how to write a philosophy essay

1. First, a word about reading. Tutors differ as to whether they expect you to complete all the readings on their reading list. I will always tell you in person which readings I consider essential, and which optional, for you. 

2. Now, philosophy. Philosophical problems are rooted in a puzzle - in bafflement or wonder at something. They often take the form ‘how is it so much as possible that….?!’ (e.g. “How is it even possible that anyone could ever know what someone else thinks or feels?”) Sometimes you’ll find that a particular philosophical problem puzzles you too. But at other times you might think ‘Well, why’s that even an issue?!’

3. There’ll typically be no straightforward answer to a philosophical problem. But by grappling with it honestly you stand a chance of experiencing a growth in wisdom. You’ll first need to be willing to get lost in the thickets … and to then do what you can to find your way out.

4. So when writing your essay, the first thing to do is to get a clear question in mind that puts the underlying problem into words. (I may well supply one or more of these along with the readings.) The next thing - and this is especially important if you don’t find yourself entirely patient with the question - is to motivate the problem. This means: help your reader get into the puzzlement; show them something of why this issue has been found baffling. Even if you think the problem is ultimately a load of nonsense, try and recreate the point of view of someone who’s in its grip. (e.g. “…for our thoughts are inside each of us, and whilst we can readily access our own thoughts, we surely can’t access anyone else’s”.) This could form your introduction.

5. When you write your essay, imagine your reader to be a fellow undergraduate who hasn’t studied the topic in question, and to whom you are trying to explain it. (This will help you write clearly.) It’s easy to fall into the trap of instead trying to impress your tutor; trying to show that you’ve done and understood the reading; trying to show that you’ve got something clever to say. But none of that is the important thing; do your best to avoid all that!

6. An ‘essay’ is (French for) an ‘attempt’. A philosophy essay is an attempt to get to grips with a philosophical problem. Conversation is important for this - so do try to talk about your essay topic with your peers. But writing is also crucial. When writing is going well, it helps make thought more accountable to itself. Compare the experimental method in science: there you’re trying to discover causal relations and, to do this, it’s important to keep as many conditions as constant as possible. By analogy, when we do philosophy we try to make sure that the meanings of our words are as clear and constant as possible so we can see what actually turns on maintaining this or that. The written word on the unchanging page itself helps thought to stabilise. (Confusion - i.e. when you’re in a conscious or unconscious muddle - arises when we use words in unclear ways.) It’s important to try to keep your language simple, to avoid unnecessary technical terms, and to make sure you define such technical terms as you do use.

7. It’s not always possible to define your key terms - especially when writing about such fundamental issues such as being, time, life, meaning, knowledge, mind, language, thought, etc. In such cases it’s important to find other ways to keep a clear fix on your terms’ meanings. The use of examples is essential! Any abstract discussion you give should be exemplified. You can just make these examples up, or take something from your own or another’s life. To make sure that your words aren’t losing touch with reality you can also ask yourself: ‘Would anyone actually describe the situation I’m envisaging in this way?’ (…e.g. “When someone straightforwardly tells us what they think, do we really say of them ‘their thoughts are even now internal to them, inaccessible to us’?”) Another helpful strategy is to give recaps throughout the essay - to remind yourself and your reader exactly what you’re writing about now, and why you’re doing so.

8. A note for those of you who have had a scientific education. Science has its own way of asking and answering questions. To be counted valid, answers must be supported with reliable empirical evidence. (“How do this or that group of people tend to reason about what others think and feel? Let’s do a survey and tabulate the results.”) Philosophy however has a different approach. It is interested in essentials. It doesn’t propose theses which can then be tested against the data, since it’s interested in the prior question of the meaning of any such data. Perhaps you’re wondering what X essentially consists in, or wondering what it essentially is to Y. Your answers (“to be an X you must have features ABC”) are not to be assessed by seeing whether, in fact, all Xs do have features ABC. Instead they can be seen to be wrong if even a single counter-example can be found. This is why philosophy instead works by argument and counter-argument. (“You will surely admit that this here is an X, but can surely also see that, whilst it has features A and B, it lacks a C".) 

9. Writing a philosophy essay is, or ought to be, an emotionally demanding experience. If all goes well you’ll often feel confused and perhaps even ashamed at, or stupid for, not yet knowing your way around the topic. Becoming a thinker involves learning to tolerate this pride-denting feeling of stupidity without too quickly making it go away (e.g. by pseudo-ideational sophistry, by impatiently dismissing it, by rushing on to provide theoretical solutions to the question you’re discussing before really thinking clearly about what the question really means and whether the terms in which it's put really do make sense). It takes time to cultivate wisdom!

10. To help yourself get a grip on the material, it’s important to first write an essay plan. The plan should be structured like an argument. For example, you might first state the problem under discussion, making sure to motivate it. And then you might make the case for answering the question one particular way. You’ll probably then do well to discuss counter-arguments to your first proposal. And perhaps to rebut these. (…e.g. “One approach - we’ll call it ‘argument by analogy' - notes the similarities between our behaviour and that of others, and notes too that we know of a connection in our own case between our behaviour and our thoughts, and so…” … “Then again, can we really safely generalise from just one case, our own, to that of others?”) 

11. As you write, you’ll probably find yourself wanting to deviate from, or to rewrite, your plan. That’s all good. To really be thinking requires having a conversation with yourself, one in which you not only go back and forward between argument and counter-argument but also between plan and product, each of them both disciplining and inspiring the other. … So do re-write both the plan and the essay as you go along, doing what you can to produce a coherent whole. But try to avoid trying to write a perfect essay. It is, after all, just a first attempt, not a journal article!

12. Your essay should end with some kind of conclusion. In it you might first briefly recap your argument. Perhaps you’ll have noticed how the question in which your initial puzzlement found expression tacitly presupposed a viewpoint which you’ve come to question as you answered it. (…e.g. “The question with which we started assumed that our thoughts are hidden away inside us and not directly expressed in our speech and other behaviour. We have seen, however, that this is often not the case.”)