Description
A paper on Hume's ideas on miracles. Analyze the argument he presents along with showcasing the strong and weak points of his argument.
Writing a paper in the History of Philosophy:Picking a Topic:Focus your topic. The main difficulty in choosing a topic is usually taking a subject so broad that your paper reads as if it comes from Wikipedia. There are two sorts of papers which one usually finds interesting. One are papers which take a theme and try to trace it through several philosophers, another takes up a problem in one philosopher and examines it in some detail.If you are interested in comparing two philosophers, then pick an issue which is both interesting and which both philosophers respond to. Your paper might then compare their responses and attempt to understand why their views or approaches are the same or different.If you choose to write on one philosopher, you should narrow down your subject. One tactic might be to choose an interesting problem, an argument you find puzzling, a view that enchantsyou,that you need to engage. If it contains a difficult argument, your goal might be to understand that argument and to place it in the framework of the philosopher's overall philosophy. Alternatively, you might wish to understand whether the argument is a good argument and to fit it into contemporary discussions of the issue. Another tactic might be to take one aspect of thephilosopher ideas on a subject. You may try to understand how a problem or thesis arises in some philosopher or to examine what argument the philosopher has for the thesis.In any case, your job is to read the philosopher(s) historically, i.e. to see them in their context as responding to their issues.Researching Your TopicOnce you have decided on a topic, read the primary texts that you are working on. Then consider a visit to the library. Chances are there are several enormous tomes on your topic and a mountain of articles (here's a reason for keeping the topic small). The library has one bibliographical indices: Philosopher's Index, but you can get a good idea of what there is from several standard resourses, theStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Cambridge Companions. Oxford Handbooks, and Cambridge Histories of Philosophy. Journal collections like JSTOR aregreat ifyou know what you are looking forbut need to be used with some caution.Use an article to see what else is written on your topic. At this point you may decide to discuss one article. DO NOT merely report its views in your paper. It is unoriginal and boring. But use articles to suggest starting points or use themas something to attack in order to develop your views. It is not necessary to use secondary literature (as articles about primary texts are called), but is a good idea. You may chooseto elaborate on your topic from the text, but it is useful to know what the possibilities are. In any case, you must pay careful attention to your primary sources.Your Argument, some Do's and Don'tDo not assume that your reader knows what you are talking about. Always assume that your reader is intelligent, but not a mind reader. The obvious is not as painful as the obscure ruminations of an author too thoughtful to explain herself. Do take time to explain each step of your argument, each interpretation.Do not fly above the text. If you are arguing that a philosopher has a certain view, you must prove to your reader that the philosopher has that view. Referring to what G. Vlastos has to say about Plato may correctly give Vlastos' views, but that is not evidence that Plato held such a view. Quite the contrary, you must refer to Plato's works to produce such evidence. The same
holds no matter what passage you are discussing in what century. A good paper usually refers frequently to the textand is not shy of extensive quotation.Do not discuss an argument without presenting it. There are many ways of reading most interesting texts. Hence, if you assume an interpretation of the text without explaining it, how will your poor reader know what you are talking about? Explain the argumentbefore you discuss it. Often an author leaps into explaining an interpretation before presenting it, so that the poor reader never learns what the argument to be presented was. Do not assume that your interpretation of the argument is the only possible one. So even if you quote the argument, you still need to explain how you are reading it.Don't spend your whole paper simply describing the text without presenting something of your own views, whether on your interpretation of the philosopher or on the philosopher's solution to the problem you discuss.Philosophical ContentIn a history of philosophy paper you take a position and give reasons for what you think. It is to be your own thinking about an issue or topic. It is a research paper, and your goalmay be to explain an important philosopher's views. Even so you must produce arguments for your interpretation. Don't just explain someone else's views. You can, of course, explain someone's view or some research that was done before you go on to give your evaluation of it.StyleStructure: Papers have usually a beginning, a middle, and an end. The opening should not wander all over the history of thought. You have only a few pages to state a thesis and to argue for it. So the opening should be brief. Explain the thesis you wish to present and why you think it is worth presenting. Then shoot quickly to the heart of your paper. Present each argument and show how it contributes to your thesis. Then when you have done this, take the extra space to tell the reader what you have done.\Grammar: Anything that detracts from the comprehensibility of a paper tends to lower the grade. If a reader has to spend so much mental effort to comprehend each sentence because it is almost incomprehensible, then that mental effort is not being spent to find out what the author intends to say. So the author is assumed, justly, to have said less than what was intended. Papers with extremely bad grammar will be returned without a grade.Presentation: A similar point could be made for papers presented in peculiar fonts, or for papers which are presented in single space. Papers should be double spacedand provided with page numbers. Every reader likes to know where they are and how much longer they have to go before the end of the journey.Bibliography: When you quote or paraphrase someone else's work or even use an ideafrom it, a standard reference including page number should be given (I don't care about which version of style you use, so long as you keep it consistent). Short quotations should be in "quotation marks;" long ones should be blocked off and single spaced:When you quote or paraphrase someone else's work or even use an idea from it, a standard reference including page number should be given (I don't care about which version of style you use, so long as you keep it consistent).