Doing Philosophy A Guide to the Writing of Philosophy Papers

by Feinberg, Joel

• ISBN13: 9780534626266
• ISBN10: 0534626262
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-04-16
• Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing

Summary

Preface. 1. Methods of Proceeding. 2. Rules of the Game. 3. Criteria for Grading. 4. General Principles of Good Writing. 5. Mistakes of Grammar. 6. Some Common Mistakes in Diction. 7. Stylistic Infelicities. 8. Logic and Language. 9. Basic Deductive Logic: Some Fragments. 10. Logic Without Necessity. 11. A Model of an Excellent Paper. 12. A Model of a (Very) Bad Paper.

Table of Contents

Preface	viii
1. 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	(2)
Preparation of the final draft	7	(1)
Writing blocks	8	(1)
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)	10	(1)
Quotation, attribution, and acknowledgement	11	(2)
Alternative formats for notes	13	(2)
Acceptable abbreviations in notes	15	(2)
3. CRITERIA FOR GRADING STUDENT PAPERS	17	(6)
Clarity	17	(1)
Presence of argument	18	(1)
Cogency of argument	18	(1)
Originality, subtlety, imaginativeness	18	(2)
Degree of difficulty	20	(1)
Ordering the criteria	20	(3)
4. GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF GOOD WRITING	23	(8)
Clarity again	23	(1)
Simplicity	23	(2)
Economy	25	(1)
Padding	26	(1)
Repetitiveness	26	(1)
Redundancy	27	(1)
Misplaced emphasis	28	(1)
Pretentiousness and fancy words	28	(2)
A miscellany of further judgments	30	(1)
5. MISTAKES OF GRAMMAR	31	(22)
Grammatical and nongrammatical writing errors	31	(1)
Criteria of correct grammar	32	(2)
A sampler of grammatical rules and their problems	34	(17)
Summary	51	(2)
6. SOME COMMON MISTAKES IN DICTION	53	(10)
Diction and grammar	53	(1)
Linguistic correctness and controversy	54	(1)
Constantly changing usage	54	(1)
Linguistic liberals and conservatives	55	(1)
Sample mistakes of diction	56	(7)
7. STYLISTIC INFELICITIES	63	(14)
The concept of style	63	(1)
Prose writing as a source of pleasure	63	(2)
The paragraph	65	(3)
Motion metaphors	68	(2)
Smoothing the flow	70	(2)
Conspicuous over-use of favorite words	72	(1)
Forget adornment and eloquence	73	(1)
Types of poor writing styles	74	(3)
8. LANGUAGE AND LOGIC	77	(8)
Correct and incorrect reasoning	77	(1)
Deductive and inductive reasoning	77	(2)
Sentences and propositions	79	(1)
Arguments	79	(1)
Premises as unproved assumptions	80	(1)
Logical necessity versus psychological certainty	80	(1)
Necessity and contingency	81	(1)
Three types of impossibility	82	(3)
9. BASIC DEDUCTIVE LOGIC	85	(14)
Possible truth value combinations	85	(2)
Validity and soundness	87	(1)
Definition of truth-functional connectives	87	(3)
Necessary and sufficient conditions	90	(1)
Valid deductive argument forms: a sampler	91	(8)
10. LOGIC WITHOUT NECESSITY	99	(8)
Informal fallacies	99	(2)
Some inductive inferences, good and bad	101	(1)
Begging the question	102	(1)
Analogical reasoning	103	(1)
A sampler of fallacies	104	(3)
11. VARIETIES OF PHILOSOPHY PAPERS	107	(6)
Rules of strategy	107	(1)
Manageable philosophical tasks	107	(1)
Modest partial reasons	108	(1)
Interpretation	109	(1)
Generalization and counterexample	109	(1)
Definition	110	(2)
Other categories of philosophical papers	112	(1)
12. PHILOSOPHICAL RESEARCH ON THE INTERNET	113