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1. Writing Philosophy
Course Name :Philosophy, Ethics and Critical Thinking
Course Code : GEN61-143E
Lecturer : Mr Benjamin Panmei
Hour : 3

2. Content
I. General Introduction
II. Articulation and Argument
III. Concept and Conceptual Framework
IV. Rules of Good Writing in Philosophy
V. Indirect Styles of Writing Philosophy
VI. Writing Reflection
VII. Conclusion

3. I. General Introduction
❖ Good writing is the product of proper training, much practice and hard work.
❖ One of the first points to be clear about it is that a philosophical essay is quite different
from an essay in most other subjects. That is because it is neither a research paper nor an
exercise in literary self-expression.
❖ It is not a report of what various scholars have had to say on a particular topic. It does
not present the latest findings of tests or experiments, and it does not present personal
feelings or impressions. Instead, it is a reasoned defense of a thesis.
❖ This means that there must be a specific point that you are trying to establish - something
that you are trying to convince the reader to accept - together with grounds or
justifications for its acceptance.

4. II. Articulation and Argument
❖ Articulation and Argument are the two main features of philosophy. Articulation is putting
your ideas in clear, concise, readily understandable language (express or explain your
thoughts). Argument is to support your ideas with reasons from other ideas, principles, and
observations to establish your conclusions and overcome objections.
❖ Philosophy is, first of all, reflection. It is stepping back, listening to yourself and other people
(including the great philosophers), and trying to understand and evaluate what it is that
you hear, and what it is that you believe. To formulate your own philosophy is to say what it
is that you believe as clearly and as thoroughly as possible.
❖ Often we believe that we believe something, but as soon as we try to write it down or
explain it to a friend, we find that what seemed so clear a moment ago has disappeared,
as if it evaporated just as we were about to express it.

5. ❖ Sometimes, too, we think we don’t have any particular views on a subject, but once we
begin to discuss the topic with a friend, it turns out that we have very definite views, as
soon as they are articulated.
❖ Articulation—spelling out our ideas in words and sentences—is the primary process of
philosophy.
❖ Sitting down to write out your ideas is an excellent way to articulate them, but most
people find that an even better way, and sometimes far more relaxed and enjoyable is
simply to discuss these ideas with other people—classmates, good friends, family—or
even, on occasion, a stranger with whom you happen to strike up a conversation.
❖ Indeed, talking with another person not only forces you to be clear and concrete in your
articulation of your beliefs; it allows you—or forces you—to engage in a second essential
feature of doing philosophy: arguing for your views.

6. ❖ Articulating your opinions still leaves open the question whether they are worth believing,
whether they are well thought out and can stand up to criticism from someone who
disagrees with you.
❖ Arguments serve the purpose of testing our views; they are to philosophy just ways to see
how well you are prepared, how skilled you are, and, in philosophy, just how convincing
your views really are.
❖ Articulating and arguing your opinions has another familiar benefit: stating and defending
a view is a way of making it your own. Too many students, in reading and studying
philosophy, look at the various statements and arguments of the great philosophers as if
they were merely displays in some intellectual museum, curiously contradicting each other,
but, in any case, having no real relevance to us.

7. ❖ But once you have adopted a viewpoint, which most likely was defended at some time by
one or more of the philosophical geniuses of history, it becomes very much your own as
well.
❖ Indeed, doing philosophy almost always includes appealing (showing sympathy) to other
philosophers in support of your own views, borrowing their arguments and examples as well
as quoting them when they have interesting things to say (with proper credit in a footnote,
of course).
❖ It is by doing philosophy, articulating and arguing your views, instead of just reading about
other people’s philosophy books, that you make your own views genuinely your own, that
is, by working with them, stating them publicly, defending them, and committing yourself to
them.
❖ Philosophy, through reflection and by means of articulation and argument, allows us to
analyze and critically examine our ideas, and to synthesize our vision of ourselves and the
world, to put the pieces together in a single, unified, defensible vision.

8. III. Concepts and Conceptual Frameworks
❖ The basic units of our philosophical projects and viewpoints are called concepts.
❖ Concepts give form to experience; they make articulation possible. But even before we try to
articulate our views, concepts make it possible for us to recognize things in the world, to see and
hear particular objects and particular people instead of one big blur of a world.
❖ An example of a concept would be this: As children, we learn to identify certain creatures as dogs.
We acquire the concept “dog.” At first, we apply our new concept clumsily, calling a “dog”
anything that has four legs, including cats, cows, and horses.
❖ Our parents correct us, however, and we learn to be more precise, distinguishing dogs first from
cats, cows, and horses and then later from wolves.
❖ We can think about and imagine dogs even when one is not actually around at the time, and we
can say what we think about dogs in general.
❖ We can refine our concept, too, by learning to recognize the various types of dogs and learning to
distinguish between dangerous dogs and friendly dogs.

9. ❖ Conceptual Framework is a network of interlinked concepts that together provide a
comprehensive understanding of a phenomenon or phenomena.
❖ It is the most abstract concepts through which we “frame” and organize all of our more
specific concepts.
❖ The term conceptual framework stresses the importance of concepts and is central to the
articulation of concepts that makes up most of philosophy.
❖ But what we are calling a “conceptual framework” can also be viewed, from a more
practical perspective, as a set of values and a way of looking at life, as a way of living, or,
in our contemporary vocabulary, as a lifestyle.
❖ It usually focuses on "why" or "what caused" a phenomenon to occur. Formal hypotheses
contains possible explanations (answers to the why question) that are tested by collecting
data and assessing the evidence (usually quantitative using statistical tests).

10. IV. Rules of Good Writing in Philosophy (Standard)
❖ Philosophers sometimes feel more strongly about the form of philosophy than they do about its
content—in other words, the particular view of the philosopher.
❖ We have already known that most people in a society will have most of their views in common, and
therefore it is the form, the style, the personality of the writing that gives a philosophy its distinctive
character.
❖ We can distinguish two basic categories of philosophical presentation, which we call standard and
indirect.
❖ In the standard presentation, you simply present your main ideas at the very beginning and then
proceed to argue for them, give examples that support them, and show how they tie together.
❖ Indirect writing can take a number of forms, from the still rather straightforward but more subtle (not very
noticeable) technique of saving your more controversial ideas until later, building up to them from
viewpoints that are less controversial or even apparently trivial (not important), to the much more
difficult and complex styles of dialogue and aphoristic (short phrase but wise or true) presentation.

11. 1.Organize
❖ Organize your thoughts before you begin to write. Be clear about your main points,
answer the primary questions and arrange these, not necessarily in order of importance
to you, but in the order in which you feel most prepared to argue for them. In a
straightforward presentation, your essay itself should show this organization.
❖ An outstanding example of straightforward, point-by-point organization is found in
Ludwig Wittgenstein’s book Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. (You will probably want a
simpler title for your own work.)
❖ Wittgenstein organized his entire work around seven points, numbered them from 1 to 7,
and then numbered the arguments and qualifications by decimals, such as, 1.1, 1.2, 1.21,
1.22. His philosophy is rather technical, but it might be worthwhile to show some of his
basic outline.

12. Outline
1. The world is everything that is the case
1.1 The world is the totality of facts, not things
2. What is the case—a fact—is the existence of a state of affairs
2.1 We picture facts to ourselves
2.2 A picture has a form in common with what it depicts
3. A logical picture of facts is a thought
4. A thought is a proposition with a meaning
4.1 Propositions represent the existence or nonexistence of states of affair
. . .
7. What we cannot speak of we must pass over in silence

13. ❖ In any case, even if you are not so explicit (clear and easy) in your writing, it is a good idea
to write an outline of the main ideas you want to establish, the order in which you want to
establish them, and a sketch of the kinds of arguments, examples, and considerations you
want to use.

14. 2. Write Simply
❖ Many students seem to feel that because they are doing philosophy and writing about such
“profound” (very great, extreme, deep) topics as the meaning of life, they ought to use lots
of very technical terms.
❖ Writing good philosophy is like good journalism or good short story writing; it consists of
simple, straightforward sentences. Except for a few specialized terms, it uses 25-cent words,
not $3 words that are to be found only in a thesaurus.
❖ Say clearly what you want to say so that your readers don’t have to spend their time trying
to figure out what you mean. Let your reader know what you think, so that he or she knows
right away how to discuss things with you.

15. 3. Be Clear
❖ The philosopher Wittgenstein said, “Whatever can be said can be said clearly.”
❖ There are some notable exceptions among the great philosophers, but for every not well-
known philosopher who ,for some reasons, becomes idolized by his students, hundreds are
quite properly ignored. Reading them is not worth the time.
❖ Why hack a path through a jungle when there is a clear road in the same direction?
❖ There is no need for so much technical terms, without examples or clarification. There is no
need for a foreign word when a good English word is available. There is no need for
quotation marks when their only function is to undermine the significance of the word they
enclose.

16. 4. Be Human and the Use of Examples
❖ Remember you are trying to court (try to obtain or get sth) the attention of your readers and
make your views attractive and appealing.
❖ That means that they first have to feel that you really believe what you say and that they
are sharing your thoughts rather than being attacked by them. Personal anecdotes
(interesting story about real person or event) and examples can help a great deal.
❖ Use of Example: If you are discussing the possibility of God’s entering into earthly affairs,
consider using an example or two from the Bible, the Koran, or other sacred text.
❖ If you are discussing the meaning of life, don’t be afraid to talk about life. If you are talking
about explanations in science, don’t be afraid to use some examples from science.

17. 5. Argue Your Point
❖ Arguing doesn’t have to be aggressive or nasty. In philosophy, to argue is to establish your
viewpoint and give reasons why you accept it and why others ought to accept it, too.
❖ There are many kinds of arguments, but in every case a good argument is convincing.
Many students seem to think that, once they have accepted a position themselves, any
argument will do.
❖ But remember that a bad argument, even surrounded by several good ones, is more likely
to turn your readers against your view than convince your readers.
❖ A good argument should be concise—short, necessary and to the point. Afterward, you
can qualify your comments and further support your claims, but the power lies in the
accuracy.

18. 6. Consider the Objections and Alternatives
❖ Philosophy is not just the presentation of a viewpoint; it is also a dialogue and part of a
discussion, whether or not it takes the form of a dialogue or a discussion.
❖ This means that you will always be anticipating some critic (it helps to have someone
specific in mind as you write) who will respond to your views and your arguments with
objections and examples designed to show that you are wrong.

19. 7. Define Your Specialized Terms
❖ If you introduce a technical term that is not part of ordinary speech or if you use an ordinary
word in some special way, tell the reader what you mean, and stick to that meaning.
❖ If you use the word substance to refer to the units of reality, say clearly (as many great
philosophers have failed to do) what will count as a substance and how you know whether
something is or is not a substance.
❖ Do not at any point slip into our ordinary use of the word substance (to refer, for example, to
gum on your shoe, or the unknown stuff in the pot in the garage).

20. 8. Use the History of Philosophy
❖ After all, you are now part of it. Don’t be afraid to bring in the opinions of other philosophers
you have read to support your view.
❖ You can repeat their arguments(with an acknowledgment that you are doing so); you can
quote them. You can use a particularly appealing phrase or description to amplify (increase
strength, detail) your own views.

21. V. Indirect Styles of Writing Philosophy
❖ Indirect styles are much more difficult to bring off (pull off, succeed) than straightforward
presentations. These styles are not, in general, recommended for introductory philosophy
students, except, perhaps, as a personal experiment.
❖ Indirect Styles include Dialogue Style, Ironic Style, and Aphoristic Style (short, sharp and to
the point)

25. VI. Writing Reflection
❖ Please express your view based on one topic in the list of philosophical topics below:
- What is the meaning of life?
- What is reality?
- Do you believe in God?
- The unexamined life is not worth living.
- The life of man (in a state of nature) is solitary, poor, nasty and short.
- One cannot step twice in the same river.
- Every dog has its day.
- No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience.
- Liberty consists in doing what one desires.
- There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.
- Leisure is the mother of philosophy.

26. VII. Conclusion
❖ How to successfully argue your viewpoint?
❖ To you, what are the differences between general writing, legal writing and philosophical
writing?
❖ What are the rules to write good standard philosophy?
❖ Reflection of today’s lecture.