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Writing Philosophy
November 24, 2023

WHAT PHILOSOPHY PROFESSORS WANT FROM STUDENT WRITERS

Some 2,300 years ago, Aristotle introduced the syllogism into the intellectual world. A threeelement formula, it is the elementary building block of syllogistic logic and deductive reasoning. The syllogism combines…
Writing Philosophy
November 21, 2023

ESSENTIAL WRITING SKILLS

Having just walked through the basic process of writing a philosophy paper, we turn now to the essential skillset you should develop and apply not only to the writing of…
FORMS OF PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGWriting Philosophy
November 19, 2023

OTHER CATEGORIZATIONS OF PHILOSOPHICAL WRITING

There are other ways of classifying the forms of philosophic writing you may be asked to produce. The most prominent of these are: The Expository Paper The Argumentative Paper The…
Logic
November 15, 2023

RELEVANCE LOGICS

A relevance logic is motivated by the idea that the premises of a valid argument must be somehow “relevant” to its conclusion. The idea is motivated by the fact that…
Logic
November 15, 2023

MANY-VALUE LOGICS

In the classical logics already discussed, the logical connectives are taken to be bivalent—that is, they allow of only two different truth values: true and false. One natural extension to…
CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHYHistory Of Philosophy
November 15, 2023

THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL

A group of philosophers, cultural critics, and social scientists based around the Frankfurt (Germany) Institute for Social Research were primarily concerned with integrating philosophical analysis with then-recent results in the…
Writing Philosophy
November 24, 2023

WRITING IS CENTRAL TO PHILOSOPHY

For the great majority of us, writing is instrumental to thinking. Since it is reasonable to describe philosophy as the application of disciplined thought to a variety of topics, issues,…
History Of PhilosophyCLASSICAL PHILOSOPHY
November 15, 2023

ARISTOTLE

Aristotle (384–322 BC) was born in Stagira but moved to Athens as a young man to study at Plato’s Academy. Following Plato’s death, Aristotle traveled, became tutor to Alexander the…
MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHYHistory Of Philosophy
November 15, 2023

SAINT AUGUSTINE

Like his contemporaries, Saint Augustine (354–430) was primarily influenced by Neoplatonism, and, indeed, credited Plotinus with helping him to understand Christian theology.
FORMS OF PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGWriting Philosophy
November 19, 2023

THE EXPOSITORY PAPER

We have already touched on the expository paper, but let’s discuss it briefly here. Look at the adjective expository. It is derived from the noun exposition, which is the noun…
CLASSICAL PHILOSOPHYHistory Of Philosophy
November 15, 2023

EPICUREANISM

Founded by Epicurus (341–271 BC), this eponymous philosophy is best known through the Roman poet Lucretius (mid first century BC). Like the Atomists, the Epicureans maintained that everything is made…
FORMS OF PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGWriting Philosophy
November 19, 2023

THE POSITION PAPER

A position paper may be viewed as a type of argumentative paper in that it states a claim—your position—concerning a topic, issue, or question and presents a justification for that…
FORMS OF PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGWriting Philosophy
November 20, 2023

FORMS OF PHILOSOPHICAL WRITING

The word essay comes from the French infinitive verb essayer, meaning “to try” or “to attempt.” In fact, when the word was first borrowed into the English language, as essay,…
POST-KANTIAN PHILOSOPHYHistory Of Philosophy
November 15, 2023

UTILITARIANISM

The French Revolution sparked legal and political reforms across Europe, which brought with them their accompanying philosophical frameworks.
STRATEGIC WRITING CHOICESWriting Philosophy
November 18, 2023

STRATEGIC WRITING CHOICES FOR PHILOSOPHY CLASS

Writing philosophy should not be easy, but you cannot allow it to become impossible. Here are five strategic rules of thumb for embarking on a successful writing project for philosophy…

Books

  • Logic: A Complete Introduction (Complete Introductions)

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  • The Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali: A New Translation with Commentary (Shambhala Classics)

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  • Manifest: 7 Steps to Living Your Best Life

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  • The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

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  • The Thousand Names Of The Divine Mother: Shri Lalita Sahasranama

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  • Philosophical Inquiries into Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Mothering: Maternal Subjects (Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy)

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  • Truth and Method (Bloomsbury Revelations)

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  • Aesthetics: Volume II

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  • Walden

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  • Ancient Ones Are Calling Us: Learning to Listen Changed My Life

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Terms & Concepts

T

Teleology

From the Greek telos, meaning “purpose,” the view that everything has an end, goal,function, or purpose. The explanation of phenomena in terms of their overall purpose—for example, animals have certain…
A

Abstract

General, as opposed to concrete, and thus independent of any particular. https://youtube.com/shorts/4l5lkGSYB2o?feature=share
E

Enlightenment

(1) The period of intense intellectual development, from roughly the end of the sixteenth century through the end of the eighteenth, on the Continent and Britain. Enlightenment thought is characterized…
P
Preestablished harmony
P
Pragmatism
T
Thing-in-Itself
E
Existential elimination
T
Transcendental argument
P
Primary qualities
A
Antecedent
M
Metaphysics
D
Deductive argument
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