reflection on a theme that sparks your interest. The exercise of writing a philosophy paper gives you the
freedom to do just this.
If you don’t know where to start in seeking a topic, feel free to get in touch so we can arrange a meeting to
discuss possible ideas. Some lines of inquiry: perhaps you have already have areas of interest that you’d like
to investigate philosophically. This could be a political problem you’re particularly interested in, which you
could analyze through the lens of one of the theories covered in the syllabus. Maybe you’re interested in
one philosopher in particular; in this case, you should focus on isolating a concept within this philosopher’s
works that you wish to write about.
Remember, you have broad latitude in your choice of topic. It must be relevant to political philosophy
and the general themes covered in the course. In general, it should refer at least in part to thinkers covered
in the syllabus. But the aim here is for you to develop your own line of thinking. You should aim to
be creative, original. In order to avoid total off-topic papers, your choice of topic must be approved by
me beforehand (since the detailed plan is due for Week 8, you should get your topics approved by Week 6
at the latest).
When researching a theme for your paper, be sure to use resources such as JSTOR (free online academic
article database, which you can access through your Stony Brook login) and the SBU Library. Going off
the beaten trail and coming into contact with unusual sources and references is one of the most exciting
parts of being an undergraduate. There are hundreds mysterious dusty books full of dangerous ideas waiting
for you in the library!
II. Problematizing it.
As you accumulate references and materials related to your theme, and as you deepen your reflection on
this theme, a core problem will begin to reveal itself. Try to formulate your general theme as a question:
what question gathers these materials together? What connects up these different strands of thought? This
process is called problematizing.
What is a problematic? Two meanings:
• The first sense arises when you’re developing your topic. It is the central question you wish to ask.
This core question is closely connected to the point you wish to make. In a philosophy paper, you
don’t engage in aimless questioning. You must also have a point you ultimately wish to make. In a
way, the central question is secondary relative to this fundamental argument you wish to advance.
Problematizing means putting into question your hypothesis. You are trying to prove something,
but you have to first recognize that what you wish to prove is in doubt (your paper is precisely
what will hopefully dissipate this doubt).
• A second sense of problematizing arises when developing your plan. At this stage, what you must
aim to do is construct an argumentative structure that at all times reflects the core problem of the
paper. A well problematized paper is an organized paper, with a clear and unique argumentative
thrust: the whole paper must serve to demonstrate your thesis, formulated conditionally in the
introduction and then again as an assertion in the conclusion. Every sentence you write needs to
help you prove your point. If you can’t see how a given sentence relates to the argument you’re
making, cut it out.
To sum up: the problematic is at once a question (first meaning) and a thesis (second meaning) you wish
to defend. Your paper is thus an organized ‘response’ to the question posed in the introduction. The
problematic is at once the ‘spark’ or ‘impetus’ (as a question) and the guiding thread of the execution (the
thesis).
III. The Detailed Plan.
A. Fundamental Principles
You should think of your plan as a dynamic unfolding rather than as a static assemblage: it isn’t a
juxtaposition of disparate paragraphs, but a movement that drives the argument, from the initial hypothesis
to the conclusion.
The plan must display this progression of your argument, beginning with the formulation of the
problematic as a question, and ending with a conclusion in which your thesis is affirmed. From start to
finish the plan must be held together by a logical and organized progression.
When making arguments within the plan, you must follow the principle of progressive elaboration of
the reflection: begin with the most obvious points, those immediately evident; if you need to define a
term, or explicate a theory, this should be done as a preamble and not halfway through your argument.
Keep your best points and strongest arguments, your most interesting and original hypotheses, for later in
the plan, once all the ‘preliminary setup’ has been achieved. As a general rule, progress from the obvious
to the hidden or elusive; from the simple to the complex.
Balance and Equilibrium. Each section of the plan should be balanced with the others in terms of size.
That is, each part should include roughly as many paragraphs (or words) as the others. If one part is very
long and another very short, you have likely not structured your paper correctly.
B. Constructing the plan
Having found a topic and problematized it, i.e. formulated it as a question, having assembled set of
arguments and examples, references and quotations, and sketched out your thesis, you are now in a position
to make a detailed plan.
Start off by delineating three sections (or possibly two, with a more elaborated concluding section). Name
them I, II, III. Each section must be centered around a principal idea, which you should be able to
formulate as a sentence. This sentence should be written out in your detailed plan as a section title. Ask
yourself: What is the purpose of this section in the overall thrust of my argument? Does it serve to define
key terms? Does it apply a theory you’ve previously explicated? At each step of the way, you need to know
what point each section is making, and how it contributes to your overarching thesis.
Within each section, define an equal number of subsections (I suggest sticking to 2 subsections per section,
given the overall length of the paper. Name them A, B. Each subsection should develop a secondary idea
within the principal idea of the overall section. Think of each large section (I, II, III) as a mini-paper with
two sections (A, B). Each section (I, II, III) should have a small introductory paragraph. Then subsection
A, followed by subsection B. And finally a small concluding paragraph ending with a sentence transitioning
into the next section (Section II).
Determining the structure of your paper is a trial and error process. You will find you have ideas that don’t
neatly fit into your initial plan. You will redefine the sections, shift ideas around, rework your argument.
This process often generates new ideas you hadn’t considered. Take the time to really mull your structure,
make sure you’ve organized your thoughts in the most clear and logical way you can. Once you start writing,
the die is already cast to a large extent: make sure you’ve put enough work into your planning, as this is
really what makes or breaks a paper.
To sum up, developing a plan involves:
– Defining a logical progression that allows you to demonstrate your thesis, conceived as a response to
the question around which the paper is organized;
– Formulating the main idea for each section;
– Organizing all your secondary points and examples into subsections within each section.
Write out this detailed plan on paper, using a number-letter system to hierarchize sections and subsections. For
example, use Roman numerals (I, II, III) for sections and capitalized letters for subsections (A, B) and if you
need to, Arabic numerals for points within subsections (1, 2, 3…). When you submit your detailed plan in Week
8, this plan including the numbering and section titles should be apparent. You will be graded based on how
well you apply this methodology. For the final paper, you can remove subsection numbering but preserve the
section titles.
C. Type of plans
In order to facilitate the process of organizing your ideas, you can draw from common argumentative
schemas. No argumentative model is systematically applicable: it must be adapted to the topic and question
you’ve elaborated. These common structures are templates you must adapt, in order to meet to the needs
of your paper.
1. The dialectical plan
This is one of the most common structures in academic papers. The three sections resemble a back
and forth dialogue, culminating in a resolution in which the contradictions of the first two sections are
resolved in the third. Generally, one would begin with the commonly accepted view, the ‘conventional
wisdom’; one could also begin with the position of a philosopher on a given question. The second
section then consists in demonstrating the limitations of this initial position; perhaps it involves your
own arguments, perhaps you expose the views of another philosopher and make clear how and why
the second philosopher disagrees with the first. These first two sections can be summarized as
“Thesis/Antithesis”. Finally, in a third section, you operate a “Synthesis”. The best syntheses don’t
culminate in some ‘compromise’ position between the thesis and antithesis, but rather aim to overcome
the contradiction through the elaboration of a new understanding (which it can do by locating the
origins of the contradiction and showing that it is inessential, or built upon a misunderstanding).
This standard plan is applicable to many topics. The pitfalls to avoid are the simplistic opposition of
two opposing theses, ending with a synthetical section that fails to elucidate the source of the
contradiction, or making an unconvincing case for some middle position.
2. The thematic plan
This plan consists in applying or isolating the same idea in several different domains. For example, it
could involve revealing a common conception of the nature of society in two different philosophers.
Or one could attempt to show the conceptual filiation between a certain conception of society put
forth by political philosophers, and the conception of society implicit in the theories of certain political
economists or sociologists.
3. The ‘funnel’ plan
An argumentative structure going from the most general to the most precise and limited in scope. Or
the reverse movement. Beginning from a specific limited case, and then progressively revealing a more
general philosophical problem at the heart of this limited case.
4. The comparative plan
This common paper template involves the comparison of two positions, revealing convergences and
divergences. For philosophy papers, this will often involve two philosophers’s positions on a given
concept. For example, comparing Plato’s Republic and Thomas More’s Utopia – one could aim to define
or elucidate the common notion, in this case something like ‘utopia’ or ‘ideal city’. Comparative papers
might also show how a thinker builds upon the work of a previous thinker. For example, comparing
the contractualist theories of Hobbes and Rousseau; or, their respective (and opposing – this might
introduce a dialectical dimension) conceptions of the state of nature.
5. The explication/illustration/commentary plan
This model might be most appropriate when attempting to blend philosophy and literature. In a first
section, a philosophical concept or theory is presented. In the second section, a example drawn, for
example, from a novel, is developed. Finally a third section builds on this comparison, and makes an
argument about what is revealed in the first two sections.
IV. Writing.
A. The Five Stages of the Introduction
The introduction is an absolutely crucial element of your paper. If you can write a clear, concise
introduction, and have a solid detailed plan for the overall paper, then you are well on your way to writing
a successful paper. The introduction should constitute roughly 10% of your paper (so, 250 words for a
2500 word paper). Steps 1 to 4 should constitute one paragraph; you can put step 5 in a new paragraph if
you wish, but this is a question of personal appreciation.
1. The ‘pickup’ line: the first sentence (or two) of the introduction should be designed to catch the reader’s
attention. It should bear on the theme of the paper, but can have a certain degree of generality (or
begin with a case, example, or quote displaying or expressing concretely the problem you plan to
discuss). Avoid excessively grandiose statements (e.g. “Never in the history of human civilization
has…” ; “In all of human history…” ; “Plato, the greatest philosopher of all time…” ; etc.). If you
need ideas on how to approach this, just look at the first sentences of some of the papers in the syllabus.
2. Narrowing down the topic: This part of the introduction can consist in a few sentences that aim to
transition from the generality of the pickup line to the clearly formulated problematic. You should set
up some of the tensions, the stakes in what you plan to write about.
3. Stating the problematic: After having built up to this point in the preceding sentences, now you
formulate the fundamental problem of the paper in the form of a question. You can follow the main
question with a couple of secondary questions (two, at most), but it must be perfectly clear what
question to plan to respond to, what core problem the paper is structured around.
4. Defining terms, limiting scope, considering presuppositions: In your problematic, you likely use terms
or refer to theories exposed in certain works. This is the place to state what texts you’re drawing from.
For example, if you write a paper on Hobbes and Rousseau, you might want to limit yourself to
discussing theories exposed in the Leviathan and the Social Contract. Here is the place to say what primary
texts you’re using. Your problematic might also make assumptions; here is the place to state these.
Similarly, if there are questions you have excluded for some reason, state that here and perhaps explain
why you think it is not relevant to your project.
5. Announcing the plan: This is a formulaic portion that concludes the introduction. Here you state the
overall plan of your paper. It should sound something like this: “In a first section, I will analyze…. In
a second section, I will demonstrate the limitations of [insert theme of part I here]… In a final section,
I will show how the contradiction can be overcome through…”
B. The Conclusion
Though perhaps slightly less crucial than the introduction, the conclusion is the second most important
part of the paper. You need to leave the reader feeling they’ve learned something and that reading your
paper was a worthwhile way to spend their time. The conclusion should constitute roughly 10% (can be
slightly shorter) of the paper. It should be presented as one paragraph.
1. Recapitulate your thesis and the fundamental steps of your argument. You need to bring the reader
back to the question stated in the introduction, after having hopefully convinced them that your thesis,
your response to the question, is the correct one.
2. Open up to broader horizons. The final sentence or two of your conclusion should gesture toward
some of the stakes in your thesis. You should allude to other potential problems, other questions that
could be asked and that relate to what you have written. The essential movement is one of opening:
you leave the reader convinced of your point of view on the question, and with an awareness of the
importance of the question, its continued relevance, paths of future inquiry, etc. …
C. The Body of the Paper
Only begin writing this once you have written the introduction, sketched the conclusion, and have a detailed
plan of your overall paper.
1. Each section should begin with an introductory sentence in which you state the main idea of the
section. This introductory sentence should reveal what you plan to discuss, and reflect the subsection
breakdown of the section.
2. Subsection A should conclude by opening onto whatever subsection B discusses. Every time you move
from one second to another, you need to consider the logical development between the sections –
Does this shift makes sense? Does it contribute to answering the overarching problem of the paper? –
and strive for smooth shifts from one paragraph to another.
3. Transitions. At the end of a section (I, II, III), you need a short concluding paragraph. You recapitulate
your points, and justify in a few words why the following section is necessary to answer the question.
The point here is to always keep the reader aware of the core problem of the paper: the reader needs
at all times to know what point you’re trying to make, how what you’re saying is relevant.
D. Presentation, Formatting and References
• Acceptable fonts: Times New Roman, Garamond, Georgia. Do not choose funky typefaces for your
academic work.
• Font size: 12pt.
• Spacing: Each paragraph should begin with an indent (hit the “tab” button to make an indent). To
begin a new section or subsection, skip a line. Do not skip lines other than at the end of the
introduction, at the end of each subsection and section, and for the conclusion. The organization of
your paper should be apparent simply from the line breaks and spacing. In your draft plans due
Week 8, you will number your sections and subsections, so the structure will be even more obvious.
But for the final paper you may remove subsection numbering. Spacing should remain an apparent
signal of the transition from one subsection to another.
• Justify your text. Do not right align.
• Use academic English. Your paper must be written with perfect spelling and grammar. Given the
multiple resources at your disposal (spell checkers, the Writing Center), there is no justification for
poorly written papers riddled with spelling mistakes. Write in the best English you can, and take pride
in writing well. Do not write in the same language you would use in a casual chat with your friends and
family. Avoid repeating words, write with a varied and rich vocabulary. Do not use exclamation marks.
• References. When quoting, use footnotes, and follow this citation format: “Author last name, Author
first name, Title of work, Publisher, Year of publication, page number.”
• Bibliography. At the end of your paper, you must include a bibliography. This is an essential part of
the paper, do not forget it. This is a list of the works you have cited in the paper.