All Men Are Mortal

Philosophy 101 Paper Assignment

Assignment: Write a philosophy paper about a topic dealt with in the class presentation or in the texts.

Due Date: December 7 (to the instructor’s mailbox at 214 University Hall)

Length: 3-4 pages.

What is a philosophy paper? How can I write (a good) one?

Check the link to James Pryor’s “Guidelines on Writing a Philosophy Paper”.

It is practical necessity that you check this link before our midterm.

How is my paper graded?

In the above webpage, Pryor provides the following three criteria.

1. How well do you understand the issues you're writing about?

2. How good are the arguments you offer?

3. Is your writing clear and well-organized?

I apply the following criteria as well.

• Whether your paper is about a philosophical topic dealt with in the class presentation or in the texts.

• Whether the position or the argument you provides is not a mere copy of someone else (the instructor, a character in the text etc.), but has its place of origin in you.

• How difficult your task is. See the section “The difficulty of the task” below.

• Whether you have narrowed a scope of your paper sufficiently for you to provide an adequate examination of the issue. See the section “Caution on topic selection” below.

The difficulty of the task:

Let me quote Joel Feinberg for making clear what I mean by the difficulty of the task.

It does not take very much talent to argue cogently for a thesis, just any thesis. One might actually prove an important though obvious thesis, quite conclusively, with little effort at all. Consider for example the following perfectly valid argument for a conclusion that I, for one, regard as important:

1. All men are mortal.

2. Feinberg is a man.

3. Therefore, Feinberg is mortal.

The student whose thesis is that easy to prove has not shown much originality, and deserves very little credit. The harder the...