Philosophy homework help. Term Paper Instructions
You will be writing a 1,000-1,500 word philosophy paper. If you go over the word count a little bit it’s fine. You will choose from 7 topics in which to guide your writing. These topics should be familiar from Discussion Board. Choose one:
1. Can We Prove God’s Existence?
2. What is Knowledge?
3. Can a Machine Think?
4. What is a Person?
5. Do We Have Freewill?
6. Kant or Mill?
7. Abortion: For or Against?
Writing a philosophy paper can sometimes seem like a daunting task. But it need not be. There is a certain pattern that most (good) philosophy papers follow. You present a topic, confront problem(s), and attempt to offer some type of solution. What makes a philosophy paper unique, and different from say an English paper or scientific paper, is that you are relying on reasons to support your position. A reason isn’t necessarily aesthetically pleasing sentences or raw statistics, but rather claims that are rationally compelling–it’s hard to deny if you think it through. So in terms of philosophizing you will be coming up with reasons to construct an argument.
There are various ways you might get started in setting up your argument. One set of steps you might follow is below:
1. Provide an overview of the topic, including the various theories related to that topic.
2. Choose one or more theory and provide a positive/or negative argument for why that theory is better/or worse compared to other theories.
3. Present one or more criticism against your defended position.
4. Respond to that criticism, and propose a solution to resolve or lesson that criticism.
5. Use a paragraph to offer additional insights, musings, unresolved questions, unexplored solutions, etc., that did not make it into the main argument. Feel free to be creative here. I will not grade this paragraph.
6. Summarize your argument. Tell me what you did. This can be your conclusion. Hopefully writing Lecture Summaries over the course will have helped in this regard.
7. Use this summary to construct your thesis and formulate your first paragraph. I.e., for a positive argument:
In this paper I defend [insert theory] against the criticism of [insert problem]. I first offer an overview of [insert topic]. I next argue that [theory] is the best theory to account for [topic]. I then respond to the criticism that [problem] and propose a solution to how that criticism might be resolved. I end by offering some original insights on the topic before concluding with a summary of the argument.
I.e., for a negative argument:
In this paper I argue that [insert theory] cannot withstand [insert problem]. I first offer an overview of [insert topic]. I next argue that [theory] is not the best theory to account for [topic]. I then respond to the criticism that [problem] and propose a solution to how that criticism might be resolved. I end by offering some original insights on the topic before concluding with a summary of the argument.
8. Check that your paper accomplishes everything you promise in the first paragraph.
You should now be set up to write a philosophy paper! Remember to cite your sources, and include some type of bibliography at the end.

Philosophy homework help