Paper two

The second paper must concern the topic, ‘What is knowing? How does a person arrive at full philosophical knowing?’ Address the course material as part of your response. The papers need to be at least 1,500 words each. Quotations do not count toward the minimum word-count. There are essentially no ‘maximum’ limits for word-count. With this paper, I would advise that you avoid sceptical theses, e.g. ‘humans cannot know.’ Such negative attempts do not seem to lead to a good result at an introductory level. –Before getting into limits on what we can know, first try just to show how knowing is possible in the first place. Further I would warn students against the tendency to focus on material outside of the course. Focus on the course-material in constructing your answer and use outside material sparingly and only to help develop your approach, excepting in discussion of Leibniz. Do not give more credence or attention to, e.g., encyclopedia accounts of ‘the analysis of knowledge’ than is appropriate. Start with a focus on the Week Four document, and then consider discussing Leibniz. Consult the Week Four document for more on the definition of knowledge. This in fact is to be your main focus in the paper, though it must be brought into connection with the wider course-material, etc. If you are at a loss for an idea, you could use the following as a thesis: ‘Aristotle correctly shows, knowledge consists of foundational beliefs and deductions from them: the key and certain, foundational beliefs for the life of philosophic knowing are x, y, & z,’ where you then fill in x, y, and z, etc. For ideas on what X, Y, & Z could be, you can look especially to Leibniz and his claim that substances, by definition, cannot affect each other except through the act of creation. –Use this model unless you feel you know what you are doing and have spoken with the instructor about your plans. An example thesis: Aristotle correctly shows, knowledge consists of foundational beliefs and deductions from them – the key and certain, foundational beliefs for the life of philosophic knowing include: ‘I think’ (self-awareness as a thinking being) and substances, by definition, cannot affect each other except through the act of creation. 1. Make sure have a strong thesis statement. Place your thesis statement in the first paragraph of your paper. Please make it the first sentence. Use ‘and,’ commands and semi-colons, etc., to fit all the thesis ideas into one, grammatical-sentence. 2. Make sure your paper is organised around the thesis-statement, working to support it. So, e.g., if you say, ‘Descartes is correct about knowledge,’ do not just describe Descartes’ ideas but show why they are correct (as claimed). 3. Make the thesis specific, not ‘Socrates helps us with thinking,’ but instead ‘Socrates helps us with our thinking by offering his method of questioning to find contradictions, and to seek definitions; in particular, Socrates’ approach is beneficial in raising the idea, to know x, one must able to define x – this idea gives us a goal for our attempts at knowing.’ Try to discuss one or more of Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant or Hegel in the thesis and paper. Kant may, however, be difficult as a main focus, and Hegel is likely even more difficult. 4. Include numerous references, with page numbers. Try to use quotations. Try to reference your textbook. When your paper needs an in-text reference: give a quotation with a page-number. Then follow this up with a paraphrase of what you think the quotation means. Ideally, supply both the quotation and the paraphrase…. It is indeed very, very important to use primary sources, and to use secondary sources from outside our classroom only to clarify primary sources. (Obviously, then, there is more freedom when it comes to secondary sources, from within the classroom….) 5. You have to use MLA style. 6. Work on displaying your knowledge of Philosophy. 7. Remember that there are two questions here that you need to answer. You do not need to give equal attention to both questions, but you do need to address both in your papers. Students have a tendency to totally neglected the issue of ‘philosophical knowing’ or to approach it in a short, ad hoc, and erroneous manner. Beginning your paper Don’t begin with a sentence like “Down through the ages, mankind has pondered the problem of…” There’s no need to warm up to your topic. You should get right to the point, with the first sentence. Also, don’t begin with a sentence like “Webster’s Dictionary defines a soul as…” Dictionaries aren’t good philosophical authorities. They record the way words are used in everyday discourse. Many of the same words have different, specialized meanings in philosophy. –Jim Pryor, ‘Guidelines on Writing a Philosophy Paper’ Each paper must be tightly organized around a thesis statement that is presented near the beginning of the paper, ideally as the first sentence. A thesis statement takes a side regarding a controversial question. E.g. ‘The value of Socrates’ philosophy lies solely in his willingness to question atraditional claims.’ This is obviously controversial as one could well imagine, there is some other value to Socrates’ philosophy. Etc. A thesis statement is not a statement of aims. A statement of aims describes what your paper is about, in terms of what the paper will be covering and what it is trying to accomplish. I am looking for a thesis statement in each paper, not a statement of aims. You can also add a statement of aims, but that is optional. (By default, your aim is to support your thesis.) Do not merely describe what is in the texts, but evaluate the material and give arguments about what is important in philosophers’ thinking. Develop your own, detailed, logically coherent arguments. At the same time, papers must demonstrate the students’ knowledge of the history of philosophy. (Thus it is a question of balancing the evaluative, the creative, and the historical-descriptive.) Papers ought to be on the topics assigned. Moreover, the paper ought to be about the course material, which means especially the textbook and the online readings within GeorgiaView. * –References / Secondary Sources Be sure to provide proper references, including page numbers, for direct claims about philosophers. This is the most importantrequirement for your papers. Papers without references appropriate to beginning students will automatically be failed, and would have to re-written. All essays need to use appropriate, academic references in the MLA-style. The emphasis with reference in general ought to be on quotations rather than paraphrase (though with referencing the course textbook, accurate paraphrase might make quotation redundant). Plagiarism is a problem in online courses, and all plagiarism will be reported in accordance with University-policies, so please take extra-steps to avoid any appearance of plagiarism. Papers require proper citations and references in MLA format [see . Also keep in mind that, only certain WWW material can be used for references in papers: 1)specifically approved material, 2) material written by the instructor, 3) material assigned by the instructor as reading, & 4) material that is published elsewhere in print. The reason for these restrictions, is that much WWW is of a low-quality. It is recommended that you use JSTOR to find better quality material, if needed. — The contents of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is approved in advance for student use, however students are advised, that the content is often, not really very well-written or easy to read, and often pursues somewhat idiosyncratic questions. More generally, care is required in choosing references. So, for example, please do not use Russell’s History of Western Philosophy. This work is not permitted as a basis for papers in this course; please refer to the assigned readings and appropriate supplements to them. Then in general, -you need to pick good sources. If you rely upon the false claims of even a prestigious source or if you paraphrase an accurate source so as to turn its ideas into false claims then your own ideas have not been established. I do not give out a lot of points for just quoting false ideas from the secondary literature.