Doing Philosophy A Guide to the Writing of

Clear and concise, this brief text is designed to assist students with no previous formal background in writing philosophy papers. Contents include topic selection, outlines, and drafts, proper and improper quotation, argument development and evaluation, principles of good writing, style and logic.

Preface

ii

Contents

iii

Methods of Proceeding

1

(8)

Introductory

1

(1)

Selecting a topic

2

(1)

The irrelevance of most library research

2

(2)

Resolving controversies

4

(1)

Appreciating philosophers of an earlier period

4

(1)

The outline

5

(1)

Preparation of the final draft

6

(1)

Writing blocks

7

(2)

Rules of the Game

9

(8)

Plagiarism as a legal wrong (violation of another person's property right)

9

(1)

Plagiarism as a moral wrong (cheating and lying)

9

(1)

Quotation, attribution, and acknowledgement

10

(2)

Alternative formats for notes

12

(2)

Acceptable abbreviations in the notes

14

(3)

Criteria for Grading Student Papers

17

(5)

Clarity

17

(1)

Presence of argument

17

(1)

Cogency of argument

18

(1)

Originality, subtlety, imaginativeness

18

(1)

Degree of difficulty

19

(1)

Ordering the criteria

20

(2)

General Principles of Good Writing

22

(9)

Clarity again

22

(1)

Simplicity

22

(2)

Economy

24

(1)

Padding

24

(1)

Repetitiveness

25

(1)

Redundancy

26

(1)

Misplaced emphasis

26

(1)

Pretentiousness and fancy words

27

(2)

A miscellany of further judgments

29

(2)

Mistakes of Grammar

31

(26)

Grammatical and nongrammatical errors

31

(1)

Criteria of correct grammar

31

(3)

A sampler of grammatical rules and their problems

34

(20)

The vanishing apostrophe

34

(2)

Ain't misbehavin'

36

(1)

Between or among?

37

(1)

Conjunctions as first words

38

(1)

Ungrammatical danglers

39

(1)

The problem of ``sexist pronouns'': some proposed solutions

40

(3)

Double negatives

43

(1)

Different from or different than?

44

(1)

Which or that?

44

(3)

Prepositions as last words

47

(2)

Split infinitives

49

(1)

Who (or whoever) or whom (or whomever)?

50

(4)

Summary

54

(3)

Some Common Mistakes in Diction

57

(10)

Diction and grammar

57

(1)

Linguistic correctness and controversy

57

(1)

Constantly changing usage

58

(1)

Linguistic liberals and conservatives

59

(1)

Sample mistakes in diction

60

(7)

``Criteria'' for ``criterion''

60

(1)

``Disinterested'' for ``uninterested''

61

(1)

``Enormity'' for ``enormousness''

62

(1)

``Fortuitously'' for ``fortunately''

62

(1)

``Infer'' for ``imply''

63

(1)

``Refute'' for ``rebut''

64

(1)

``Irony'' for ``coincidence''

64

(3)

Stylistic Infelicities

67

(14)

The concept of style

67

(1)

Prose writing as a source of pleasure

67

(2)

The paragraph

69

(3)

Motion metaphors

72

(3)

Smoothing the flow

75

(1)

Conspicuous over-use of favorite words

76

(1)

Forget adornment and eloquence

77

(1)

Types of poor writing style

78

(3)

Logic and Language

81

(8)

Correct and incorrect reasoning

81

(1)

Deductive and inductive reasoning

81

(1)

Sentences and propositions

82

(1)

Arguments

83

(1)

Premises as unproved ``assumptions''

83

(1)

Logical necessity versus psychological certainty

84

(1)

Necessity and contingency

85

(1)

Three types of impossibility

85

(4)

Basic Deductive Logic: Some Fragments

89

(16)

Possible truth value combinations

89

(1)

Validity and soundness

90

(1)

Definition of truth-functional connectives

91

(3)

Necessary and sufficient conditions

94

(1)

Valid deductive argument forms: a sampler

95

(10)

Logic Without Necessity

105

(8)

Some informal fallacies

105

(2)

Some inductive inferences, good and bad

107

(1)

Begging the question

108

(1)

Analogical reasoning

109

(1)

A sampler of fallacies

110

(3)

Varieties of Philosophy Papers

113

(1)

Rules of Strategy

113

(1)

Manageable philosophical tasks

113

(1)

Modest partial reasons

114

(1)

Interpretation

114

(1)

Generalization and counterexample

115

(1)

Definition

116

(1)

Other categories of philosophical papers

117

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Doing Philosophy A Guide to the Writing of Philosophy Papers

Summary

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials