You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser or activate Google Chrome Frame to improve your experience.

Begin typing your search above and press return to search. Press Esc to cancel.

  • image/svg+xml Ello Ello

news for & about the philosophy profession

Which Essays Should All Philosophy Graduate Students Read?

A philosophy professor tasked with teaching the required proseminar for incoming graduate students has a question for Daily Nous readers.

philosophy essays to read

This fall I’m again teaching the mandatory proseminar for incoming graduate students, and so once again I’m wondering: what essays should all philosophy students read? It would be helpful to know if other people have a list of 10-25 papers that they want all their students to know something about.

Proseminars like this function differently in different departments, but a relatively common goal for them is to give students a somewhat broad introduction to what today’s philosophers think of as the central problems of various subfields of philosophy, as well as provide them with some shared background knowledge as they embark on their studies. Which articles or book chapters should be included in a one semester version of such a course?

philosophy essays to read

Famine, affluence and mortality by Peter Singer because he so gracefully builds his argument, which is incredibly hard to refute, and simultaneously poses a serious moral dilemma for all that have read it.

Greg Gianopoulos

The Singer Solution to World Poverty is another one by Peter Singer that was published in the NYT and is great for younger students.

https://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/05/magazine/the-singer-solution-to-world-poverty.html

AD

Alvin Plantinga “Is belief in God Properly Basic?” Because it explains (causally) a lot of the recent work on religious epistemology.

Thomas Nagel, “What is it like to be a bat”

Duncan Purslow

Russell’s ‘Problems of Philosophy’ : he gets caught up in sense-data theory but it is still a good introduction. Ryle’s ‘The Concept of Mind’ is easy reading and essential for all future learning. Frankena’s ‘Ethics’ covers the main theories of moral philosophy.

James A DeHullu

Let me suggest Willard Van Orman Quine’s essay “Two Dogmas of Empiricism.”

Bart

Seconded, with the addition of Quine’s ‘On what there is.’

(I think many people nowadays don’t realize that Quine was often right/insightful, even if he was dead wrong with the behaviorism.)

Phil Sci Grad

There are obviously many competing desiderata for proseminars. However, insofar as the *only* goal is to introduce graduate students to what’s going on in contemporary philosophy of science *and* I had only two papers or so to cover the subject area, then I would assign the Machamer, Darden, and Craver 2000 paper on mechanisms (I believe the most cited phil sci paper of the last two or three decades) and one of Alisa Bokulich’s papers on explanation (a nice contrast to MDC, allows me to bring in discussion of idealizations (a current hot topic), and explanation seems to be the hottest thing going).

Grad student

Kristie Dotson’s ‘How is this paper philosophy?’

Addresses fundamental questions about the nature of philosophy and attempts to bridge two competing conceptions.

Daniel Greco

For a couple of papers that would give students an introduction to one of the main threads in epistemology over the last half century or so, Alvin Goldman’s “what is justified belief?” And Laurence Bonjour’s “externalist theories of empirical knowledge” (chapter three of “the structure of empirical knowledge”) could be a good pairing.

Kenny Easwaran

From spending the last several years in a very pluralist department, I’m not convinced that there is *anything* that *every* graduate student in “philosophy” should read. However, I do think that for graduate students specifically working in the analytic or post-analytic traditions, most of the following would be essential:

Frege, “On Sense and Reference” Quine, “On What There Is” Quine, “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” Kripke, “Naming and Necessity” Gettier, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?”

I think there are also many significant strands of work that are essential to engage with to some degree, but may not have specific canonical papers like this set at the intersection of language and metaphysics (other than Gettier).

I would also campaign for Ramsey’s “Truth and Probability” to be added to this list, but it hasn’t reached the sort of canonical status yet for analytic philosophers outside formal epistemology.

Eric Schliesser

But it would set them up nicely for philosophy of economics!

Paul Wilson

For an integrated approach to a proseminar, I count 28 “Essential Readings” in the ten chapters of Alex Broadbent’s _Philosophy for Graduate Students: Metaphysics and Epistemology_ (Routledge, 2016).

Table of contents, preview, and “Request Inspection Copy” links at Routledge site:

https://www.routledge.com/Philosophy-for-Graduate-Students-Metaphysics-and-Epistemology-1st-Edition/Broadbent/p/book/9781138930506

Not on website, but worth mentioning.

From “Introduction” (p. x):

“The topics in this book are drawn primarily from metaphysics, epistemology, the philosophy of science, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of mind. These fields certainly do not define the whole discipline. But they _serve_ the whole discipline. Key distinctions (e.g. between physical and logical necessity) and concepts (e.g. supervenience), which have their home in these fields, are useful and sometimes essential for work in quite different fields such as ethics, political philosophy, or philosophy of medicine. … So this book seeks to link topics together in a way that enables a general and useful understanding of a core set of ideas and distinctions.”

Each chapter has a helpful section, “Key Concepts and Distinctions” to drive this integrating point home.

From “How to Use This Book” ( p. xi):

“This book is designed so that it can simply be read, but so that it can also be used as the basis of an entry-level graduate course covering core topics in metaphysics and epistemology. If used as the basis of a course, each chapter should be read to provide a general background to the topic at hand, and then some of the readings listed at the end of each chapter should be tackled. Each chapter identifies a handful of essential readings, and some further readings to take you deeper into the topic or closer to contemporary debates. … Some topics will be greatly assisted by a grasp of elementary formal logic, which should be covered separately, either before or alongside this course of readings.”

Very well written; I have found his exposition quite helpful. Essential Readings and Further Readings alone may be worth the time of OP – and others – to peruse.

Benjamin

Thanks for the suggestion, I am on my way to graduate school and just bought a copy!

gradstudent1

I think everyone is supposed to read Russell’s “On Denoting” right?

There’s a major backlash against that paper though. It’s a danger sign for a putative piece of required reading that there’s a whole literature dedicated to the thorny question of what the central argument in the paper (the “Gray’s Elegy” argument) is even trying to say.

WiseGuy

Korsgaard, “The Normativity of Instrumental Reason” Street, “A Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value.” Foot, “Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives.”

Alastair Norcross

Singer, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” Thomson. “A Defense of Abortion” (These two have the advantage of appearing in the same issue of P&PA (the very first) Rachels, “Active and Passive Euthanasia” Bennett, “The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn”, and “Whatever the Consequences”. Gettier, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” Railton, “Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality”. Quine, “Two Dogmas” Van Inwagen, the classic free will one, currently blanking on title and too much work to do to look it up. Frankfurt, the other classic free will one about levels of desire. Foot, “Utilitarianism and the Virtues” Heller, “The Proper Role for Contextualism in an Anti-Luck Epistemology” (the best introduction to epistemic contextualism, short and clear).

Spencer Jay Case

What? No Norcross on that list?

Well, I assume I don’t need to tell them to read my stuff. The clear light of reason does that.

roland kristo

I’ll do it then. For the less enlightened ones of us. Puppies, pigs and people – for applied ethics Two Dogmas of Deontology – for normative ethics

That’s my take, at least

Spencer Case

Comparing Harms: Headaches to Human Lives would be my recommendation

Justin Weinberg

Working with the idea that one has to be very selective here, and is looking for influential works, for normative ethics I’d suggest: W.D. Ross, Chapter 2 of The Right and the Good. This gives the students a taste of non-Kantian deontology and also is a nice precursor to both relationship-oriented moral views as well as contemporary metaethics. Peter Railton, “Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality.” This influential article is a great example of the possibilities of the development of a moral theory, and as such is a kind of defense of moral theory in general against Williams and others. (You could also assign Williams’ “Persons, Character, and Morality,” but it perhaps is a bit too both “inside” and wide-ranging to work well in a general proseminar.)

I see Alastair (above) also recommends the Railton piece. In thinking about the question, I tried to avoid works that students were likely to encounter at the undergraduate level as philosophy majors, and so while I agree that Singer, Thomas, Rachels, and Bennett are worth reading, I think they are widely assigned in lower-level ethics courses. The Foot essay is a great suggestion.

Paul J Edgeworth

Analytic or Continental philosophy!

Chris

Like Kenny, I’m in a pluralist department that has abandoned its proseminar requirement years ago. However, some of the readings included; Carnap “Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology” – a natural pairing with the Two Dogmas Rawls “Two Concepts of Rules” On logic/philosophy of logic (these have the advantage of being non-technical): Carroll “What the Tortoise Said to Achilles” Hacking “What is Logic?” Haack “The Justification of Deduction” Phil science: Goodman, Fact Fiction and Forecast (chapter III on the new riddle of induction) The Good/Hempel debate on instance confirmation Mind/language/epistemology etc. Putnam “Meaning and Reference”; Kripke Naming and Necessity; van Cleve ” Foundationalism, Epistemic Principles and the Cartesian Circle” History: Wilson “History of Philosophy in Philosophy Today: the case of sensible qualities” (there are obviously lots of more recent papers one could choose here..)

If you have a relatively unified department around analytic phil language, you can of course borrow from the MIT model (syllabus available as part of their open coursework project): Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Moore, Austin, Ryle, etc.

Animal Symbolicum

I really like the philosophy of logic suggestion. Among the many frustrating metaphilosophical lessons I learned in grad school is that while many teachers, students, and writers of philosophy are, unsurprisingly, fluent in the various canonized logical systems, very few of that lot have reflected on just what it is they are doing in using those systems or just what it is to articulate a logical system in the first place. Metalogical and model theoretic forays abound, of course, but that’s just more of the same: one can apply a model theory or unspool soundness, completeness, or decidability proofs without reflecting on just what one is “talking about” in doing so. This lack of reflectiveness is surprising given how centrally logic figures as an instrument, or sometimes even a medium, in analytic philosophy.

One way the lack is felt is when many a high-powered paper and the sub-industry it spawns assume that in following the derivation of their theorems or the provision of their set-theoretic models one is learning about the metaphysical structure of reality. Whether that assumption is correct is beside the point. The point is that it goes unquestioned. (But maybe that’s the whole idea: accept the rules of a contrived world in order to exhaust, by manufacturing paper after paper, the allowable moves in that world.)

Interesting point, Justin, about some papers being likely to have already been assigned at the undergrad level. I would be wary of making too many assumptions, though. I have encountered grad students who never read Thomson’s “Defense of Abortion” or Singer’s “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” as undergrads. It shocked me, but there it is. If they don’t read them as undergrads, they certainly need to read them in grad school. One more that I thought of is Foot’s “The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of Double Effect”. It’s not a very good paper (certainly not a good account of the DDE), but it’s very influential. It was the origin, I’m pretty sure, of the now-ubiquitous trolley problem. I certainly think all grad students should be familiar with the origins of the trolley problem, if not with the serpent-windings of deontology that it has spawned.

Elizabeth S.

I agree that making assumptions about what grad students already know can be problematic. I think it is important to remember that not all grad students enter grad school with an undergraduate degree in philosophy. I did not and found it difficult at times to catch up on what others had already covered. I didn’t read many of these papers until I was TA for classes that assigned them to undergrads. That said, I knew when I began that I wouldn’t have the same knowledge that my peers who had already spent four years studying philosophy had and expected that it would take me a bit of extra legwork to familiarize myself with contemporary discussions.

Clement

Some of us as undergrads went to great-books programs. We didn’t read articles from philosophy journals but delved exclusively into the works by major philosophers (Plato, Kant, Aquinas, etc.) I don’t think I was disadvantaged by focusing exclusively on primary texts in this way for those four years. Grad school seemed to be the right place for encountering journal articles. Just wanted to register this alternate approach.

ADAM W

What is the point of equality? Elizabeth Anderson.

Daniel Propson

The structure of this response delights me. Here it is in haiku form:

What is the point Of equality? Elizabeth Anderson.

Tom

Definitely Jonathan Schaffer’s ‘On What Grounds What’. It’s one of the papers that led to the ‘grounding-craze’ in current metaphysics and is quite accessible. http://www.jonathanschaffer.org/grounds.pdf

Also, Ross Cameron’s ‘Turtles All the Way Down’. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40468234?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

Michel

I’ll give it more thought later, but two articles immediately spring to mind:

(1) Linda Nochlin’s “Why have there been no great women artists?”. It’s an oldie, and by an art historian (with a BA in philosophy, however!). But it completely changed academic art history, it’s a very important piece of feminist philosophy of art, and it touches on a number of issues that are relevant across several subfields of philosophy, not just aesthetics (e.g. feminist philosophy, genius, privilege, aesthetic value, the power of social conventions, etc.). It’s a fantastic illustration of the value of philosophy outside philosophy, too. And it’s fun, provocative reading.

(2) Elisabeth Lloyd’s “Pre-Theoretical Assumptions in Evolutionary Explanations of Female Sexuality”. It’s an astonishing piece on evolutonary psychology’s blindspots and the perils of bad, unreflective science. The examples she marshals are breathtakingly bad (and hilarious), and I think we’d all do well to bear these lessons in mind as we go about theorizing from the armchair. While the focus is relatively narrow, I think that the lessons are useful and important for any subfield with tendencies towards naturalization or, indeed, biological/evolutonary explanation, from metaphysics to aesthetics, epistemology, and political theory.

Ben B

The proseminar I took selected papers for what they had to teach about philosophical method rather than content. Three of the ones we read were:

David Lewis’s “The Paradoxes of Time Travel” Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “The Trolley Problem” Warren Quinn’s “The Puzzle of the Self-Torturer”

Not all the papers were about paradoxes the way these three obviously are, but these three struck with me. (I only remember one more of the papers we read, and that one because it didn’t meet my adolescent expectations of what “analytic” philosophy should be, and I’m retrospectively ashamed not to have put in the work to understand it.) I think this is because they made me feel that some puzzles were pointing to something deep and important and others were just a sign that thinking had gone badly off the rails somewhere, and so motivated me to try to cultivate a sense of which was which.

Elliott

The consensus in this thread appears to be belief is “Lockean” I think the consensus would be challenged with these two essays:

David Wisdo “Self-trust and the ethics of belief”

John McDowell “Wittgenstein on following a rule”

Here are more essays that have a challenging epistemology:

Nancy Fraser “Rethinking the Public Sphere” Sarah Ahmed “Cultural Politics of Emotion” Linda Martin Alcoff “The Problem of Speaking for Others” Laila Lalami “So to Speak”

John Schwenkler

I taught a class like this last fall, though it was just the “Theoretical Philosophy” half of a two-term proseminar. Here’s what I had on the syllabus (I think we ended up doing all of it except the chapter by Stanley — sorry, Jason):

Week 1: Gottlob Frege, “On Sense and Reference” (1892) Bertrand Russell, “On the Notion of Cause” (1912) Week 2: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (1953), §§151-242 Week 3: Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind (1949), chs. 2-3 (“Knowing How and Knowing That”, “The Will”) Week 4: G.E.M. Anscombe, Intention (1956/1963), §§4-18 J.L. Austin, “A Plea for Excuses” (1963) Week 5: P.F. Strawson, “Freedom and Resentment” (1962) Anscombe, “Causality and Determination” (1971) Week 6: Donald Davidson, “Actions, Reasons, and Causes” (1963) Davidson, “Mental Events” (1970) Week 7: Jerry Fodor: “Special Sciences (Or: The Disunity of Science as a Working Hypothesis)” (1974) Daniel Dennett, “True Believers” (1981) Week 8: Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity (1970/1980), Preface and Lecture I Week 9: Kripke, Naming and Necessity, Lectures II-III Week 10: Hilary Putnam, “Brains in Vats” (1981) John McDowell, “Singular Thought and the Extent of Inner Space” (1986) Week 11: David Lewis, “Causation” (1973) Lewis, “Elusive Knowledge” (1996) Week 12: Timothy Williamson, Knowledge and its Limits (2000), Introduction and chs. 4 and 9 (“Anti-Luminosity”, “Evidence”) Week 13: Williamson, Knowledge and its Limits, ch. 11 (“Assertion”) Jason Stanley, Knowledge and Practical Interests (2005), ch. 3 (“Knowledge Ascriptions and Context-Sensitivity”)

By no means would I put all of this on a list of “things that must be read” — indeed, the only such candidate might be Naming and Necessity, and even that demand feels dated. But I do feel that it’s a selection of readings that helps to provide context for a lot of ongoing work in theoretical philosophy. One thing to add: I also spent a fair amount of time on “professional development” broadly construed, and would HIGHLY recommend doing this in any seminar designed for first-year students.

Michael Kremer

Would be very interested to know *how* you covered professional development.

Sure, here are the topics we covered:

General advice; how to prepare for seminar and be a good participant How to give a seminar presentation Philosophical writing Academic and non-academic careers (visit from the FSU Career Center) Working as a Teaching Assistant Doing philosophical research Giving feedback on the work of others Setting goals and managing responsibilities Forming relationships with faculty and fellow students Attending academic conferences Giving a talk Figuring out what interests you Building a CV and marketing yourself Getting your work to publication

My approach was pretty relaxed: I began with 5 or 10 minutes of planned remarks and then we had open discussion for up to 20 minutes. But Errol Lord and Brandon Warmke both shared with me some really detailed and polished handouts from when they did this sort of thing themselves.

Jeremy Goodman

“On sense and reference” “On denoting” Naming and necessity “A puzzle about belief” “Quantifying in” “Demonstratives” Counterfactuals (chapters 1,2,4) “Scorekeeping in a language game” “Attitudes de dicto and de se”

E

Message received: Women don’t do philosophy.

Jen

Better: Women don’t do philosophy that all grads should read. Even better: Jeremy Goodman thinks that philosophy papers grads should read are written by men. Best: Jeremy Goodman thinks that *some* philosophy papers grads should read are written by men.

Matt LaVine

For what it’s worth, I received a similar message from the whole thread. Doing a quick glance at the suggestions up-thread, I think I found that 83% of those suggestions were of men’s work and 99% of the suggestions were of work from white folks. Surely that’s a problem, right?

So as to not be entirely critical, some of my suggestions would include:

Ambrose, Alice. 1952. “Linguistic Approaches to Philosophical Problems.” The Journal of Philosophy 49, no. 9: 289–301.

Anderson, Luvell. 2017. “Hermeneutical Impasses.” Philosophical Topics 45, no. 2: 1–20.

Antony, Louise. 1993. “Quine As Feminist: The Radical Import of Naturalized Epistemology.”

Berges, Sandrine. 2015. “On the Outskirts of the Canon: The Myth of the Lone Female Philosopher, and What to do About it.” Metaphilosophy 46, no. 3: 380–397.

Bright, Liam Kofi. 2017. “Logical Empiricists on Race.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 65: 9–18.

Bright, Liam Kofi, Malinsky, Daniel, and Thompson, Morgan. 2016. “Causally Interpreting Intersectionality Theory.” Philosophy of Science 83, no. 1: 60–81.

Brozek, Anna. 2017. “Maria Kokoszynska: Between the Lvov-Warsaw School and the Vienna Circle.” Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy 5, no. 2: 19–36.

Chapman, Siobhan. 2013. Susan Stebbing and the Language of Common Sense. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Clough, Sharyn. 2003. Siblings Under the Skin: Feminism, Social Justice, and Analytic Philosophy. Colorado: Davies Group.

Crary, Alice. 2018. “The Methodological is Political.” Radical Philosophy Issue 2.02, Series 2.

Crenshaw, Kimberle Williams. 1991. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review 43, no. 6: 1241–1299.

Curry, Tommy. 2010. “Concerning the Underspecialization of Race Theory in American Philosophy: How the Exclusion of Black Sources Affects the Field.” The Pluralist 5, no. 1: 44–64.

Davis, Angela. 2016. Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement. Chicago: Haymarket Books.

Diamond, Cora. 2000. “Ethics, Imagination and the Method of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus.” In The New Wittgenstein, A. Crary and R. Read (eds.). New York: Routledge: 149–173.

Dotson, Kristie. 2012. “A Cautionary Tale: On Limiting Epistemic Oppression.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 33, no. 1: 24–47.

Du Bois, W. E. B. 1903. “The Souls of Black Folk.”

Dutilh Novaes, Catarina. 2018. “Carnapian Explication and Ameliorative Analysis: A Systematic Comparison.” Synthese.

Dutilh Novaes, Catarina and Geerdink, Leon. 2017. “The Dissonant Origins of Analytic Philosophy: Common Sense in Philosophical Methodology.” In Innovations in the History of Analytic Philosophy, S. Lapointe and C. Pincock (eds.). London: Palgrave Macmillan: 69–102.

Gordon, Lewis. 2008. An Introduction to Africana Philosophy. Cambridge University Press.

Gordon-Roth, Jessica and Kendrick, Nancy. 2015. “Including Early Modern Women Writers in Survey Courses: A Call to Action.” Metaphilosophy 46, no. 3: 364–379.

Haslanger, Sally. 2012. Resisting Reality: Social Construction and Social Critique. Oxford University Press.

Kukla, Rebecca. 2014. “Performative Force, Convention, and Discursive Injustice.” Hypatia 29, no. 2: 440–457.

Marcus, Ruth Barcan. 1961. “Modalities and Intensional Languages.” Synthese 13, no. 4: 303–322.

Marcus, Ruth Barcan. 1980. “Moral Dilemmas and Consistency.” The Journal of Philosophy 77, no. 3: 121–136.

Mills, Charles. 1997. The Racial Contract. Cornell University Press.

Mills, Charles. 1998. Blackness Visible: Essays on Philosophy and Race. Cornell University Press.

Mills, Charles. 2015. “Decolonizing Western Political Philosophy.” New Political Science 37, no. 1: 1–24.

Mills, Charles. 2017. Black Rights/White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism. Oxford University Press.

Mohawk, John. 1986. “Prologue.” In The White Roots of Peace, Paul Wallace. The Chauncy Press.

Park, Peter K.J. 2013. Africa, Asia, and the History of Philosophy: Racism in the Formation of the Philosophical Canon, 1780–1830. Albany: SUNY Press.

Pateman, Carole. 1988. The Sexual Contract. Stanford University Press.

Russell, Gillian. 2014. “Metaphysical Analyticity and the Epistemology of Logic.” Philosophical Studies 171, no. 1: 161–175.

Saliba, George. 2011. Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Sen, Amartya. 2011. The Idea of Justice. Harvard University Press.

Stebbing, L. Susan. 1932. “The Method of Analysis in Metaphysics.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 33: 65–94.

Stebbing, L. Susan. 1933. “Logical Positivism and Analysis.” Proceedings of the British Academy 19: 53–87.

Stebbing, L. Susan. 1939. Thinking to Some Purpose. Penguin Books.

Stebbing, L. Susan. 1941. Ideals and Illusions. Watts and Co.

Warren, Karen. 1990. “The Power and Promise of Ecological Feminism.” Environmental Ethics 12, no. 2: 125–146.

Yap, Audrey. 2010. “Feminism and Carnap’s Principle of Tolerance.” Hypatia 25, no. 2: 437–454.

Zack, Naomi. 2002. Philosophy of Science and Race. Routledge.

“Doing a quick glance at the suggestions up-thread, I think I found that 83% of those suggestions were of men’s work and 99% of the suggestions were of work from white folks. Surely that’s a problem, right?” Why is it a problem? The judgments of philosophers and would-be philosophers who have posted a list suggest that the overwhelming majority of work that all grads should read is written by WMs. There is no surprise here, given these peoples’ likely backgrounds. They’re likely people trained in analytic philosophy. It is not surprising if it turns out that being trained in analytic philosophy makes you more likely to believe that that stuff is the best sort of philosophy. If analytic philosophy has been dominated by WMs, it’s no surprise that the majority of the philosophy analytic philosophers believe to be best is written by WMs. It is not clear why I should believe there is a problem.

Stefan H

“Why is it a problem?” It’s absolutely not. Philosophy needs another generation of white men to publish responses to Jeremy Goodman’s responses to David Lewis.

ehz

I am astonished by this comment. Do you find the hypothetical responses to responses to responses worthless because they are written by white men?

My apologies. I didn’t think that I needed to explain why this would be a problem. And I mean that genuinely—not in the passive-aggressive, sarcastic way that things like this are often said. I only bring it up in the first place because I think Luvell Anderson’s “Hermeneutical Impasses” article can actually explain the communicative situation we find ourselves in. That aside, I’d like to provide this explanation. Importantly, I think one such explanation has already been provided by Alexander Guerrero down-thread. Since his comment wasn’t intended to be a part of this dialectic, I’ll try to sketch my own (cf. Amartya Sen on plural grounding from “The Idea of Justice”).

Again, trying to be sensitive to the very particular conversation we’re having, I will be responding directly to Jen’s argument. I take the argument to be that there being 83% suggestions of men’s work and 99% suggestions of white folks’ work is not a sign of any problem because the blog’s commenters are “likely people trained in analytic philosophy” and “If analytic philosophy has been dominated by WMs, it’s no surprise that the majority of the philosophy analytic philosophers believe to be best is written by WMs.” Notice that while these give much of the argument’s structure, it is still somewhat enthymematic. So, I ultimately see us working with something like the following:

P1: The blog’s commenters are people trained in analytic philosophy. P2: If the blog’s commenters are trained in analytic philosophy, then they will think the best philosophy is written by analytic philosophers. P3: If the blog’s commenters think the best philosophy is written by analytic philosophers, then they will suggest whatever has dominated analytic philosophy for the proseminar. SC1: The blog’s commenters will suggest whatever has dominated analytic philosophy for the proseminar. (P1, P2, P3) P4: Analytic philosophy has been dominated by WM. SC2: (It is no surprise that) The blog’s commenters will make suggestions dominated by WM. (SC1, P4) P5: If it is no surprise that the blog’s commenters will make suggestions dominated by white men, then there is no problem that the blog’s commenters will make suggestions dominated by white men. CONCLUSION: There is no problem that the blog’s commenters will make suggestions dominated by white men. (SC2, P5)

I can see problems at every step of this argument.

P1: Wouldn’t it be a problem that the blog which sometimes gets characterized as taking diversity and inclusion concerns overboard only attracts analytic philosophers?

P2: I’m trained as an analytic philosopher exclusively (philosophy of language and logic). I still think that much of the best philosophy is written in traditions outside of analytic philosophy. And why wouldn’t I? Analytic philosophy is ~120 years old and has primarily been done in the west. Philosophy is 4000 years old and has been done all around the world.

P3: Why would the best and what has been most dominant necessarily go together? P4: Yes, but this hasn’t been because WM have just been doing the best work. Analytic philosophy has been a part of explicitly racist and sexist institutions throughout its existence.

P5: Just because there’s an explanation of the blog’s commenters primarily suggesting WM, that doesn’t mean we should be happy with it. Again, in so far as it’s true that analytic philosophy has been dominated by WM, it has been in a seriously insidious fashion. One would think we should fight against that so as to not perpetuate those problems. This is especially the case given that creating a syllabus with folks other than WM is really quite easy. Looking at Jeremy Goodman’s suggestions, one could teach a course on the very same ideas with nothing but work written by women and people of color easily. Instead of the Frege, Russell, Kripke, Kaplan, and Lewis, they could teach: Delia Graff Fara (2011, 2015), Ruth Barcan Marcus (1946, 1947, 1961, 1980, 1990), Gillian Russell (2008), Dorothy Edgington (2003, 2004), Sally Haslanger (2012), and GEM Anscombe (1975).

This is not meant to pick on Goodman’s suggestions in particular at all. They just happened to be the ones which started this conversation. More generally, if one wants to teach Moore and Russell, you could do the same work by teaching Stebbing and Dutilh Novaes. If one wants to teach Wittgenstein, you could do the same work by teaching Crary. If one wants to teach the logical empiricists, you could do the same work by teaching Bright, Dutilh Novaes, and Yap. If one wants to teach Austin and Grice, they could do the same work by teaching Kukla and Anderson. If one wants to teach Kripke, you could do the same work with Barcan Marcus. If one wants to teach Quine, you could do the same work with Antony, Haslanger, and Mills. If one wants to teach Rawls, they could do the same work with Mills and Pateman. I’m not trying to give an argument that such a course should be taught only with the work of women and people of color. I’m just saying if that could be done, surely there’s something problematic about suggestions that are 83% men and 99% white folks?

I appreciate that you took time to do this, and I think your response is in good faith. For these reasons I’ll respond. However, I confess that I’m not highly impressed by your reconstruction of an argument. This is partly because I’m not arguing that there’s no problem. At most, I’m giving a reason for thinking that there’s nothing apparently racist or sexist suggested by the data we’ve got in these comments. And I’m not impressed by your responses to the premises of the argument.

Your response to P1 is to suggest a problem with the interest garnered by the blog. I’m not sure why this is a problem, but I’m simply uninterested in this, even if it is a problem.

Your response to P2 is to cite your preferences, and it would undermine P2 on the straightforward reading of it. However, I certainly do not endorse the premise and never did. Here’s the closest thing to such an endorsement: “It is not surprising if it turns out that being trained in analytic philosophy makes you more likely to believe that that stuff is the best sort of philosophy.” This is, of course, no endorsement of P2.

Your response to P3 is to question the thought that there is a correspondence between what dominates analytic philosophy and the best philosophy. But I’ve never endorsed P3. The closest to doing so is when I wrote: “If analytic philosophy has been dominated by WMs, it’s no surprise that the majority of the philosophy analytic philosophers believe to be best is written by WMs.” Still, I’m confident there is a strong correspondence, and it is related to the methodology and history of analytic philosophy. To say much more would take us too far from the discussion.

Your response to P4 is to agree and to point out that the domination of WMs in analytic philosophy is partly due to racism and sexism. I agree, but I’m inclined to believe this is irrelevant to our conversation if our judgments of what work is best are not themselves motivated by racism and sexism.

Your response to P5 is to point out that we should be unhappy with and actively oppose the insidious domination of WMs in philosophy. I never endorsed P5, and I never argued nor even meant to suggest that there was no problem. I simply wrote: “It is not clear why I should believe there is a problem.” Furthermore, we can agree with your response without changing our preferences for what we assign our grad students, as long as we do other things to actively oppose the insidious domination of WMs in philosophy.

By the way, when choosing which books and papers to assign, many of us don’t simply consider what ideas to teach. We consider, among other things, which things are examples of good philosophical writing, which arguments have been most convincing, the interests of faculty, and the interests of the students. So even if it is true that the same ideas can be taught using work by WMs or using work by others, it would be only slightly relevant.

I’m probably too busy to spend much more time on this, so I don’t think I’ll be responding to any reply. Thanks again for the conversation.

Thank you for the conversation as well, Jen. I have lots of responses, but I don’t want to address them to nobody. So, I’ll just say two things:

(1) You say that “Your response to P4 is to agree and to point out that the domination of WMs in analytic philosophy is partly due to racism and sexism. I agree, but I’m inclined to believe this is irrelevant to our conversation if our judgments of what work is best are not themselves motivated by racism and sexism.” One of my biggest points is intended to be that judgments of what work is best can be CONDITIONED by racism and sexism even if not MOTIVATED by racism and sexism. I’d argue that these judgments are so conditioned and that we have a duty to fight against that.

(2) You say that “when choosing which books and papers to assign, many of us don’t simply consider what ideas to teach.” I couldn’t agree more. My thought was that one such reason to assign work in a proseminar is aspirational– what do we want the discipline to be like going forward? I’d like for it to be open to ideas from folks regardless of social identities. I think we need to pay attention to the social identities of those we assign if that is ever going to happen.

Okay. I said I wouldn’t say anymore to nobody. If anybody happens to want to continue this conversation, please let me know.

Matt LaVine writes: “One of my biggest points is intended to be that judgments of what work is best can be CONDITIONED by racism and sexism even if not MOTIVATED by racism and sexism. I’d argue that these judgments are so conditioned and that we have a duty to fight against that.”

If the Matt LaVines point above ought to be taken seriously, it appears that the following point ought to be taken seriously: Judgments of which method of inquiry is best can be CONDITIONED by racism and sexism even if not MOTIVATED by racism and sexism. I’d argue that these judgments are so conditioned and that we have a duty to fight against that.

I’m sure I’m not alone in judging that rational inquiry which makes use of, among other things, evidence, logic and argumentation is best. This is a judgment conditioned by racism and sexism, and in the same way as my judgments about what work is best. Do I now have a duty to revise my judgments and advise students to consider nonrational inquiry? Or to consider inquiry that does not make use of evidence, logic and argumentation? Anyone who takes seriously claims like those above–concerning conditioning of judgments by racism and sexism–but thinks we have no duty to advise students to consider alternatives to rational inquiry of the sort described, must be able to point out a relevant difference.

I do not take seriously the claims mentioned, so I do not have to point out a relevant difference. What about you Matt LaVine?

Matt LaVine writes: “My thought was that one such reason to assign work in a proseminar is aspirational– what do we want the discipline to be like going forward? I’d like for it to be open to ideas from folks regardless of social identities. I think we need to pay attention to the social identities of those we assign if that is ever going to happen.”

The discipline can be open to ideas from anyone even if we maintain our judgments about what work is best. I’m not sure why anyone would think otherwise.

Two relevant differences to me seem to be that:

(1) I think the ONLY way we end up with suggestions of 83% men’s work and 99% work of white folks is with those judgments being conditioned by racism and sexism. There are independent reasons to support rational inquiry.

(2) I think that suggestions of 83% men’s work and 99% work of white folks perpetuates racism and sexism. I think supporting rational inquiry does no such thing. In fact, I think supporting rational inquiry is an important part of anti-racist and feminist work. I do think supporting a logic of domination (cf. Karen Warren (1990) above) where logic and emotion are taken to be at odds with each other is very problematic. But, this can be avoided.

Matt, is “being conditioned by racism and sexism” really the only way we end up with suggestions of 83% men’s work and 99% work of white folks?

Let us consider the proportion of works by men to works by women, if we limit ourselves to works that have received some attention in the literature. We have some data on this from Kieran Healy’s analysis[1]. Healy found that only 3.6% of the top 500 cited works (in 4 leading journals) are by women. Suppose that is more or less representative of works in general that at least some members of the profession are familiar with. Then suppose that one picks suggestions from this group based purely on the quality of their content. Assuming a similar level of quality between works of men and women, the resulting suggestion list would contain roughly the same ratio of men to women: only about 3.6% works by women. I think it is fair to assume that the same would hold for works by whites vs non-whites.

Now, you might say that sexism significantly contributed to there being only 3.6% works by women in the most cited philosophical works. That may be so. But given that state of the literature, even the most fair-minded individual would end up with a suggestion list heavily skewed towards white men. So, I don’t think we need to claim that people making such suggestions (e.g. the commenters on this post) are sexist or racist in order to explain the ratios we get. That is certainly not the only way we end up here.

[1] https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/19/lewis-and-the-women/

Thanks for the question, ehz. You’ve largely acknowledged the response I would give with “Now, you might say that sexism significantly contributed to there being only 3.6% works by women in the most cited philosophical works.” Oppressive structures and institutions straight-forwardly made this the case. Many of the original works I linked to give the details there if you’re interested.

Also, I agree that we do not need to say that individuals were motivated by racism or sexism in order to get the ratios we got. That was my point in distinguishing between being conditioned by vs. motivated by racism & sexism. I just don’t see how that’s a morally relevant difference, though. If we contribute to/perpetuate oppression because we have animus or because we’re wildly ignorant due to the animus of people before us, the result is still largely the same. And, the result is one that we ought to fight against. We ought to do so for the sake of justice. But, we ought to do so for the sake of good philosophy too. We miss out on lots of AMAZING philosophical work if we’re basically restricting ourselves to the work of white men. I genuinely find it difficult to understand how that’s controversial.

Matt LaVine writes: “I just don’t see how [the difference between being motivated and being conditioned by racism and sexism is] a morally relevant difference, though. If we contribute to/perpetuate oppression because we have animus or because we’re wildly ignorant due to the animus of people before us, the result is still largely the same. And, the result is one that we ought to fight against. We ought to do so for the sake of justice.”

You are making controversial assumptions. You are assuming that to judge Frege’s work to be among the best/most worth reading (or to express the judgment) is to contribute to or perpetuate racism and sexism, given that the judgment is conditioned by racism and sexism. This is controversial. Why think this? You are assuming that judging Frege’s work best because of racist or sexist motives, has “largely the same” result as judging it best because of its content. That’s controversial. The results are, of course, the same in certain respects, but it is not at all clear that they are the same in relevant respects–i.e., as they pertain to justice. You can, after all, judge Frege’s work best and yet encourage and acknowledge the importance of work from women and people of color. How is this incompatible with justice?

Your previous responses to my prior comments make similar controversial assumptions. Because many fail to acknowledge these assumptions or fail to acknowledge that they’re controversial, they are contributing to the difficulty so many in our profession face when carrying on these conversations.

Hello again, Jen. A few thoughts… (1) I made no such assumption about judging Frege’s work or judging any individual’s work. I feel like I’ve been pretty clear from the outset about the fact that I’m talking about the suggestions taken collectively.

(2) “You can, after all, judge Frege’s work best and yet encourage and acknowledge the importance of work from women and people of color.” Agreed. This is why my point was about the collective suggestions. And, notice, the possibility you’ve suggested hasn’t been actualized. Where are the acknowledgments of the importance of work from women and people of color? Where is the encouragement of work from women and people of color? What I’ve seen here is quite a lot of energy put into discouraging the encouragement of work from women and people of color.

(3) I’m open to hearing which other controversial assumptions I’ve made in my previous responses (again, I genuinely mean that—I hate the lack of conversational context that makes it so easy for things to come off as passive-aggressive. I promise I’m not trying to sound that way). I also don’t know what you’re referring to when you talk of difficulties people in our profession run into. That might be because I don’t know what the extent of “these conversations” is supposed to cover, though.

(4) Also, since you brought up Frege, here’s an example involving Frege of the kind of thing I’m trying to avoid with my encouragements and my comments… Frege begins the Grundlagen with the following “In arithmetic, if only because many of its methods and concepts originated in India, it has been the tradition to reason less strictly than in geometry, which was in the main developed by the Greeks.” This is an extremely Eurocentric statement. Frege would do well to remember the contributions of the Hindu-Arabic numerals—invented by various mathematicians in India like Brahmagupta and Bhaskara I, but systematically defended and popularized by al-Kindi and al-Khwarizmi—to the rigor of the study of arithmetic. (This is not to even mention the role that al-Khwarizmi played in the development of algebra—a tool absolutely necessary to modern logical rigor). If Frege would have been open to more work developed by different types of people, he might have recognized the silliness involved in his statements. He also might have learned a great deal more about logic and mathematics by reading these folks and Ibn Sina, Ibn al-Haytham, al-Farabi, etc. He also might have understood why we should engage in such work a lot better.

I used Frege’s work for illustrative purposes. The point, more generally, is that you’re assuming that judgments contribute to or promote oppression, given that they are conditioned by racism and sexism. But that is controversial. The other point I made applies more generally too: we can collectively judge these works best and yet encourage and acknowledge the importance of encouraging work from women and people of color. That is compatible with justice.

The encouragement and acknowledgement of the work of women and people of color can be done in other ways, obviously. For example, by actively searching for talented women and people of color in order to mentor them and encourage their work. You seem to be assuming that the only way to encourage and acknowledge the work of women and people of color is to say that the work already done by such people is among the best. This assumption is controversial.

About the quotation from the Grundlagen, you’re assuming that there is no other interpretation than the Eurocentric one. Here’s an alternative: Frege is suggesting an explanation for why the traditions in geometry are different from the traditions in arithmetic, and the explanation is that whereas the concepts and methods of geometry derive from one geographic location (Greece), that of arithmetic derive from another geographic location (India). Why assume this is not the correct interpretation?

I’m not inclined to point out all of the assumptions you have made in previous comments, in addition to pointing out all of the assumption you continue to make. It’s time-consuming and, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m busy.

Joe

Just a quick follow-up recommendation on Brozek’s great article on Kokoszynska. Why not also read Kokoszynska’s “The Relativity of Truth”? It’s a tremendous original piece of work!

Of course, you’ve got quite a comprehensive list already, so it may be that you won’t be able to add it.

Others in the Lvov-Warsaw School that I’d recommend are Izydora Dambska and Janina Kotarbinska who were tremendously influential.

Yes, Joe. I couldn’t possibly agree more. If folks aren’t familiar with these members of the Lvov-Warsaw school, another great article that’ll give you more places to look is:

Brozek, Anna and Jadacki, Jacek. 2018. “Izydora Dąmbska: The First Lady of the Twentieth-Century Polish Philosophy.” In The Lvov-Warsaw School: Past, and Present. Birkhauser.

And if we want the most accurate: Some philosophy papers Jeremy Goodman thinks all grads should read are written by men.

Dodge

No reasonable person would interpret his list as suggesting that women can’t do philosophy.

Michael Thompson

It is odd to read ‘Attitudes de dicto and de se’ and not Anscombe, ‘The First Person’, which propounds the same principal thesis some years earlier.

chonos

Here are some that haven’t been mentioned yet:

Searle, “Minds, Brains, and Programs.” Nagel, “Subjective and Objective.” Laudan, “Dissecting the Holist Picture of Scientific Change.” Kitcher, “1953 and All That: A Tale of Two Sciences” Kim, “Mechanism, Purpose, and Explanatory Exclusion.” Woodward, “Mental Causation and Neural Mechanisms.” Latour, “Why has Critique Run Out of Steam?” Boghossian, “What the Sokal Hoax Ought to Teach Us..”

Mark van Roojen

It seems like a fool’s errand to give a content-based version of this. (There can’t be anything that all phil grad students should have read anymore given limited human life spans.) And if I did recommend such and if I also stuck with the standard way of viewing that approach, I would recommend Lycan’s short Phil Language book that distills many of the standard analytic/phil language offerings into a really nice read. The unconstrained versions seem much harder. I’d be inclined to go to puzzle papers, that raise an issue without settling it. A good idea of the range of things that have been part of philosophy and the range of lines of thinking that led to them would be of some interest and use. And still it would miss a lot.

Emily M

I noticed many of the readings in the comments are things that we often assign to undergrads/I covered in my undergrad courses.

Out of curisosity – is there a reason for reassigning them if the main point is to make sure the articles have been read? I understand that rereading articles is a good idea – but that doesn’t seem to be what the post is asking about. So let me ask the question this way, are there readings that graduate students, specifically, should read that they likely were not exposed to in their undergraduate courses?

I see some have noticed this as well – I apologize for the repeat comment

As for assuming what has been read previously, could this be avoided by simply distributing a reading list that includes readings often assigned in lower levels such that any incoming student who had not read them should be expected to do so in their own time? This way time in seminar is more constructive?

One idea is that it might be important for every grad student not just to have read some paper, but also read it in the context of a discussion by a philosophical community (whether an undergraduate or a graduate classroom). Even if most people got it in undergrad, I’d want to make sure the grad students got it too, and for the ones that got it in an undergrad classroom, they probably will get a lot more out of the discussion this second time in the particular context it’s in.

But there’s definitely an interesting question of what are things that grad students *should* read that probably *shouldn’t* be assigned to undergrads that don’t already have the background.

Louis

In re contemporary classics, a category to which a number of pieces mentioned here belong, I’d think the opening few chapters of _A Theory of Justice_ would make the list, for those who didn’t read Rawls as undergrads. And maybe, because it’s memorable and somewhat controversial, the chapter on “supreme emergency” in Walzer’s _Just and Unjust Wars_.

David Wallace

I am skeptical that the purpose of a pro seminar is really to “give students a somewhat broad introduction to what today’s philosophers think of as the central problems of various subfields of philosophy, as well as provide them with some shared background knowledge as they embark on their studies”. I think it is much more about teaching philosophical skills, establishing departmental conventions on how seminar discussion is to work, and bonding the first year cohort together.

From that point of view, more or less anything broadly cohesive, high-quality, and coherent with the department’s general approach (if any) will do fine.

Gustav G

I would highly recommend “John Rawls” by Søren Flinch Midtgaard. It takes a look at Rawls theory of Justice, but it’s focus is in its short coming, under application in a democratic state. Good book, for anyone interested in either foreign philosophy, or Rawls. It’s a short book, så it works well as introduction to the theory.

Olly

I haven’t seen anyone mention Tarksi. Tarski’s work is often not covered at undergrad because of it’s technical nature. It was, obviously, extremely influential and game-changing. Grad school seems to be a good place to introduce Tarksi to students.

I think the general ideas of Tarski and the Tarski formalism are very good to get – but they’re probably not best gotten by reading “Über den Wahrheitsbegriff in den Formalisierten Sprachen”, either in German or Polish or English. A lot of the technical moves have been polished by later writers so that you don’t have to go through the 1930’s understanding of them.

Alexander Guerrero

It is interesting to me how limited the vision is here. I, too, had a standard Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Strawson, Quine, Goodman, Kripke, Kaplan, Lewis, with a bit of ethics–maybe Nagel and Williams?–mixed in. I can’t remember exactly.

I don’t mind having learned those things, of course, but I don’t think learning any of it (a) prepared me for any of my own philosophical research, (b) helped me feel that I better understood what was going on in subfields other than my own, or (c) gave me a sense of what people are currently up to in philosophy, even in analytic philosophy.

And of course it not so subtly communicates what is central, important, genius, and constitutive of the “core” of philosophy in the analytical tradition (which of course is now most of philosophy in most research universities in the anglophone world), as well as who writes philosophy and (somewhat to a lesser extent) how it is written.

Analytic philosophy is generally pretty ahistorical in its orientation, but there remains a kind of obsession/genuflection with going through this early history. It strikes me as largely unconsidered or simply a matter of tradition: this is how I came through it, so this is what I will have others go through.

It’s obviously heavily tilted toward a certain philosophy of language origin story, with a bit of epistemology, metaphysics, and mind overlaid and blended in. But I would think it gives people a very poor sense of the way in which, say, contemporary analytic metaphysics is done, or the way in which philosophy of language is now so heavily infused with linguistics and psych/cognitive science, or how empirically grounded and scientifically responsive philosophy of mind has become, or how variously formal or social (legal, political) epistemology has become. And it leaves out, almost entirely, the development of metaethics and the surge in interest in normative ethics, ethical analysis of real world problems, and social, legal, and political philosophy. I could imagine a version of the course that started at Quine/Lewis, or brought in Ramsey, or did more with Moore…

I’ve seen some versions that focused on different methodological approaches within philosophy, including empirically infused work, formal work, historical work, personal/literary/socially-embodied/emotionally-engaged work, old school arm chair cases and intuitions work, and so on. That seems valuable, and makes some sense as a required course. I’ve also seen courses that were more like ‘here are 12 papers that I think are really great, and why’ courses. That also seems valuable, if done well. But it seems an odd and misguided plan to identify some smallish set of papers ‘that everyone should have read,’ or to force some fake origin story on all of the various work that is being done now. And that seems particularly bad if it means one feels thereby compelled to assign work entirely by men, for example.

To make a constructive recommendation of three great, provocative, influential papers that I think would add a lot if assigned in proseminar, along with some of the Quine, Lewis, and Kripke:

María Lugones, “Playfulness, ‘World’-Traveling, and Loving Perception” (1987) Charles Mills, “White Ignorance” (2007) Sally Haslanger, “Gender and Race: (What) Are They? (What) Do We Want Them To Be?” (2000)

John Burciaga

Russell’s “Problems of Philosophy” first of all.

Marcus Arvan

“Modern Moral Philosophy” – GEM Anscombe

I love Anscombe otherwise. But I think this is an extremely uncharitable (and because of that terrible) paper.

I’ll grant that it’s uncharitable in certain respects. But I still think it’s interesting and to this very day poses a profoundly important challenge to modern moral philosophy that (in my own view) has (mostly) not yet been met.

Fair enough. I overstated my disapproval! 🙂

I would say that it’s rude, not uncharitable. She moves quickly, which glosses over a great deal, but she doesn’t create many straw man arguments; she just insults Sidgwick and Hume (among others) rather gleefully.

“Could Morality Have a Source?” Chris Heathwood

John Fischer

Peter Strawson, “Freedom and Resentment” Harry Frankfurt, “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility” Harry Frankfurt, “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person”

Hi John, that second Frankfurt one was the one I was too lazy to remember the title of in my suggestions earlier in this thread. Thanks.

John

Hey Alastair, You got it right, though!

Rollo Burgess

As a dilettante I don’t really have a dog in this fight, but this thread is a great source of suggestions for interesting things to read, many of which are available for free on internet so thanks all for more lockdown reading material.

In the spirit of the thread, one paper that made a big impression on me as a student that I havent seen mentioned here is ‘On the very idea of a conceptual scheme’ by Donald Davidson.

PhD student

These suggestions make me feel like I have never studied philosophy!

Except the Dotson, I’ve read the Dotson 🙂

Neil Levy

PhD student: I’ve been a philosopher a long time, but I’ve read only about one quarter of these suggestions. The ones I’ve read are excellent, and I’m sure the ones I haven’t read are great too. But don’t beat yourself up if you haven’t read them (that is, if you’ve substituted other great stuff instead). There are lots of ways to do philosophy, and this selection represents only a few of them.

Sam Duncan

There seem to be two distinct questions here: 1. What should the reading list of the required first year grad seminar look like? 2. What are some cool and or influential papers every grad student should have read? On question 1 I tend to agree with Wallace and van Roojen that there really isn’t a good answer to that. In my grad program the reading list of the first year seminar was determined by whoever taught it (the faculty took turns). One year it was hardcore analytic metaphysics, the next modern normative ethics with a heavy virtue theory emphasis, and the year I took it “Plato’s Theory of Forms.” The point wasn’t the reading list but to introduce students to the norms and expectations of graduate seminars and graduate work and to each other. I think van Roojen is right that it’s a fool’s errand to define a list of readings everyone should know and use the seminar to make grad students read those or to put it less pejoratively it’s really presumptuous and opinionated. Five different people will come up with at least five lists and there won’t be too much overlap between those lists. On the other hand if we’re just talking about cool readings then there have been some fine suggestions here and I’ve really benefited it. As far as my own suggestions go I guess I can’t do much better than to second (or is it third by this point?) Anderson’s “What’s the Point of Equality?” One final point though: Maybe we shouldn’t focus too much on papers. A better question to my mind is “What books should all grad students have read?”

graduatestudent

This is not a suggestion, so much as flagging something I noticed in the suggestions. Of about 90 suggested readings, it appears that only two are written by people who aren’t white.

As faculty and future faculty, It’s worth thinking about what philosophy is considered valuable and essential by us for incoming grad students and what that says about our field and the message it sends to incoming grad students from marginalized groups.

Bryan

Book I, and IX of Plato’s Republic. Scaling Reality, and Tools of Salvation from The Earth and I by James Lovelock. The Tao of Who, and The now of Pooh from The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff. The Responsibility of Intellectuals, and Masters of Mankind from Who Rules the World? by Noam Chomsky. Economy and Conclusion, from Walden by Henry David Thoreau.

Jonathan

Such a good thread. In philosophy of biology, I’d assign:

David Hull, What philosophy of biology is not Elliot Sober, Apportioning causal responsibility Paul Griffiths, What is innateness? Elisabeth Lloyd, Evolutionary psychology: the burdens of proof John Dupre, Natural kinds and biological taxa Daniel Janzen, What are dandelions and aphids?

Adam Omelianchuk

Two works of epistemology I think are fantastically fertile for the graduate student’s imagination are “Elusive Knowledge” by David Lewis and “The Problem of the Criterion” by Roderick Chisholm.

Many professors haven’t read most of the articles listed here. Maybe I should use this thread as a reading list for me.

John Tilley

For those who assign Anscombe’s “Modern Moral Philosophy” to students, here’s an article worth assigning along with it: Charles Pigden, “Anscombe on ‘Ought’,” Philosophical Quarterly 38(150) (1988): 20-41.

William Peden

I think that Charles Pidgen’s articles in general are a great guide to how to do careful, charitable, and incisive work.

As guides for how to do most philosophy, most of the time, I’ve learned a lot from reading him, James Rachels, Helen Beebee, and Duncan Pritchard, even though they don’t (mostly) work in my exact areas of study. I take this as a sign that they’re the sort of philosopher that’s worth reading once by everyone, just to get a sense of their approach to writing philosophy. I think that almost any of their most cited papers will do.

Oh, I also have to commend the work of John Passmore (again, on almost anything) and Susan Wolf (especially the classic “Moral Saints”, which was one of the articles that convinced me to become a philosopher).

Roman Altshuler

Looking at the lists people have provided reminds me of something important: for many, and probably *most* classic papers, reading them alone, without instruction, isn’t very useful. What makes them important is that they are foundational–that other people picked up their ideas and ran with them. But with many of the classic papers of analytic philosophy, unless you’re already privy to a certain tradition that tells you what they were about and why this was important, reading them would never tell you that.

LESLIE GLAZER

jonathan Lear. “Working Through The End of Civilization”

charles taylor “interpretation and the sciences of man”

charles taylor. “overcoming epistemology”

alasdair mcintyre. “moral dilemmas”

gradstudent3795

This is a great thread!

I like the idea of a pro-sem that picks a much discussed topic in a major area of analytic philosophy, then assigning students both classics and good, recent work on that topic. Some suggestions:

In normative ethics, on the plurality of value: Stocker’s “The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories” and Nagel’s “Fragmentation of value”; Wolf’s “Happiness and Meaning: A Plurality of Values Rather Than a Conflict of Norms” and Eden Lin’s “Welfare Invariabilism”.

In meta-ethics, on the Euthyphro question: Mackie’s “Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong”, chapter one and Williams’ “Internal and External reasons”; Sobel’s “Subjectivism and Reasons to be Moral” and Street’s “Constructivism about Reasons”.

In moral psychology, on what it is to value: Frankfurt’s “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person” and Lewis’ “Dispositional Theories of Value”; Scheffler’s “Valuing”.

In political philosophy, on the ideal/non-ideal distinction: relevant sections of Rawls; Mills’ “Ideal Theory as Ideology” and Estlund’s 2014 paper “Utopohobia.

In social philosophy, on social criticism and progress: Haslanger’s “Culture and Critique” and Anderson’s “Social Movements, Experiments in Living, and Moral Progress”.

In epistemology, on the nature of knowledge: Gettier’s famous paper and Williamsons’ “Knowledge as Evidence”; Hawthorne and Stanley’s “Knowledge and Action” and Weatherson’s “Knowledge, Bets and Interests”.

In metaphysics, on whether there are fundamental existents: Quine’s “On What There Is”; Schaffer’s “On What Grounds What”.

In mind, on what separates happenings from actions: Davidson’s “Actions, Reasons and Causes” and Velleman’s “What Happens When We Act”; Arpaly’s “A Causal Theory of Acting for Reasons” and Setiya’s “Reasons and Causes”.

John Huss

“Ethics and Intuitions” by Peter Singer

“On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme” by Donald Davidson

MC

I agree that we need to diversify philosophy. In this historical moment, what “central problems” are more important, philosophically or otherwise, than systemic inequality? On that note, I don’t think anyone has mentioned critical disability theory. “Foucault and Feminist Philosophy of Disability,” Shelley Tremain “The Minority Body,” Elizabeth Barnes “The Individualist Model of Autonomy and the Challenge of Disability,” Anita Ho “The Man-Not,” Tommy Curry Also see: https://biopoliticalphilosophy.com/2020/06/01/interviews-with-black-indigenous-disabled-philosophers/

Eric Steinhart

Gloria Anzaldua, “Now let us shift…”

Light

  • Contributors
  • Valuing Black Lives
  • Black Issues in Philosophy
  • Blog Announcements
  • Climate Matters
  • Genealogies of Philosophy
  • Graduate Student Council (GSC)
  • Graduate Student Reflection
  • Into Philosophy
  • Member Interviews
  • On Congeniality
  • Philosophy as a Way of Life
  • Philosophy in the Contemporary World
  • Precarity and Philosophy
  • Recently Published Book Spotlight
  • Starting Out in Philosophy
  • Syllabus Showcase
  • Teaching and Learning Video Series
  • Undergraduate Philosophy Club
  • Women in Philosophy
  • Diversity and Inclusiveness
  • Issues in Philosophy
  • Public Philosophy
  • Work/Life Balance
  • Submissions
  • Journal Surveys
  • APA Connect

Logo

1,000-Word Philosophy: Philosophy for Everyone

philosophy essays to read

“Professional philosophy can seem abstract, esoteric, and hyper-specialized. But we all ask and try to answer philosophical questions myriad times daily: philosophy is the purview not just of the expert, but of all thoughtful people. 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology is an open-access journal of philosophy. Its essays are introductions rather than argumentative articles. Its intended audience is the general reader and students in philosophy, and philosophical, courses. Our goal in writing and sharing these essays is to provide high-quality introductions to great philosophical questions and debates. We hope that philosophers and non-philosophers alike will benefit from perusing these essays.”

  • About 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology

Today we will interview the editors of 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology ( 1000WordPhilosophy.com ), an open-access project dedicated to providing excellent introductions to philosophical issues that are ideal for students and public philosophy purposes.

APA blog : How did 1000-Word Philosophy start?  

Andrew Chapman started 1000-Word Philosophy while he was a doctoral student at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Grad students find themselves teaching a lot of topics that they’ve never taught before, and so grad students with different specialities often ask one another for a 5-minute refresher course on a specific topic. He noticed how adept his colleagues were at coming up with these amazing summaries of complicated issues off of the tops of their heads and thought that it would be tremendously helpful—for other philosophers and for nonphilosophers—if these summaries were collected and shared somewhere. And thus 1000-Word Philosophy was born.

The specific number of words, 1000, was intended to correspond with about 5 minutes of reading time, although it’s also just a nice, round number. It became apparent though that 1000 words was around the number needed to do a thorough but not overly technical or overly specific job at introducing a topic. And 1000 words is the perfect length for an essay that introduces undergraduates who otherwise would struggle with a long essay to material that is graspable in a much shorter format. That was a serendipitous development!

APA blog : What areas of philosophy do you publish essays in?

We currently have over 80 essays published in 17 categories, and we add more categories when we publish new essays in new areas. We’ve recently added the categories of Philosophy of Race , Philosophy of Education , Buddhist Philosophy , Chinese Philosophy , and Logic and Reasoning .

For a long time we’ve had the categories of Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art , Ethics , Epistemology , Historical Philosophy , Metaphilosophy , Metaphysics , Phenomenology and Existentialism , Philosophy of Mind and Language , Philosophy of Religion , Philosophy of Science , Philosophy of Sex and Gender , and Social and Political Philosophy.

Some essays are placed in multiple categories. The Ethics and Philosophy of Religion categories have the most essays.

APA blog :Who reads these essays?

Philosophy instructors, students and general readers from around the globe. We get the most views first from the US, then the UK, Canada, India, the Philippines, and then European and African countries.

Many philosophy instructors use our essays in classes: they often mention that when they contact us about submitting an essay. The accessibility level of the essays ensure that teachers can easily generate discussion, and their length means that students can read about an important topic without being overwhelmed.

From contact we’ve had with general readers, it seems that some of them have less access to formal higher education or are autodidacts. They are just interested in learning more about philosophy and appreciate finding these introductory essays.

The essays are also useful for supplemental readings, beyond the main texts for a class. So they work great for background readings, “if you want to learn more”-type readings (especially since they have suggestions for further readings in them) and readings for when class discussion goes on tangents to interesting, but unexpected, topics.

APA blog : What are some of the most popular essays?

One measure of popularly is number of views. The essay “ Karl Marx’s Conception of Alienation ” has around 70,000 views. The essay on abortion has around 35,000 views. Some of the earlier essays have tens of thousands of views.

The recent essays that address issues about race and gender have been especially particular popular, in terms of shares and discussion on Twitter and Facebook . The essay on Mary Astell , an early modern woman philosopher, was posted just a few months ago and was (and remains) especially popular.

APA blog : Who can contribute?

Nearly all of our essays are by philosophy professors or advanced graduate students in philosophy. People typically are able to develop essays packed with philosophical content, presented in a manner readily understood by nearly anyone, only if they have had significant teaching experience involving dialogue with students. That interaction allows for a better sense for how non-experts often see and understand issues and so allows an author to write effectively for that audience.

APA blog : How are the essays reviewed?

The essays are all reviewed by the editors, all of whom have contributed multiple essays to the anthology and have taken an interest in its growth and success. The essays are also often evaluated by outsider reviewers.

Feedback ranges from concerns about “the big picture” of the essay and its goals and organizations to the extreme details of each word choice: with a 1000 word limit, each word has to count: there’s no room for anything distracting or not necessary for the purposes of the essay.

We do the reviewing and editing using Google docs, which allows for real-time discussion (and debate, sometimes) on what would improve the essay. We hope that this scrutiny from so many different “eyes” results in essays that are really strong introductions to the topics for our intended audience.

APA blog : What’s rewarding about this project?

It’s rewarding to help an author develop an essay that is incredibly clear, concise, direct and vivid, so it is very easy to read and understand for anyone, including students and general readers. This format results in essays that, we hope, have a certain kind of beauty, in being so clear and direct.

It’s also a great pleasure to teach using these essays, since students are really able to understand them and access the ideas and arguments much more quickly and easily, compared to many traditional readings.

For example, one of us recently taught Descartes’ Meditations using Marc Bobro’s pair of essays ; we read them out loud in class, meditating along with Descartes and discussing along the way. In the end, students were much more able to explain the overall argument of the Meditations, compared to when this activity was done with traditional translations. For students who are overwhelmed by longer, more complex readings, this format really helps.

APA blog : What is challenging about this project?

While we get many submissions, it is a “challenge” that we don’t get more submissions. There are many skilled philosophers who could contribute expertly-done essays on important and interesting topics, especially in areas where there are few introductory-level writings on the topics. We can hope that many of them haven’t contributed only because they are unaware of the anthology. Now more of them are aware!

APA blog : What are the current goals for the anthology?

We are working to diversify the set of essays, in many ways, and diversifying the team of people working on the project. We are seeking more essays by women and philosophers of color, on any and all topics. And we are seeking essays that introduce important areas and issues in philosophy that have been underrepresented.

For example, there are calls for including “global philosophy” in courses or “diversifying the canon.” We suspect that a lot of instructors would really like to do that, but really don’t know where to begin. So we hope to publish excellent introductions to unfamiliar traditions that instructors can use to “get their feet wet,” which would then lead to learning about and teaching (and researching) more advanced sources. We have made some progress with this – with essays on Chinese ethics and political philosophy and Buddhism – but this is just a start and so much more is needed.

Although this is a globally-accessible project, it is US-based, and so we are also very interested in essays that address unique philosophical issues of underrepresented racial and ethnic groups in America, such as African-American philosophy and Native-American philosophy, among other traditions.

Finally, we have a good foundation in many “traditional” areas of philosophy, historical and contemporary, but there are still many essays needed to really fill that in. To use the page for an introductory philosophy or ethics course, we have a lot of what someone would want to use, but not everything. We are working on identifying what’s essential for that teaching purpose, but missing, and getting those essays commissioned.

APA blog : What are the future goals for the anthology?

We will always keep the material online and freely (and globally) accessible to all, but we also want to have the materials available in low-cost print book or books.

We would also like to do some technical upgrades so the webpage and essays are found by more people who are looking for this type of material. There is high demand for “public philosophy” and great introductory materials, and we need to do more so people who are seeking will find our essays and authors. If anyone can help us with any of our goals, we’d appreciate it!

Editorial Board for 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology :

Founder, Editor: Andrew D. Chapman, University of Colorado, Boulder

Editor: Shane Gronholz, Gonzaga University, Washington

Editor: Chelsea Haramia, Spring Hill College, Alabama

Editor: Dan Lowe, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Editor: Thomas Metcalf, Spring Hill College, Alabama

Editor-in-Chief: Nathan Nobis, Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia

  • 1000 Word Philosophy
  • Editor: Nathan Oseroff
  • public philosophy
  • teaching philosophy

RELATED ARTICLES

Should we continue to read and honor immoral historical philosophers, treading water, or self-care and success as a graduate student, i don’t read enough, the ancient practice of rest days, finding meaning in moving: my experiences as an aussie grad student, philosophers at the cia an insider’s account.

[…] Nathan Nobis is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Morehouse College. He is also Editor-in-Chief of 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology. […]

LEAVE A REPLY Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

Notify me of new posts by email.

WordPress Anti-Spam by WP-SpamShield

Currently you have JavaScript disabled. In order to post comments, please make sure JavaScript and Cookies are enabled, and reload the page. Click here for instructions on how to enable JavaScript in your browser.

Advanced search

Posts You May Enjoy

Apa announces new ai2050 prizes, an alternative to argumentation: persuasion via questions, philosophical mastery and conceptual competence, the power of pan-africanism: a dialogue with dr. larose parris, on facebook bubbles: greg salmieri’s night of philosophy, teach graduate students how to teach, to be happier, focus on what’s within your control.

1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology

1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology

Philosophy, One Thousand Words at a Time

How to Read Philosophy

Author: The Editors of 1000-Word Philosophy Category: Student Resources Word Count: 1000

When you are reading philosophy in any form—a book, essay, dialogue, or anything else—it’s going to take time: philosophy isn’t the kind of subject to be taken in passively while you sit back and relax. [1] There may be ideas and claims that you don’t immediately understand, but this is completely normal: philosophy, more than many other subjects, requires actively trying to understand what the text means.

Practically, this means that before you read, you should find a comfortable place to read without distractions. You should also mark up the text or take notes, especially when an author defines any important terms or theories.

This essay will help you get the most out of your reading by providing a 3-step strategy for reading philosophical texts.

Actively reading a philosophy text.

1. Step 1: Skim to Get the Lay of the Land

Once you’re ready, you can start by skimming the text to try to figure out the topic : e.g., God’s existence, what knowledge is, the morality of abortion, or any other philosophical topic.

Next, look for the author’s main point , their conclusion on that topic. In contemporary philosophy articles, this will often be in the introduction, sometimes explicitly stated as a thesis. In older writings, the main point may not become clear until the end of the text. But it’s OK to skip to the end! Philosophy isn’t a mystery—there aren’t spoilers.

When you start reading, it’s OK not to know whether you agree with the author’s main point. In fact, it’s best to hold off on forming an opinion until you find their argument , or their support for that main claim. [2] At this stage, your goal is just to know where the author is going.

Sometimes it is difficult to find the main point by skimming, especially if the text is a dialogue or a poem. But it can still be worthwhile to skim to see what’s coming up and how it’s organized. You might even write a brief outline of the text to keep track of its organization. Sometimes the author will do this for you—contemporary articles often summarize their organization at the end of the introduction.

2. Step 2: Read Slowly and Actively

Once you know the lay of the land, you should start reading more slowly and seriously, starting from the beginning. Look for the author’s argument for their main point—the reasons they provide for their conclusion. As you go, check in with yourself about how comfortable you feel that you understand what the author is saying. When you feel your confidence slipping, slow down.

Don’t assume the author agrees with a claim they’re talking about

Philosophers sometimes write at length about some view or argument, even though they don’t agree with it. Sometimes this sets up a contrast with their own views. If an author brings up conflicting ideas, it can seem like they are contradicting themselves. But be on the lookout for indications of which ideas are accepted by the author and which aren’t.

Ask yourself what you think about the author’s ideas

Philosophers very often write in response to questions and objections that they think readers will have. If you are reading passively, and not forming questions and objections, it can be unclear why the author is talking about something. As you take notes, mark up where you find yourself doubting a claim and why.

Read charitably

Whenever we can, we should interpret someone’s ideas in the strongest possible form. Philosophers call this the principle of charitable interpretation . [3]

Suppose an author argues that we do not have free will. This will seem ridiculous or simplistic, since surely people do things all the time—they’re not frozen in place! But stop yourself and ask what the author means by “free will.” Perhaps it is not the idea that people never do things , but rather that everything people do is determined by past events . This is more plausible.

It’s always worth looking for a charitable interpretation, even if afterwards the idea is still implausible. Doing so helps ensure that you are considering the best possible argument.

3. Step 3: Pause When You Need Help

When you get confused, it’s tempting to just skip ahead a few paragraphs and hope that the text starts making sense. Occasionally this works, but often you’ll end up more confused. Philosophical ideas and arguments build gradually, incorporating previous concepts as they go. When you get confused, backtrack a little ways, and try to pinpoint exactly where you got lost.

Apply your own words and examples

A good test for understanding a text is whether you can put the author’s ideas in your own words. With a difficult passage, try “translating” it into words that make sense to you.

Sometimes you understand the words, but find the ideas very abstract. In this case, fill in your own examples of what the author is saying. Imagine how you would apply a concept or a claim to a simple, concrete case.

Look up any confusing terms

When you are confused because there is a specific word that you don’t know, or which seems to be used in a strange way, look it up in a reference specific to philosophy , such as:

  • 1000-Word Philosophy
  • The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Some of these entries are long, but you don’t need to read the entire entry—just read until you understand the technical term. Sometimes philosophy is about how to define a concept, and the entry will contain lengthy discussion of the term. Nevertheless, a reference can still give you the gist of it.

Try an alternative translation where applicable

If the text was translated from another language, try a different translation of a confusing passage.

Talk to other people

It will be easier to work out puzzling passages with people reading the same text—especially if all of you are using the strategies above.

4. Conclusion

Reading philosophy can be disorienting, even baffling. But if you develop good reading habits like the ones above, philosophy will be more comprehensible, rewarding, and enjoyable. [4]

[1] For an introductory explanation of what philosophy is, see What is Philosophy? by Thomas Metcalf.

[2] For an explanation of what philosophers tend to mean by an “argument,” see Arguments: Why Do You Believe What You Believe? by Thomas Metcalf.

[3] Using the principle of charity in reading and, really, all forms of listening to understand other people is part of being a critical thinker. For an introduction to critical thinking, see Critical Thinking: What is it to be a Critical Thinker? by Carolina Flores.

[4] Philosophy is easier to read when it is better written. For an introductory guide to writing philosophy, see How to Write a Philosophical Essay . by the Editors of 1000-Word Philosophy.

For Further Reading

David W. Concepción: “Reading As A Philosopher.”

Jim Pryor: “Guidelines on Reading Philosophy.”

Kimberly Blessing: “I Re-Read, Therefore I Understand.”

Crystal L’Hote: “Reading Philosophy – Some Tips”

Related Essays

How to Write a Philosophical Essay by the Editors of 1000-Word Philosophy

What is Philosophy? by Thomas Metcalf

Arguments: Why Do You Believe What You Believe? by Thomas Metcalf

Critical Thinking: What is it to be a Critical Thinker? by Carolina Flores

Translation

Turkish , Korean

PDF Download

Download this essay in PDF . 

Follow 1000-Word Philosophy on Facebook and Twitter and subscribe to receive email notifications of new essays at 1000WordPhilosophy.com .

Share this:.

University of Cambridge

Study at Cambridge

About the university, research at cambridge.

  • Undergraduate courses
  • Events and open days
  • Fees and finance
  • Postgraduate courses
  • How to apply
  • Postgraduate events
  • Fees and funding
  • International students
  • Continuing education
  • Executive and professional education
  • Courses in education
  • How the University and Colleges work
  • Term dates and calendars
  • Visiting the University
  • Annual reports
  • Equality and diversity
  • A global university
  • Public engagement
  • Give to Cambridge
  • For Cambridge students
  • For our researchers
  • Business and enterprise
  • Colleges & departments
  • Email & phone search
  • Museums & collections
  • Current Students
  • Undergraduate Writing Skills
  • Faculty of Philosophy
  • About Us overview
  • Academic Visitors
  • Administration overview
  • Accessible Documents Checklist
  • Video conferencing accessibility assessment guide
  • Cambridge Women Philosophers
  • Disability Access Guide
  • Health and Safety
  • How to find us

Important Dates

  • Information Technology overview
  • Using Google Meet
  • Zoom User Guide
  • Skype & PhoneConference Call and Screen Sharing
  • Microsoft Teams getting started
  • Panopto Recording & Publishing Overview
  • Zoom Security Tips for public meetings
  • Job Opportunities
  • Newsletters
  • Philosophy Green Team overview
  • Waste & Recyling
  • Green Team Events
  • Welfare overview
  • Welfare for Students
  • Welfare for Staff
  • People overview
  • Teaching & Research Staff
  • Director of Studies Area overview
  • Director of Studies Part 1B
  • Director of Studies Part II
  • Postgraduate Advisors Area
  • Support Staff
  • Current Academic Visitors
  • Academic Staff Administrative Roles
  • Paper Co-Ordinators
  • Research overview
  • Research Projects and Networks
  • Seminars and Discussion Groups
  • Employment destinations of recent Faculty PhD students
  • Research Funding Opportunities
  • Recent Faculty books
  • Open access at Cambridge
  • Current Students overview
  • Postgraduates overview
  • MPhil Course Information (Includes examination protocols)
  • PhD Course Information
  • Organisational Matters
  • Supervision
  • Lectures and Seminars
  • Faculty Resources
  • Advice and Support
  • PG Training Guide
  • Room Booking Guidance
  • Working Away
  • Working While Studying
  • Financial Support
  • Postgraduate Calendar
  • Deposit of Electronic PhD Theses
  • Postgraduate Forms overview
  • Appointment of PhD Examiners Form
  • Risk assessment form RA1
  • Risk assessment examples
  • Conference expenses funding application form
  • Postgraduate hardship funding application form
  • MPhil Essays and Dissertations (Raven Login)
  • MPhil Data Retention
  • University Timetable
  • Part IA Seminar (Discussion Group) Readings
  • Undergraduate Tripos Students Information
  • Lecture List
  • Course Outlines and Reading Lists (for Philosophy Students and Staff)
  • Course Outlines and Reading Lists (for auditors)
  • Undergraduate Exams overview
  • Sample Answers
  • Craig Taylor Prize
  • Extended Essays & Dissertations
  • Data Retention Policy
  • Part IA Past Exam Papers
  • Faculty Plagiarism Policy
  • Part IB Past Exam Papers
  • Part II Past Exam Papers
  • Guidelines for Examiners & Assessors (including Marking Criteria)
  • Sample paper for Part II paper 9
  • IB5 Sample Exam
  • Undergraduate Writing Skills overview
  • Tackling the Philosophy Essay Guide
  • Tackling the Philosophy Essay Guide (mobi version)
  • Tackling the Philosophy Essay Guide (epub version)
  • Tackling the Philosophy Essay Guide (Word version)
  • 09 Plagiarism 2018revJuly18
  • Student Feedback & Support overview
  • Student Representation & Student-Staff Committee
  • Philosophy Student-Staff Committee Meeting Minutes
  • SSC minutes 1May18
  • Final SSCMinutes 30Oct18
  • SSC Unconfirmed minutes 05 Feb 19
  • SSC unconfirmedminutes 7May19
  • Student Complaints Procedure
  • SSC unconfirmed minutes 5Nov19
  • SSC minutes 04 Feb 2020 4
  • SSC minutes 5May2020 1
  • Philosophy Faculty Guidelines for Discussion Sessions
  • Prospective Students overview
  • Prospective Postgraduates
  • Prospective Undergraduates
  • Suggested Preliminary Readings
  • Prospective Undergraduate students - Frequently asked questions
  • Prospective Postgraduate students – Frequently asked questions
  • Events overview
  • Past Events overview
  • Past Events - Conferences, Workshops and Special Lectures
  • The Roles of Knowledge
  • The Roles of Knowledge Abstracts
  • Limits of Duty programme
  • The Limits of Duty
  • Decision Theory Seminar
  • No-platform and Hate Speech
  • What is Domination?
  • 6th Cambridge Graduate Conference on the Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics
  • Universals_v2.pdf
  • JohnSearle Lecture
  • Immateriality, Thinking and the Self in the Long Middle Ages
  • Papers Heal Metaphysical atomism and the attraction of materialism
  • Oelze Summary of Talk
  • WIP Conference Poster
  • GoodmakersandgoodtakersTextsHO2.pdf
  • Minorities and Philosophy (MAP) Cambridge Conference 2018
  • Shyane Personal Identity handout 6th form conf 2019
  • Richard Holton Handout 6th form conf 2019
  • Library overview
  • Accessibility
  • Joining the library
  • Borrowing from the library
  • Philosophy eresources
  • IT, printing and copying facilities
  • Resources for undergraduates
  • Resources for researchers
  • Contact the library
  • Intranet overview
  • Undergraduate Teaching and Support Arrangements (including exam updates)
  • Director of Studies Area
  • Academic Teaching Resources and Protocols. 
  • Samples for MPhil Examiners overview
  • Philosophy File Share overview
  • Postgraduates
  • Undergraduate Exams
  • Student Feedback & Support

PDF icon

Latest news

View all news

Quick links

All News Items

Moral Sciences Club

Philosophy Lecture List

Philosophy Podcasts

Moodle Undergraduate Site

Intranet Teaching and Examining Arrangements

Follow us on Twitter

Tweets by @CambridgePhilos

Athena Swan Bronze Logo

Information

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Photos by Ben Colburn displayed with his permission
  • Philosophy Contact Details
  • [email protected]
  • Map of Sidgwick Site
  • University Map

Other Links

  • Email & Phone Search

© 2024 University of Cambridge

  • Contact the University
  • Freedom of information
  • Privacy policy and cookies
  • Statement on Modern Slavery
  • Terms and conditions
  • University A-Z
  • Undergraduate
  • Postgraduate
  • Research news
  • About research at Cambridge
  • Spotlight on...

Library homepage

  • school Campus Bookshelves
  • menu_book Bookshelves
  • perm_media Learning Objects
  • login Login
  • how_to_reg Request Instructor Account
  • hub Instructor Commons
  • Download Page (PDF)
  • Download Full Book (PDF)
  • Periodic Table
  • Physics Constants
  • Scientific Calculator
  • Reference & Cite
  • Tools expand_more
  • Readability

selected template will load here

This action is not available.

Humanities LibreTexts

2.5: Reading Philosophy

  • Last updated
  • Save as PDF
  • Page ID 162138

  • Nathan Smith et al.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

  • Describe strategies for reading philosophy.
  • Distinguish the goals of philosophical reading from other types of reading.
  • Employ a three-part method for reading philosophy.

To be successful in a philosophy course, you must be able to read primary and secondary sources in philosophy. Many students in their first philosophy class struggle with the required readings. You may find yourself rereading a passage several times without having a clear notion of what the author is trying to say. Or you may get lost in the back-and-forth of arguments and counterarguments, forgetting which represent the author’s opinion. This is a common problem. Using the strategies described below, you can track the key claims and arguments in your reading. Eventually, you will reach the point where you can begin to reflect on, evaluate, and engage with the philosophical concepts presented.

Prepare to Read

Preparing your reading space will help you focus and improve the chances of retaining the reading material. Read at a table with a comfortable chair instead of on a couch or in a bed. Sitting up straight improves concentration. Have something to drink nearby, and avoid distractions, like TV or music with lyrics. Some people find it helpful to have a little bit of bustle around them (for example, you might choose to work in a café or library), while others find this distracting. Some people like music; others prefer silence. Find the setting that helps you concentrate.

Next, choose an annotation tool. You will need to write notes, underline, and flag portions of the reading, so use text you can alter whenever possible. If you are working with a printed text, use a pencil so that you can erase and rewrite notes in the margin. Many students use highlighters when reading text, but readers have a tendency to highlight too much, which makes the highlighting useless when you go back and reread. A better system is to write marginal notes or markers to flag and identify key passages. You can devise a simple coding system using symbols to identify different parts of a text: for example, main ideas or topics, examples, arguments, references to other philosophers, questions, and quotations to use in papers. If you are working with a digital text, there are many tools you can use to write notes and place markers in the text. OpenStax provides a useful annotation tool for its web-based textbooks, allowing you to create notes that link passages and even to review your notes all together. The purpose of annotation is to create a visual trail you can come back to for easy tracking of an argument. This will ensure you do not need to reread large portions of the text to find key information for studying or writing a paper. Annotations allow you to move quickly through a text, identifying key passages for quotes or citations, understanding the flow of the argument, and remembering the key claims or points made by the author.

Engaging with Philosophical Texts

The purpose of philosophical writing is to engage the reader in a sequence of thoughts that either present a problem to be considered, prompt reflection on previous ideas and works, or lead to some insight or enlightenment. Philosophy consists of ideas and arguments. Your goal is to engage with those ideas and arguments to arrive at your own understanding of the issues. You may critically engage with the author, or you may have your perspective changed by reading the author. In either case, your goal ought to be to reach a new understanding. This is somewhat different from writing in most other disciplines, in which the purpose may be to convey information, evoke emotions, tell a story, or produce aesthetic enjoyment. While engaging with philosophical ideas can be pleasurable and may involve understanding some basic information, the primary purpose of the writing is to engage thought and reflection. This means that you should read the work as fast or slow as you need to engage thoughtfully with it. The speed of reading will depend on how quickly you grasp the ideas and arguments presented or how familiar you are with the claims being made. It is not as important to read sequentially for plot or narrative; much more important is to follow the sequence of ideas and arguments. Consequently, it may make sense to cross-reference passages, jumping from one section to another to compare claims, and link ideas that appear in different places in the text.

Philosophical Methods at Work

Look for philosophical methods at work in your readings. Recall that philosophers use a variety of methods to arrive at truth, including conceptual analysis, logic, and the consideration of trade-offs. Philosophers may also draw on a variety of sources of evidence, including history, intuition, common sense, or empirical results from other disciplines or from experimental philosophy. In any case, most philosophical works will be attempting to develop a position through argumentation. Sources of evidence will be used to bolster premises for the purpose of reaching a desired conclusion. Additionally, the author may use a variety of methods to make an argument. If you can identify these methods, strategies, and sources of evidence, you will be able to better evaluate the text.

The Principle of Charity

The principle of charity is an interpretative principle that advises the reader to interpret the author’s statements in the most rational and best way possible. Sometimes a philosopher’s argument may be unclear or ambiguous. For example, philosophers from older historical periods may use terminology and expressions that are difficult for a modern reader to understand. In these cases, the reader should start from the assumption that the author is putting forward a rational, thoughtful view. The reader’s goal should be to understand that view in the best light possible. This does not mean that you should ignore difficulties or avoid criticizing the author. Rather, when you encounter difficulties, look for an interpretation that makes the most sense of what the author is saying. All the primary- and secondary-source authors you will read are smart, thoughtful people. Therefore, assume the author has a response to simple or obvious objections, and look for that response. Try to understand the work on its own terms, and then critically engage with the best version of that work.

Working with the Dialectic

The dialectical process that is common to many philosophical writings is initially confusing for many students. Dialectic , a method for discovering truth through dialogue, involves an exchange of ideas with the goal of arriving at a position that more accurately reflects the truth. In practical terms, philosophers will frequently move back and forth between the view they are advancing and competing views that they may or may not support. These alternative views may provide criticisms, or they may represent views that are common in philosophy. The author’s goal is to present alternative perspectives—in addition to their own—to demonstrate the range of perspectives on the problem. If one view emerges through this dialectical process, there is a greater chance that it has some share of the truth since it has survived the criticisms and contrary opinions of others.

When reading a philosophical work that uses a dialectical method, pay attention to tracking different strands of argument. Do not assume that every argument or claim in what you are reading is the considered opinion of the author. Rather, various claims may represent contrasting views that will eventually be rejected. Track the back-and-forth between views to grasp the thread of argument that the author endorses.

A person sits under the tree reading a book. An autumn leaf has fallen onto one page of the book.

Pre-reading

Start your reading with a pre-read. This is a very useful practice when tackling academic works. So much information can be learned simply by reviewing the surrounding features of the article, book, or chapter. Spend some time reviewing these elements to grasp the context for what you are about to read. Start with these elements.

Title, Author, and Publication

What does the title and author tell you about the work? When was it written? Who has published the text—an academic press or a popular press? If you do not know this information, you may want to do some preliminary internet searches to try to find out. Where does this work fit into the author’s broader body of work? What can you learn or what do you know about the author? What are the author’s main contributions to philosophy?

Table of Contents and Bibliography

Develop a mental outline for the work by looking carefully at the table of contents, usually at the front of the book. For a shorter work, scan through the article, looking for section headings and breaks. If the headings are labeled, you may have enough information to track the general flow of the article just by reading them. If the headings are not helpful or there are no headings, quickly skim the first and last paragraph, and pick out topic sentences or words that indicate what individual paragraphs are about to get a sense of where the overall argument is going.

At this stage, you want to look at the bibliography or references. Depending on the length and style of the work, the reference list may be very long. As a novice, you may not be able to get much information from a bibliography, but as you become more familiar with your subject, you will get a sense from titles and authors in the bibliography about the perspective that informs this author’s writing.

You may need to read material more than once to become engaged in critical reflection. However, because you are planning to do multiple readings, do not linger too long on the first read. Move quickly and purposefully through the material with the goal of understanding the flow of the argument. Use the information you gleaned from pre-reading to fill in gaps in knowledge where possible, and flag places for follow-up.

Identify Key Claims

During the first read, you should identify the key claims in the text. In a traditional academic article, these claims ought to be highlighted in the introduction or abstract. In a book or historical work, these key claims may be harder to find. Look for sentences that introduce claims with expressions such as, “I aim to show,” “What this chapter will demonstrate,” or “The purpose of this work is.” Mark key claims so that you can come back to them easily. Ask yourself what the author is trying to say; what does the author hope the reader will take away from reading?

Identify Sources of Evidence and Methods of Argument

Look for the evidence the author is providing to support the key claims. What methods does the author use to generate this evidence? Is the author using logical argumentation? Are there thought experiments or other forms of conceptual analysis? Does the author provide empirical evidence to back up the claims? In the best-case scenario, evidence will be provided shortly before or after the claim is announced. However, sometimes evidence and claims are mixed together. During this stage, try to flag the dialectic in the argument. Is the author presenting their own view, a rival view, a criticism, or a supporting view?

Flag for Follow-Up

Use annotation flags to chart the course of the argument and claims being made. Use a simple notation system that works for you. But you should consider flagging things like thesis, definition, claim, evidence, argument, question, counterargument, objection, response, and so forth. Flagging should also be used to identify words or ideas you do not understand. When you are moving quickly, you may ask questions that you later understand, or you may flag something incorrectly and need to revise your notes. This is fine. You are engaged in a process of gradually becoming acquainted with the text.

At this stage, you will read for thoughtful engagement with the ideas and arguments presented in the text. Now is when you critically reflect on, evaluate, and understand the author’s writing.

At this point, you should not move any more quickly than you can think alongside the author. Use this time to follow up on questions you posed during flagging. Look up terms; do some research on concepts you do not understand. You do not need to understand the article perfectly, but you should understand it well enough to think about it. If you have a good understanding of what you read, you will have something to say about the material after you finish reading it.

Reading slowly and actively involves asking the author questions: How does this claim follow from that one? Where is the evidence to support this assertion? Is the evidence adequate to support the claim being made? What are the implications of this claim? How does this idea fit with the overall emphasis on some other set of ideas? If something in the text does not sit well with you, try to articulate what is bothering you. Write a short objection in the margin. Even if you are not sure, try to work out why you do not agree with the author. The more you can articulate your concerns and think through your own reactions, the more you will understand the material and your own reaction to it.

The close reading is intended to prepare you for talking and writing about the author’s work. That means you are preparing yourself to do philosophy alongside and with the author. Hold yourself to the same standards to which you hold the author. Provide reasons for your claims, support your opinions with adequate evidence, and consider possible objections.

Read Like A Philosopher

Identify a reading from Chapter 1 (or another introductory reading from this course). This exercise will work best if the reading is a fairly short, primary source reading from someone who is doing philosophy. Follow the three-step method for reading:

  • Fast read with flagging
  • Close read and revise flagging

Consider the following prompts in writing a short review of the article (no more than two paragraphs in length):

  • Provide a brief synopsis of the argument and dialectical structure of the text.
  • What are the primary claims that the author makes?
  • What evidence does the author provide to support those claims?
  • What methods does the author use to generate evidence or make arguments?
  • Is the evidence adequate to support the claims the author makes?
  • Where do you think the evidence falls short?
  • Do you agree with the author’s claims?
  • Where do you disagree, and why?

When you are writing philosophy papers, you should plan the structure of your argument in advance, spend time thinking about a thesis, and focus on an achievable aim relative to the length of your paper.

The Philosophers' Magazine

Reading as a Philosopher

David W. Concepción’s Top Ten Pointers

Next to the large red “D” at the bottom of the term paper I wrote for a mid-level political science course during my second semester in college, was written, “You think like a philosopher, not a political scientist.” Blithely taking this comment, the only comment, as sage advice rather than dismissive insult, I signed up to take “Theories of Human Nature” in the philosophy department the next semester.

I remember having a profound but vague feeling that was a mixture of relief and exhilaration during the first week of Theories of Human Nature. “I have found my people,” I thought. I didn’t know that there is a field of study that counted as sensible the questions that were always in my head. Even more amazing is that the type of thoughts I offered as answers, while ramshackle, were the same type of answers philosophers provide. I changed my major before the end of the semester.

But I had a problem. I did not know how to read philosophy. I did not know how to connect reasons to conclusions, track changes in voice, decipher nuance, evaluate arguments, or use the text to critique my own views. I knew how to read so as to extract information that I might be asked to regurgitate at some later point, but I didn’t know how to read as philosophers read. While accurate basic information distillation is necessary for a meaningful philosophy reading experience, it is woefully insufficient. In my first philosophy course, I read every assignment slowly with a dictionary and thesaurus at my side. With the exception of Kant – which I knew I didn’t understand – I discovered and rediscovered each day in class that what I had done, the way I had read, did not prepare me to engage the ideas in the way that was expected of me. As a nascent philosophy enthusiast, I was spinning my wheels. What follows is a top 10 list of the things I wish I had known when I started reading philosophy.

(1) There is no such thing as reading without qualification. Instead there is reading as a philosopher, historian, cartographer, journalist, and so on. Even within a discipline there is no single way to read. In part, this is because there are many sub-types of writing within each field. Perhaps the most prevalent form of writing among philosophers is argumentative writing. In this form, the author defends a thesis by attempting to show that certain inferences from something uncontroversial to something surprising are plausible. The author is also likely to try to show that attempts to prove that an inference they make fails are unsuccessful. But some philosophers work near the intersection of philosophy and literary criticism, where the phrase “I argue that …” simply means “I believe that …” and where few inferences may be offered. Other philosophers work near the intersection of philosophy and physics, where sentences such as “∀n (Q(n) P(n))” might occur. Some philosophers quote a lot in an attempt to show that one interpretation of a text is superior to an alternative interpretation, while yet other philosophers attempt to prove a point in a way where quotations and footnotes are merely to notice that others have said something about the topic. And, a recent upsurge in experimental philosophy has given birth to yet another form of philosophical writing.

I mention this variety to make it clear that what follows must be understood as incomplete. It reflects my training as an ethicist who works predominantly with article and chapter length, English language, twentieth and twenty-first century writing in a pluralist but analytic-leaning tradition.

In addition to differences in types of philosophical writing, there are differences in the goals one might have when reading philosophy. Which goals one has influences how one should read. What excites me so much about reading philosophy is the opportunity to have my beliefs and values challenged. I read philosophy to identify, clarify, and test my current beliefs and values. As such, reading philosophy is an act of creation, self-creation of perspicuous wisdom regarding how to live well with others. As a step toward this wisdom making, I hope that the first-year students in my philosophy courses become more intellectually humble and less dogmatic as a result of reading philosophy. For most people, these goals are unattainable unless they give themselves over to the strangeness and disquiet that so often comes with reading philosophy.

(2) The experience of reading philosophy is strange. It is strange, in part, because the subject matter of philosophy is immaterial. This shouldn’t suggest that facts don’t matter in philosophy. A mantra of an ethics teacher of mine was “Good ethics starts with good facts”. Right he was. Rather, to say that the subject matter of philosophy is immaterial is to say that questions such as “What is justice?,” “Does the God of Abraham exist?,” and “What can I know?” are not answered by plumbing the depths of empirical or even social objects. They are answered by drawing inferences to increase the coherence among one’s set of beliefs, and, in the unusual case, deriving corollaries from (apparently) self-evident truths. What is strange about this is that philosophy is ostensibly a truth-seeking practice. Yet it seeks truth without assuming doctrinal foundations or the use of the scientific method; Philosophy tries to achieve an end without using either of the centuries old means thought appropriate for the task. What’s worse, more often than not the attempt fails. Philosophy shows that many things which are thought true are not, but it doesn’t establish very many truths. Philosophy is strange because it is more of a falsity shedding venture than a truth building one. This strangeness confirms for me that philosophy is centrally about gaining wisdom and not truth, although one shouldn’t turn one’s nose up at a truth if one is found.

The strangeness of philosophy has implications for the reader of philosophy. The philosophy reader should not be searching for bits of established fact or even for evidence designed to confirm a hypothesis regarding an empirical (or social) fact. Rather, in a text, a reader of philosophy should look for inferences or connections between highly plausible assumptions and surprising conclusions that are difficult reject.

(3) The experience of reading philosophy is often disquieting. When reading philosophy, the values around which one has heretofore organised one’s life may come to look provincial, flatly wrong, or even evil. When beliefs previously held as truths are rendered implausible, new beliefs, values, and ways of living may be required. This philosophical cut at one’s core beliefs, values, and way of life is difficult enough. What’s worse, philosophers admonish each other to remain unsutured until such time as a defensible new answer is revealed or constructed. Sometimes philosophical writing is even strictly critical in that it does not even attempt to provide an alternative after tearing down a cultural or conceptual citadel. The reader of philosophy must be prepared for the possibility of this experience. While reading philosophy can help one clarify one’s values, and even make one self-conscious for the first time of the fact that there are good reasons for believing what one believes, it can also generate unremediated doubt that is difficult to live with. (4) To read philosophy well one needs courage.

Lastly, before moving to more concrete reading practices, let’s remember that when done well reading philosophy is an instance of doing philosophy. If one uses the arguments found in a philosophical text as the occasion to evaluate the plausibility of one’s own justifications for believing what one believes, then one is doing philosophy. After reading philosophy one will often have gathered some information and been entertained. But reading philosophy is at its core an act of creation. Reading philosophy is most exciting when the reader puts themself at risk by being open to persuasion. Sometimes nothing short of one’s identity is at stake.

So, philosophers read courageously, evaluating the plausibility of inferences, with an openness to self-re-creation wrenched from a dissipation and reconstruction of truth. But how does one read this way? There are two major steps: understanding and evaluating.

Understanding. (5) Set the Stage. Before reading an essay about which I know very little I sometimes find it helpful to read a Wikipedia summary. But too often Wikipedia is not detailed enough. When I need more background information, I turn to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy or the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The Internet Encyclopedia is usually a bit more accessible, while the Stanford Encyclopedia is usually more thorough. By gaining some understanding of the conceptual terrain within which the essay I am reading resides, I can usually make better sense of the fine-grained discussion found in the essay.

Understanding. (6) Track the structure and voice of the argumentation. Philosophical texts have conclusions, reasons, criticisms, and replies. First, discern what the author hopes to show. While the conclusion is usually stated rather early, it might be at the end of the first section, and it might not be explicitly stated until the concluding section of the essay. Second, figure out why the author thinks they are right. Typically, the initial argument should begin early in the essay, but it might not be pulled together until the end. Throughout the paper, the author is likely to consider objections to the assertions they make. It is important to notice the change in voice that proceeds the explanation of an objection. For example, a reader might see “critics of this idea might argue …” These oftentimes brief and sometimes only implied shifts to the critic’s voice are crucial for tracking the argument. In almost every case an objection will be followed by a return to the author’s voice: “By way of reply …” Marking where the moves from argument, criticism, and response take place make it much easier to pull the entire argument together.

Understanding. (7) Assess and note progress. Some passages are particularly thorny. As a result, it is very common to read philosophy much slower than one reads other texts. Indeed, many philosophers stop at the end of sections, and sometimes paragraphs or even sentences, to check if they can restate the ideas in their own words. If it is difficult to do so, some re-reading before moving on is necessary. For the most difficult texts, I create paragraph by paragraph summaries as I go by writing a clause or a sentence that is a paraphrase of the central content of a paragraph. By making sure that I understand a paragraph well enough to state its main point in my own words, I know I am ready to move on.

Understanding. (8) Bring it all together. I find it very helpful to write out a summary of the argument once I reach the end of an essay. This summary compiles the assumptions and inferences the author believes leads to the conclusion, as well as the objections and replies considered along the way. Typically, these summaries are quite abbreviated; they contain bullet points and lists. The aim of such a summary isn’t to generate an accessible prose abridgment, but rather to capture purely for my own use the major argumentative moves in the essay. Without the argumentative moves readily at hand it would be difficult to do the fun stuff: it would be difficult to evaluate the text.

(9) Evaluate. At one’s leisure ruminate on what additional reasons there might be to think the author is correct or incorrect. Consider whether one’s lived experience provides any insights regarding the merits of the arguments? What are the implications of the author being correct? For truth? For your beliefs? For how you should live? Talk with friends about the arguments, especially those who are likely to disagree with you. Draft additional criticisms and see if you can imagine replies on the author’s behalf.

(10) Decide. After sufficient time, move from evaluating the arguments to your own conclusions. Is the author right, wrong, or, more likely, partly right and partly wrong? About what, if anything, ought you change your mind? Once you’ve decided what you think about the ideas in the essay, pick up another one that contains new arguments that might change your mind again.

As for what to read, who knows? Read what excites you. I believe people who are early in a philosophy reading career are well served by sticking to article and chapter length works until they come across an author or topic they really like. If you aren’t sure where your interests lie, or you’re looking for something unlike what you normally read, start by browsing the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. If you’re lucky there will be a book that collects essays around a theme that provokes you. If you are really lucky, a favorited author will have a book that collects the author’s essays, such that you get revised versions that have something of a thread, even as they continue to stand alone.

Three of my favourites as I began my journey as a philosophy reader were Thomas Nagel’s Mortal Questions , Bernard Williams’ Moral Luck , and Marilyn Frye’s The Politics of Reality . On the more literary side of philosophy are James Baldwin, Collected Essays  and Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There . Finally, when you really fall in love with a thinker, as I did with John Rawls, it’s time to pick up a tome. Rawls’ A Theory of Justice might just change your life.

 David W. Concepción is professor of philosophy at Ball State University, chair of the American Philosophical Association, Committee on Teaching, and author of Reading Philosophy with Background Knowledge and Metacognition.

You might also like...

The Transgender-Rights Issue

The Transgender-Rights Issue

Of Our Great Propensity to the Absurd and Marvellous

Of Our Great Propensity to the Absurd and Marvellous

The Art and Style of Crosswords

The Art and Style of Crosswords

Woman as Resource: A Reply to Catharine MacKinnon

Woman as Resource: A Reply to Catharine MacKinnon

Women, Men and Criminal Justice

Women, Men and Criminal Justice

Philosophia

Philosophia

What Is the Philosophy of Madness?

What Is the Philosophy of Madness?

Who Is Feminism For?

Who Is Feminism For?

philosophy essays to read

Subscribe to The Philosophers' Magazine for exclusive content and access to 20 years of back issues. 

Most popular.

The Fact/Opinion Distinction

The Fact/Opinion Distinction

The Meaning of

The Meaning of "Asshole"

Want to Be Good at Philosophy? Study Maths and Science

Want to Be Good at Philosophy? Study Maths and Science

Do Animals Have Free Will?

Do Animals Have Free Will?

Can Psychologists Tell Us Anything About Morality?

Can Psychologists Tell Us Anything About Morality?

(Stanford users can avoid this Captcha by logging in.)

  • Send to text email RefWorks EndNote printer

Writing philosophy : a student's guide to reading and writing philosophy essays

Available online, at the library.

philosophy essays to read

Green Library

More options.

  • Find it at other libraries via WorldCat
  • Contributors

Description

Creators/contributors, contents/summary.

  • *=New to this Edition Preface: PART I. READING AND WRITING 1. How to Read Philosophy What Is Philosophy? Reading Philosophy Rule 1-1. Approach the Text with an Open Mind Rule 1-2. Read Actively and Critically Rule 1-3. Identify the Conclusion First, Then the Premises Rule 1-4. Outline, Paraphrase, or Summarize the Argument Rule 1-5. Evaluate the Argument and Formulate a Tentative Judgment Writing a Paraphrase or Summary Applying the Rules 2. How to Read an Argument Premises and Conclusions Judging Arguments Rule 2-1. Know the Basics of Deductive and Inductive Arguments Rule 2-2. Determine Whether the Conclusion Follows from the Premises Rule 2-3. Determine Whether the Premises are True Applying the Rules 3. Rules of Style and Content for Philosophical Writing Rule 3-1. Write to Your Audience Rule 3-2. Avoid Pretentiousness Rule 3-3. Keep the Authority of Philosophers in Perspective Rule 3-4. Do Not Overstate Premises or Conclusions Rule 3-5. Treat Opponents and Opposing Views Fairly Rule 3-6. Write Clearly Rule 3-7. Avoid Inappropriate Emotional Appeals Rule 3-8. Be Careful What You Assume Rule 3-9. Write in First Person Rule 3-10. Avoid Discriminatory Language 4. Defending a Thesis in an Argumentative Essay Basic Essay Structure Introduction: Argument Supporting the Thesis: Assessment of Objections: Conclusion: Well-Built Essay: Writing the Essay: Step by Step Step 1. Select a Topic and Narrow It to a Specific Issue: Step 2. Research the Issue: Step 3. Write a Thesis Statement: Step 4. Create an Outline of the Whole Essay: Step 5. Write a First Draft: Step 6. Study and Revise Your First Draft: Step 7. Produce a Final Draft: An Annotated Sample Paper 5. Avoiding Fallacious Reasoning Straw Man Appeal to the Person Appeal to Popularity Appeal to Tradition Genetic Fallacy Equivocation Appeal to Ignorance False Dilemma Begging the Question Hasty Generalization Slippery Slope Composition Division 6. Using, Quoting, and Citing Sources Rule 6-1. Know When and How to Quote Sources Rule 6-2. Do Not Plagiarize Rule 6-3. Cite Your Sources Carefully Rule 6-4. Build a Bibliography if Needed PART 2. REFERENCE GUIDE 7. Writing Effective Sentences Rule 7-1. Make the Subject and Verb Agree in Number and Person Rule 7-2. Express Parallel Ideas in Parallel Form Rule 7-3. Write in Complete Sentences, Not Fragments Rule 7-4. Connect Independent Clauses Properly Rule 7-5. Delete the Deadwood Rule 7-6. Put Modifiers in Their Place Rule 7-7. Be Consistent in Tense, Voice, Number, and Person Rule 7-8. Communicate Pronoun References Clearly Exercises: Writing Effective Sentences 8. Choosing the Right Words Rule 8-1. Select Nouns and Verbs Precisely Rule 8-2. Prefer the Active Voice Rule 8-3. Use Specific Terms Rule 8-4. Avoid Redundancy Rule 8-5. Be Aware of the Connotations of Words Rule 8-6. Learn to Distinguish Words That Writers Frequently Mix Up Rule 8-7. Strive for Freshness
  • Avoid Cliches Rule 8-8. Do Not Mix Metaphors Rule 8-9. Beware of Awkward Repetition * Rule 8-10. Spell Correctly Exercises: Choosing the Right Words Appendix A. Formatting Your Paper Appendix B. Documenting Your Sources * Appendix C. Answers to Exercises * Appendix D. Researching a Philosophy Paper Index:.
  • (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Bibliographic information

Acquired with support from.

Bernice McDowell Book Fund

Bernice McDowell Book Fund

Browse related items

Stanford University

  • Stanford Home
  • Maps & Directions
  • Search Stanford
  • Emergency Info
  • Terms of Use
  • Non-Discrimination
  • Accessibility

© Stanford University , Stanford , California 94305 .

  • Reading Lists
  • Daily Quote

A collection of over 120 philosophy reading lists organised by topic

One of the most common questions people ask when learning about philosophy is: “ what should I read first? ” Unfortunately, it can also be a difficult question to answer. Philosophy is an incredibly broad subject and there is no single starting point that will be best for everyone. The best place to start will depend heavily on your preferred learning style, the topics you’re interested in, and the amount of time and energy you’re willing to spend reading. Instead of recommending a single “best” starting point, these lists aim to provide reading recommendations that will suit a broad range of learning styles. Where available, each list aims to contain:

  • a short, beginner friendly introduction – these are usually a safe bet for total beginners, or for people reading primarily out of curiousity or for pleasure
  • a longer, more comprehensive introduction – these are typically books that would be suitable for an undergraduate philosophy course
  • an philosophical anthology – these feature a collection of important readings on a particular topic
  • a philosophy handbook or companion – these are collections of up-to-date articles on a topic. They tend to be more comprehensive and are aimed at an academic audience. They’re usually an excellent starting-point for students doing research for essays.
  • a couple of classic works – most lists also contain a few classic works of philosophy. These tend to vary significantly in length and difficulty.

This variety aims to provide options to suit many different learning styles. If you tend to find classic works of philosophy difficult to understand, there’s usually a short, beginner-friendly introduction to the topic available instead. If you prefer more depth, you can choose a more comprehensive introduction, a relevant handbook, or pick up one of the classics. It’s also worth noting that these are not personal recommendations. These lists were created by browsing through hundreds of community recommendations , philosophy course syllabi , and encyclopedia article bibliographies. More infomation on each of these lists can be found by following the link above each list.

There are over 120 reading lists below, simply choose a topic to get started.

Table of Contents

This section features reading lists on various philosophical topics.

Introductions to Philosophy

You can find more information on these books on this page .

  • The Pig That Wants To Be Eaten: 100 Experiments for the Armchair Philosopher – Julian Baggini
  • What Does It All Mean?: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy – Thomas Nagel
  • Sophie’s World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy – Jostein Gaarder
  • Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy – Simon Blackburn
  • A New History of Western Philosophy – Anthony Kenny
  • The Trial and Death of Socrates – Plato
  • Meditations – Marcus Aurelius
  • Meditations on First Philosophy – René Descartes

Epistemology

  • Knowledge: A Very Short Introduction – Jennifer Nagel
  • Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge – Robert Audi
  • Epistemology: An Anthology – Sosa et al.
  • Theaetetus – Plato
  • Discourse on the Method/Meditations on First Philosophy – René Descartes
  • An Essay Concerning Human Understanding – John Locke
  • An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding – David Hume
  • Memory: A Very Short Introduction – Johnathan K. Foster
  • Memory: A Philosophical Study – Sven Bernecker
  • Theories of Memory: A Reader – Rossington & Whitehead
  • The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Memory – Bernecker & Michaelian
  • Theatetus – Plato
  • Perception: A Very Short Introduction – Brian Rogers
  • Philosophy of Perception : A Contemporary Introduction – William Fish
  • Vision and Mind: Selected Readings in the Philosophy of Perception – Noe & Thompson
  • The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Perception – Mohan Matthen
  • The Problems of Philosophy – Bertrand Russell
  • The Phenomenology of Perception – Maurice Merleau-Ponty
  • The Problem of Perception – A. D. Smith
  • Scepticism: A Very Short Introduction – Duncan Pritchard
  • Skepticism in Philosophy: A Comprehensive, Historical Introduction – Henrick Lagerlund
  • Skepticism: A Contemporary Reader – DeRose & Warfield
  • The Oxford Handbook of Skepticism – John Greco
  • Meditations on First Philosophy – Rene Decartes
  • On Certainty – Ludwig Wittgenstein
  • The Significance of Philosophical Scepticism – Barry Stroud

Ethics is the study of concepts involving practical reasoning: good, right, duty, obligation, virtue, choice, etc. You can find more information on these books on this page .

  • The Elements Of Moral Philosophy – James Rachels & Stuart Rachels
  • The Fundamentals of Ethics – Russ Shafer-Landau
  • Ethics: History, Theory, and Contemporary Issues – Steven Cahn & Peter Markie
  • The Republic – Plato
  • Nicomachean Ethics – Aristotle
  • Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals – Immanuel Kant
  • Utilitarianism – John Stuart Mill
  • Practical Ethics – Peter Singer

Animal Ethics

  • Ethics and Animals: An Introduction  – Lori Gruen
  • The Animal Rights Debate – Francione & Garner
  • The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics  – Tom L. Beauchamp & R.G. Frey
  • The Animal Ethics Reader  – Susan J. Armstrong & Richard G. Botzler
  • Animal Liberation  – Peter Singer
  • The Case for Animal Rights  – Tom Regan

Applied Ethics

  • Ethics in the Real World: 82 Brief Essays on Things That Matter – Peter Singer
  • Doing Ethics: Moral Reasoning and Contemporary Issues – Lewis Vaughn
  • Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics – Andrew I. Cohen & Christopher Heath Wellman
  • The Oxford Handbook of Practical Ethics – Hugh LaFollette
  • A Companion to Applied Ethics – R. G. Frey & Christopher Heath Wellman
  • Ethics in Practice: An Anthology – Hugh LaFollette

Bioethics is the branch of ethics that investigates problems specifically arising from medical and biological practice. You can find more information on these books on this page .

  • The Basics of Bioethics – Robert M. Veatch
  • Principles of Biomedical Ethics – Tom L. Beauchamp & James F. Childress
  • A Companion to Bioethics – Helga Kuhse & Peter Singer
  • The Oxford Handbook of Bioethics – Bonnie Steinbock
  • Bioethics: An Anthology – Kuhse, Schüklenk & Singer

Consequentialism

Consequentialism is the view that the rightness (or wrongness) of an action is determined entirely by its consequences. You can find more information on these books on this page .

  • Consequentialism – Julia Driver
  • Consequentialism and Its Critics – Samuel Scheffler
  • The Oxford Handbook of Consequentialism – Douglas W. Portmore
  • An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation – Jeremy Bentham
  • The Demands of Consequentialism – Tim Mulgan

Deontological Ethics

Deontological ethics refers to ethical views that judge actions primarily based on notions of duties or rights. You can find more information on these books on this page .

  • Kantian Ethics  – Allen W. Wood
  • Deontology  – Stephen Darwall
  • The Blackwell Guide to Kant’s Ethics  – Thomas E. Hill Jr.
  • Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals  – Immanuel Kant
  • The Right and the Good  – David Ross

Effective Altruism

Effective Altruism is a social movement which was influenced by the philosopher Peter Singer and aims to do the most good in the world. You can find more information on these books on this page .

  • Doing Good Better – Will MacAskill
  • The Most Good You Can Do – Peter Singer
  • The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity – Toby Ord
  • 80,000 Hours: Find a Fulfilling Career that Does Good – Benjamin Todd
  • Effective Altruism: Philosophical Issues – Greaves & Plummer
  • Famine, Affluence, and Morality – Peter Singer

Environmental Ethics

Environmental ethics is the branch of ethics concerning issues relating to the environment. You can find more information on these books on this page .

  • Environmental Ethics: A Very Short Introduction  – Robin Attfield
  • Ethics and the Environment: An Introduction – Dale Jamieson
  • The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Ethics  – Allen Thompson & Stephen M. Gardiner
  • Environmental Ethics: An Anthology  – Andrew Light & Holmes Rolston III
  • Friendship – A. C. Grayling
  • The Philosophy of Friendship – Mark Vernon
  • Friendship: A Philosophical Reader – Neera Badhwar
  • Lysis, Symposium, Phaedrus, Alcibiades, with Selections from Republic and Laws – Plato
  • On Friendship – Alexander Nehemas

All ethical views ascribe some value to happiness, however there is considerable disagreement about what happiness actually is. You can find more information on these books on this page .

  • Happiness: A Very Short Introduction  – Daniel M. Haybron
  • What is This Things Called Happiness?  – Fred Feldman
  • Oxford Handbook of Happiness  – Susan David et al.
  • Theories of Happiness: An Anthology – Jennifer Wilson Mulnix & M.J. Mulnix
  • The Pursuit of Unhappiness – Daniel M. Haybron
  • Love: A Very Short Introduction – Ronald de Sousa
  • Philosophy of Love: A Partial Summing-up – Irving Singer
  • Eros, Agape, and Philia: Readings in the Philosophy of Love – Alan Soble
  • The Routledge Handbook of Love in Philosophy – Adrienne Martin
  • The Art of Loving – Erich Fromm
  • Existentialism and Romantic Love – Skye Cleary
  • What Love Is: And What it Could Be – Carrie Jenkins

Meaning of Life

  • What’s It All About?: Philosophy and the Meaning of Life  – Julian Baggini
  • Exploring the Meaning of Life: An Anthology and Guide – Joshua W. Seachris
  • Meaning in Life and Why It Matters  – Susan Wolf
  • Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study  – Thaddeus Metz
  • Man’s Search for Meaning  – Viktor E. Frankl

Metaethics investigates the nature and grounds of ethical beliefs and systems. You can find more information on these books on this page .

  • What is this thing called Metaethics? – Matthew Chrisman
  • Metaethics: A Contemporary Introduction – Mark van Roojen
  • The Routledge Handbook of Metaethics – Tristram McPherson & David Plunkett
  • Foundations of Ethics: An Anthology – Russ Shafer-Landau & Terence Cuneo
  • Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals – Immanuel Kant

Moral Psychology

  • Moral Psychology: An Introduction  – Mark Alfano
  • Moral Psychology: A Contemporary Introduction  – Valerie Tiberius
  • The Moral Psychology Handbook  – John M. Doris
  • Moral Psychology: Historical and Contemporary Readings  – Nadelhoffer et al.
  • The Republic  – Plato
  • Nicomachean Ethics  – Aristotle
  • Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals  – David Hume

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is the view that actions should be judged based on whether they tend to maximize happiness, pleasure, or well-being. You can find more information on these books on this page .

  • Utilitarianism: A Very Short Introduction  – Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek & Peter Singer
  • Understanding Utilitarianism  – Tim Mulgan
  • The Cambridge Companion to Utilitarianism  – Ben Eggleston & Dale E. Miller
  • The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill – John Troyer
  • An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation  – Jeremy Bentham
  • Utilitarianism  – John Stuart Mill
  • The Methods of Ethics – Henry Sidgwick
  • The Point of View of the Universe – Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek & Peter Singer

Virtue Ethics

Virtue ethics is an approach to ethics that tends to emphasize the role of virtue, or moral character, in ethical decision making. You can find more information on these books on this page .

  • Virtue Ethics: A Contemporary Introduction  – Liezl van Zyl
  • The Cambridge Companion to Virtue Ethics  – Daniel C. Russell
  • Virtue Ethics  – Roger Crisp  & Michael Slote
  • Natural Goodness  – Philippa Foot
  • After Virtue  – Alasdair MacIntyre
  • On Virtue Ethics – Rosalind Hursthouse
  • The Philosophy of Well-Being: An Introduction  – Guy Fletcher
  • How to Live a Good Life: A Guide to Choosing your Personal Philosophy – Pigliucci, Cleary, & Kaufman
  • The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Well-Being  – Guy Fletcher
  • The Good Life  – Charles Guignon
  • Philosophy and the Good Life  – John Cottingham
  • The Best Things in Life – Thomas Hurka

Metaphysics

  • Metaphysics: A Very Short Introduction – Stephen Mumford
  • Riddles of Existence: A Guided Tour of Metaphysics – Earl Conee and Theodore Sider
  • A Survey of Metaphysics – E. J. Lowe
  • Metaphysics: The Big Questions – Peter Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman
  • Phaedo – Plato
  • Metaphysics – Aristotle
  • Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics – Immanuel Kant
  • Causation: A Very Short Introduction – Mumford & Anjum
  • Causation: A User’s Guide – Paul & Hall
  • Causation (Oxford Readings In Philosophy) – Ernest Sosa
  • The Oxford Handbook of Causation – Beebee, Hitchcock, & Menzies
  • An Enquiry Concerning the Human Understanding – David Hume
  • The Cement of the Universe: A Study of Causation – J. L. Mackie
  • Death – Shelly Kagan
  • Philosophy and Death: Introductory Readings – S. Brennan & R. J. Stainton
  • The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Death – B. Bradley, F. Feldman, & J. Johansson
  • Phaedo  – Plato
  • Letter to Menoeceus – Epicurus
  • The Death of Ivan Ilyich – Leo Tolstoy
  • Free Will: A Very Short Introduction – Thomas Pink
  • A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will – Robert Kane
  • Four Views on Free Will – Fischer, Kane, Pereboom, & Vargas
  • Free Will – Gary Watson
  • The Oxford Handbook of Free Will – Robert Kane
  • Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting – Daniel C. Dennett
  • An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion – Brian Davies
  • Arguing about Gods – Graham Oppy
  • Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion – C. Meister & P. Copan
  • Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion – David Hume
  • Five Proofs of the Existence of God – Edward Feser
  • The Miracle of Theism: Arguments For and Against the Existence of God – J. L. Mackie

Philosophy of Mind

  • Mind: A Brief Introduction – John R. Searle
  • Philosophy of Mind – Jaegwon Kim
  • Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings – David J. Chalmers
  • The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mind – McLaughlin, Beckermann, & Walter

Personal Identity

  • A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality – John Perry
  • Persons and Personal Identity – Amy Kind
  • Personal Identity – Harold W. Noonan
  • Personal Identity – John Perry
  • The Oxford Handbook of the Self – Shaun Gallagher
  • A Treatise of Human Nature – David Hume
  • Reasons and Persons – Derek Parfit

Political Philosophy

  • An Introduction to Political Philosophy – Jonathan Wolff
  • Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction  – Will Kimlicka
  • Arguing About Political Philosophy – Matt Zwolinski
  • Politics – Aristotle
  • The Prince – Niccolò Machiavelli
  • Second Treatise of Government – John Locke
  • Early Writings – Karl Marx
  • On Liberty – John Stuart Mill
  • Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction – Colin Ward
  • Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism – Peter Marshall
  • No Gods, No Masters: An Anthology of Anarchism – Daniel Guerin
  • The Bloomsbury Companion to Anarchism – Ruth Kinna
  • Property is Theft!: A Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Reader – Iain McKay
  • God and the State – Mikhail Bakunin
  • Anarchism and Other Essays – Emma Goldman
  • The Conquest of Bread and Other Writings – Peter Kropotkin
  • In Defense of Anarchism – Robert Paul Wolff
  • Is There a Duty to Obey the Law? For and Against – Wellman & Simmons

Conservatism

  • How to Be a Conservative – Roger Scruton
  • Conservatism: An Anthology of Social and Political Thought From David Hume to the Present  – Jerry Z. Muller
  • Reflections on the Revolution in France  – Edmund Burke
  • The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot  – Russell Kirk
  • Rationalism in Politics  – Michael Oakeshott

Critical Theory

  • Introducing Critical Theory – Stuart Sim
  • Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Habermas – David Held
  • Critical Theory: The Essential Readings – David Ingram
  • Critical Theory: Selected Essays – Max Horkheimer
  • One-Dimensional Man – Herbert Marcuse
  • Grand Hotel Abyss: The Lives of the Frankfurt School – Stuart Jeffries
  • Theories of Democracy: A Critical Introduction – Frank Cunningham
  • Models of Democracy – David Held
  • Philosophy and Democracy: An Anthology – Thomas Christiano
  • The Social Contract – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  • Democracy in America – Alexis de Tocqueville
  • On Democracy – Robert A. Dahl
  • Democratic Authority: A Philosophical Framework – David M. Estlund
  • Against Democracy – Jason Brennan
  • Freedom: An Introduction with Readings  – Nigel Warburton
  • Freedom: Contemporary Liberal Perspectives  – Katrin Flikschuh
  • Freedom: A Philosophical Anthology  – I. Carter, M. Kramer & H. Steiner
  • The Liberty Reader  – David Miller
  • The Oxford Handbook of Freedom  – David Schmidtz & Carmen Pavel
  • On Liberty  – John Stuart Mill
  • Four Essays on Liberty  – Isaiah Berlin

Global Justice

  • Global Justice – Jon Mandle
  • Political Theory and International Relations – Charles R. Beitz
  • The Global Justice Reader – Thom Brooks
  • Global Justice: Seminal Essays – Thomas Pogge & Darrel Moellendorf
  • The Law of Peoples  – John Rawls
  • World Poverty and Human Rights  – Thomas W. Pogge
  • Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Account – Gillian Brock

Human Rights

  • Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction – Andrew Clapham
  • The Evolution of International Human Rights – Paul Gordon Lauren
  • Human Rights: An Introduction – Darren J. O’Byrne
  • Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights – Cruft, Liao, & Renzo
  • World Poverty and Human Rights – Thomas Pogge
  • The Idea of Human Rights – Charles R. Beitz
  • On Human Rights – James Griffin
  • The Heart of Human Rights – Allen Buchanan
  • Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? – Michael Sandel
  • Justice: An Anthology – Louis P. Pojman
  • The Oxford Handbook of Distributive Justice – Serena Oslaretti
  • Republic – Plato
  • A Theory of Justice – John Rawls
  • The Idea of Justice – Amartya Sen
  • Rescuing Justice and Equality – G. A. Cohen
  • Liberalism: A Very Short Introduction  – Michael Freeden
  • Liberalism and the Limits of Justice  – Michael Sandel
  • Liberalism and Its Critics  – Michael Sandel
  • The Cambridge Companion to Liberalism  – Steven Wall
  • Second Treatise of Government  – John Locke
  • Political Liberalism  – John Rawls

Libertarianism

  • Libertarianism: What Everyone Needs to Know – Jason Brennan
  • Libertarianism (Key Concepts in Political Theory) – Eric Mack
  • The Libertarian Reader: Classic and Contemporary Writings – David Boaz
  • The Routledge Handbook of Libertarianism – Brennan, van der Vossen, & Schmidtz
  • Anarchy, State, and Utopia – Robert Nozick
  • Law, Legislation, and Liberty, Volume 1: Rules and Order – Friedrich Hayek
  • Left Libertarianism and its Critics: The Contemporary Debate – Vallentyne & Steiner
  • Libertarianism without Inequality – Michael Otsuka
  • Understanding Marxism – Geoff Boucher
  • Main Currents of Marxism – Leszek Kolakowski
  • Marxism after Marx – David McLellan
  • Marx and Modernity: Key Readings and Commentary – Robert Antonio
  • Critical Companion to Contemporary Marxism – Bidet & Kouvelakis
  • Selected Writings – Karl Marx
  • A Future for Marxism? – Andrew Levine
  • Reconstructing Marxism – Wright, Levine, & Sober
  • From Marxism to Post-Marxism – Göran Therborn
  • The Problem of Punishment – David Boonin
  • Why Punish? How Much?: A Reader on Punishment – Michael Tonry
  • The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy and Science of Punishment – Focquaert, Shaw, and Waller
  • Punishment and Responsibility: Essays in the Philosophy of Law – H.L.A. Hart
  • Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison – Michel Foucault
  • The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness – Michelle Alexander
  • The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: Ideology, Class, and Criminal Justice – Reiman & Leighton
  • Socialism: Past and Future – Michael Harrington
  • Why Not Socialism? – G. A. Cohen
  • Socialism: Utopian and Scientific – Friedrich Engels
  • The Fatal Conceit – Friedrich Hayek
  • A Future for Socialism – John Roemer
  • Envisioning Real Utopias – Erik Olin Wright
  • How to Be an Anti-capitalist in the 21st Century – Erik Olin Wright
  • The Utopia Reader – Claeys & Sargeant
  • Utopia – Thomas More
  • Ideology and Utopia – Karl Mannheim
  • The Grasshopper: Games Life, and Utopia – Bernard Suits
  • Anarchy, State and Utopia – Robert Nozick
  • Utopia as Method – Ruth Levitas
  • Automation and Utopia – John Danaher
  • Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations – Michael Walzer
  • The Ethics of War and Peace – Helen Frowe
  • The Morality of War: A Reader – Kinsella & Carr
  • The Oxford Handbook of Ethics of War – Seth Lazar
  • On War – Carl von Clausewitz
  • Killing in War – Jeff Mcmahan

African Philosophy

  • An Introduction to African Philosophy – Samuel Oluoch Imbo
  • A Short History of African Philosophy – Barry Hallen
  • African Philosophy: Myth and Reality – Paulin J. Hountondji & Abiola Irele
  • African Philosophy in Search of Identity – D. A. Masolo
  • A Companion to African Philosophy – Kwasi Wiredu
  • The African Philosophy Reader – P.H. Coetzee & A.P.J. Roux

Chinese Philosophy

  • Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy – Bryan W. Van Norden
  • A Short History of Chinese Philosophy – Fung Yu-lan
  • Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy – P. J. Ivanhoe & B. W. Van Norden
  • Dao De Jing – Laozi
  • The Analects – Confucius
  • Mencius – Mencius
  • Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings – Chuang Tzu
  • The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life – Michael Puett

Indian Philosophy

  • Indian Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction – Sue Hamilton
  • An Introduction to Indian Philosophy – Roy W. Perrett
  • Classical Indian Philosophy – Adamson & Ganeri
  • A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy – Radhakrishnan & Moore
  • Oxford Handbook of Indian Philosophy – Jonardon Ganeri
  • The Upanishads
  • The Bhagavad Gita
  • In the Buddha’s Words – Bhikkhu Bodhi

Islamic Philosophy

  • Philosophy in the Islamic World: A Very Short Introduction – Peter Adamson
  • Philosophy in the Islamic World – Peter Adamson
  • Classical Arabic Philosophy: An Anthology of Sources – McGinnis & Reisman
  • The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy – Peter Adamson
  • The Incoherence of the Philosophers – al-Ghazali
  • The Metaphysics of The Healing – Avicenna

Other Topics

  • But Is It Art? – Cynthia Freeland
  • Philosophy of Art: A Contemporary Introduction – Noël Carroll
  • Aesthetics: A Comprehensive Anthology – Cahn & Meskin
  • The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics – Jerrold Levinson
  • Poetics – Aristotle
  • Of the Standard of Taste – David Hume

Analytic Philosophy

  • Analytic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction – Michael Beaney
  • A Brief History of Analytic Philosophy: From Russell to Rawls – Stephen P. Schwartz
  • Twentieth-Century Analytic Philosophy – Avrum Stroll
  • A Companion to Analytic Philosophy – A. P. Martinich & David Sosa
  • Analytic Philosophy: An Anthology – A. P. Martinich & David Sosa

Ancient Greek Philosophy

  • Ancient Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction  – Julia Annas
  • Ancient Greek Philosophy: From the Presocratics to the Hellenistic Philosophers – Thomas A. Blackson
  • Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy: From Thales to Aristotle  – S. Cohen, P. Curd & C. D. C. Reeve
  • The Presocratic Philosophers  – G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven & M. Schofield
  • The Trial and Death of Socrates  – Plato
  • The Essential Epicurus  – Epicurus

Philosophy of Biology

  • Philosophy of Biology  – Peter Godfrey-Smith
  • Sex and Death : An Introduction to Philosophy of Biology – Kim Sterelny & Paul E. Griffiths
  • Cambridge Companion to the Philosophy of Biology  – David L. Hull & Michael Ruse
  • Philosophy of Biology: An Anthology  – Alex Rosenberg & Robert Arp

Buddhist Philosophy

  • What the Buddha Taught – Walpola Rahula
  • The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation – Thich Nhat Hanh
  • An Introduction to Buddhist Philosophy – Stephen J. Laumakis
  • A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy – Steven M. Immanuel
  • Buddhist Philosophy: Selected Readings – Edelglass & Garfield
  • In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon – Bhikkhu Bodhi
  • The Dhammapada
  • Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment – Robert Wright

Confuciusianism

  • Confucianism: A Very Short Introduction – Daniel K. Gardner
  • Thinking Through Confucius – D. L. Hall & R. T. Ames
  • Confucius: The Secular as Sacred – Herbert Fingarette
  • A Concise Companion to Confucius – Paul R. Goldin

Continental Philosophy

  • Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction – Simon Critchley
  • Continental Philosophy: An Introduction – David West
  • The Continental Philosophy Reader – R. Kearney & M. Rainwater
  • The Oxford Handbook of Continental Philosophy – B. Leiter & M. Rosen

Critical Thinking

  • Giving Reasons: An Extremely Short Introduction to Critical Thinking – David R. Morrow
  • Critical Thinking: A Concise Guide – Tracy Bowell & Gary Kemp
  • A Rulebook for Arguments – Anthony Weston
  • Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric: The Use of Reason in Everyday Life – Nancy M. Cavender & Howard Kahane
  • Understanding Arguments: An Introduction to Informal Logic – Walter Sinnott-Armstrong  & Robert J. Fogelin
  • Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings – Zhuangzi
  • Introducing Daoism – Livia Kohn
  • Daoism and Chinese Culture – Livia Kohn
  • Taoism: Growth of a Religion – Isabelle Robinet
  • The Taoist Experience: An Anthology – Livia Kohn

Decision Theory

  • Making Better Decisions: Decision Theory in Practice – Itzhak Gilboa
  • Choices: An Introduction to Decision Theory – Michael D. Resnik
  • An Introduction to Decision Theory – Martin Peterson
  • Blackwell Handbook of Judgment and Decision Making – Derek J. Koehler & Nigel Harvey

Philosophy of Economics

  • Philosophy of Economics – Don Ross
  • Philosophy of Economics: A Contemporary Introduction  – Julian Reiss
  • The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Economics  – Harold Kincaid & Don Ross
  • The Philosophy of Economics: An Anthology  – Daniel M. Hausman

Philosophy of Education

  • The Philosophy of Education: An Introduction  – Richard Bailey
  • Philosophy of Education – Nel Noddings
  • The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Education  – Harvey Siegel
  • Classic and Contemporary Readings in the Philosophy of Education – Steven M. Cahn
  • Emile: or, On Education  – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  • Democracy and Education  – John Dewey
  • Pedagogy of the Oppressed  – Paulo Freire

Philosophy of Emotion

  • The Emotions: A Philosophical Introduction – J. Deonna & F. Teroni
  • Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology – Robert C. Roberts
  • The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion – Peter Goldie
  • What Is an Emotion?: Classic and Contemporary Readings – Robert C. Solomon
  • The Passions of the Soul – René Descartes
  • A Treatise of Human Nature – David Hume

The Enlightenment

  • The Enlightenment: A Very Short Introduction – John Robertson
  • The Enlightenment – Dorinda Outram
  • The Dream of Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Philosophy – Anthony Gottlieb
  • The Portable Enlightenment Reader – Issac Kramnick
  • Discourse on the Method – Rene Descartes
  • A Vindication of the Rights of Woman – Mary Wollstonecraft

Existentialism

  • An Introduction to Existentialism – Robert G. Olsen
  • At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails – Sarah Bakewell
  • Basic Writings of Existentialism – Gordon Marino
  • The Cambridge Companion to Existentialism – Steven Crowell
  • The Sickness unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition of Edification & Awakening – Søren Kierkegaard
  • Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic Writings – Jean-Paul Sartre
  • The Ethics of Ambiguity – Simone de Beauvoir

Feminist Philosophy

  • An Introduction to Feminist Philosophy – Alison Stone
  • Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction – Rosemarie Tong
  • The Routledge Companion to Feminist Philosophy – Garry, Khader, & Stone
  • Feminist Theory: A Philosophical Anthology – Ann Cudd & Andreasen
  • The Subjection of Women – John Stuart Mill
  • The Second Sex – Simone de Beauvoir
  • Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny – Kate Manne

Philosophy of Film

  • The Philosophy of Motion Pictures – Noël Carroll
  • Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures: An Anthology – Noël Carroll & Jinhee Choi
  • The Palgrave Handbook of the Philosophy of Film and Motion and Motion Pictures – Carroll, Summa, & Loht
  • Current Controversies in Philosophy of Film – Kathleen Thomas Jones
  • What is Cinema? Vol. 1 – Andre Bazin
  • The World Viewed: Reflections on the Ontology of Film – Stanley Cavell

Philosophy of Gender

  • Gender: The Key Concepts – Mary Evans
  • Debating Sex and Gender – Georgia Warnke
  • The Gender Knot – Allan G. Johnson
  • Justice, Gender, and the Family – Susan Moller Okin
  • Undoing Gender – Judith Butler

History of Philosophy

  • A Little History of Philosophy  – Nigel Warburton
  • How the World Thinks: A Global History of Philosophy – Julian Baggini
  • An Illustrated Brief History of Western Philosophy  – Anthony Kenny
  • A History of Philosophy – Frederick Copleston
  • Classics of Western Philosophy – Steven M. Cahn

Philosophy of History

  • The Philosophy of History: An Introduction – Mark Day
  • The Philosophy of History (Oxford Readings in Philosophy) – Patrick Gardiner
  • A Companion to the Philosophy of History and Historiography – Aviezer Tucker
  • Lectures on the Philosophy of History – G. W. F. Hegel
  • Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defense – G. A. Cohen

Human Nature

  • Thirteen Theories of Human Nature – Stevenson et al.
  • Who Are We? Theories of Human Nature – Louis P. Pojman
  • Arguing About Human Nature: Contemporary Debates – Stephen M. Downes
  • Leviathan – Thomas Hobbes
  • The Descent of Man – Charles Darwin
  • Human Nature after Darwin – Janet Radcliffe Richards

Philosophy of Language

  • Philosophy of Language – Scott Soames
  • Philosophy of Language: A Contemporary Introduction – William G Lycan
  • The Philosophy of Language – Martinich & Sosa
  • The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language – Lepore & Smith
  • Logic: A Very Short Introduction  – Graham Priest
  • A Concise Introduction to Logic  – Patrick J. Hurley & Lori Watson
  • Introduction to Logic  – Irving M. Copi et al.
  • A Companion to Philosophical Logic  – Dale Jacquette

Philosophy of Mathematics

  • Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction  – Timothy Gowers
  • Philosophy of Mathematics  – Øystein Linnebo
  • The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic – Stewart Shapiro
  • An Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Mathematics: A Reader – Russell Marcus & Mark McEvoy

Medieval Philosophy

  • Medieval Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction  – John Marenbon
  • An Introduction to Medieval Philosophy: Basic Concepts  – Joseph W. Koterski
  • Philosophy in the Middle Ages  – A. Hyman, J. Walsh & T. Williams
  • The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Philosophy  – A. S. Mcgrade
  • Confessions  – St. Augustine
  • The Consolation of Philosophy  – Boethius
  • Three Philosophical Dialogues  – St. Anselm

Philosophy of Music

  • Philosophy of Music: An Introduction – R. A. Sharpe
  • An Introduction to a Philosophy of Music – Peter Kivy
  • Philosophers on Music: Experience, Meaning and Work – Kathleen Stock
  • The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Music – Theodore Gracyk
  • On the Musically Beautiful – Eduard Hanslick

Phenomenology

  • Phenomenology: The Basics  – Dan Zahavi
  • Introduction to Phenomenology  – Dermot Moran
  • The Oxford Handbook on Contemporary Phenomenology  – Dan Zahavi
  • The Phenomenology Reader  – Timothy Mooney & Dermot Moran

Philosophy of Physics

  • Philosophy of Physics: Space and Time – Tim Maudlin
  • Philosophical Concepts in Physics – James T. Cushing
  • An Introduction to the Philosophy of Physics: Locality, Fields, Energy, and Mass – Marc Lange
  • Philosophy of Physics – Lawrence Sklar
  • The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Physics – Robert Batterman

Postmodernism

  • The Origins of Postmodernity  – Perry Anderson
  • Postmodern Theory  – Steven Best & Douglas Kellner
  • French Philosophy in the Twentieth Century  – Gary Gutting
  • From Modernism to Postmodernism  – Lawrence E. Cahoone
  • The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge  – Jean-Francois Lyotard
  • Pragmatism: A Guide for the Perplexed – Robert B. Talisse & Scott Aikin
  • The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America – Louis Menand
  • Pragmatism: A Reader – Louis Menand
  • The Cambridge Companion to Pragmatism – Alan Malachowski
  • Pragmatism – William James
  • The Essential Peirce – C. S. Peirce
  • The Essential Dewey – John Dewey

Philosophy of Race

  • Race: A Philosophical Introduction  – Paul C. Taylor
  • Philosophy of Race: An Introduction  – Naomi Zack
  • Racism: A Short History  – George M. Fredrickson
  • The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Race – Paul C Taylor et al.
  • The Idea of Race  – Robert Bernasconi & Tommy Lee Lott
  • Black Skin: White Masks  – Frantz Fanon

Philosophy of Religion

  • Philosophy of Religion: A Very Short Introduction – Tim Bayne
  • Philosophy of Religion: A Contemporary Introduction – Keith E. Yandell
  • Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology – Pojman & Rea
  • The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Religion – William Wainwright
  • Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man, and the Origin of Evil – Gottfried Leibniz
  • Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason – Immanuel Kant

Philosophy of Science

  • Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction – Samir Okasha
  • Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science – Peter Godfrey-Smith
  • Philosophy of Science: Contemporary Readings – Yuri Balashov & Alex Rosenberg
  • The Logic of Scientific Discovery – Karl Popper
  • The Structure of Scientific Revolutions – Thomas S. Kuhn

Philosophy of Technology

  • Philosophy of Technology: An Introduction  – Val Dusek
  • A Companion to the Philosophy of Technology  – Jan Kyrre Berg Olsen et al.
  • Philosophy of Technology: The Technological Condition: An Anthology – Robert C. Scharff & Val Dusek
  • What Things Do  – Peter-Paul Verbeek

Philosophers

This section features reading lists on individual philosophers. It is arranged in roughly chronological order.

Pre-Socratics

  • Presocratic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction – Catherine Osborne
  • The Presocratic Philosophers – Jonathan Barnes
  • Philosophy Before Socrates: An Introduction with Texts and Commentary – Richard D. McKirahan
  • The Oxford Handbook of Presocratic Philosophy – P. Curd & D. W. Graham
  • The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts – G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven, & M. Schofield
  • The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy – Daniel W. Graham
  • Socrates: A Very Short Introduction  – Christopher Taylor
  • Socrates  – George Rudebusch
  • Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher  – Gregory Vlastos
  • The Cambridge Companion to Socrates  – Donald R. Morrison
  • Complete Works  – Plato
  • Plato: A Very Short Introduction – Julia Annas
  • Plato: A Guide for the Perplexed – Gerald A. Press
  • The Cambridge Companion to Plato – Richard Kraut
  • Five Dialogues – Plato
  • Symposium – Plato
  • Complete Works – Plato
  • Aristotle: A Very Short Introduction  – Jonathan Barnes
  • Aristotle: The Desire to Understand – Jonathan Lear
  • A New Aristotle Reader – J. L. Ackrill
  • The Complete Works of Aristotle – Jonathan Barnes
  • The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle – Jonathan Barnes
  • Rhetoric and Poetics – Aristotle
  • Physics – Aristotle
  • Epicureanism: A Very Short Introduction – Catherine Wilson
  • Epicureanism – Tim O’Keefe
  • The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism – James Warren
  • The Essential Epicurus – Epicurus
  • The Nature of Things – Lucretius
  • How to Be a Stoic – Massimo Pigliucci
  • Stoicism – John Sellars
  • The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics – Brad Inwood
  • Letters from a Stoic – Seneca
  • Discourses, Fragments, Handbook – Epictetus
  • Plotinus – Eyjólfur K. Emilsson
  • Plotinus: An Introduction to the Enneads  – Dominic J. O’Meara
  • The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus  – Lloyd P. Gerson
  • The Essential Plotinus  – S.J. Elmer O’Brien
  • The Enneads  – Plotinus

St. Augustine

  • Augustine: A Very Short Introduction – Henry Chadwick
  • Augustine of Hippo: A Biography – Peter Brown
  • The Cambridge Companion to Augustine – David Vincent Meconi & Eleonore Stump
  • Confessions – Saint Augustine
  • City of God – Saint Augustine
  • On Christian Doctrine – Saint Augustine
  • Boethius  – John Marenbon
  • Boethius: The Consolations of Music, Logic, Theology, and Philosophy – Henry Chadwick
  • The Cambridge Companion to Boethius  – John Marenbon
  • Anselm – G. R. Evans
  • Anselm  – Sandra Visser & Thomas Williams
  • The Cambridge Companion to Anselm  – Brian Davies & Brian Leftow
  • The Major Works  – St. Anselm
  • Proslogion  – St. Anselm
  • Maimonides  – T. M. Rudavsky
  • Maimonides: Life and Thought  – Moshe Halbertal
  • The Cambridge Companion to Maimonides  – Kenneth Seeskin
  • The Guide of the Perplexed  – Maimonides

St. Aquinas

  • Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide – Edward Feser
  • The Thought of Thomas Aquinas – Brian Davies
  • Aquinas: An Introduction to the Life and Work of the Great Medieval Thinker – F. C. Copleston
  • The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas – Brian Davies & Eleonore Stump
  • Thomas Aquinas: Selected Writings – Thomas Aquinas

Machiavelli

  • Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction – Quentin Skinner
  • Niccolò Machiavelli: An Intellectual Biography – Corrado Vivanti
  • The Cambridge Companion to Machiavelli – John M. Najemy
  • The Portable Machiavelli – Niccolò Machiavelli
  • Discourses on Livy – Niccolò Machiavelli
  • How To Read Montaigne  – Terence Cave
  • Michel de Montaigne: Accidental Philosopher  – Ann Hartle
  • How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer  – Sarah Bakewell
  • The Cambridge Companion to Montaigne  – Ullrich Langer
  • Essays  – Montaigne

Francis Bacon

  • Francis Bacon  – Perez Zagorin
  • Francis Bacon: The History of a Character Assassination  – Nieves Mathews
  • The Cambridge Companion to Bacon  – Markku Peltonen
  • Francis Bacon: The Major Works – Francis Bacon
  • The New Organon  – Francis Bacon
  • The Advancement of Learning  – Francis Bacon
  • Hobbes: A Very Short Introduction – Richard Tuck
  • Hobbes – A. P. Martinich
  • Hobbes: A Biography – A. P. Martinich
  • The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes – Tom Sorell
  • The Elements of Law – Thomas Hobbes
  • Descartes: A Very Short Introduction – Tom Sorell
  • Descartes: An Intellectual Biography – Stephen Gaukroger
  • The Cambridge Companion to Descartes – John Cottingham
  • Discourse on Method – René Descartes
  • Selected Philosophical Writings – René Descartes
  • Pascal the Philosopher: An Introduction  – Graeme Hunter
  • Pascal – Ben Rogers
  • The Cambridge Companion to Pascal  – Nicholas Hammond
  • Penseés  – Blaise Pascal
  • Spinoza: A Very Short Introduction  – Roger Scruton
  • Spinoza  – Michael Della Rocca
  • Spinoza: A Life  – Steven Nadler
  • The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza  – Don Garrett
  • A Spinoza Reader: The Ethics and Other Works – Edwin Curley
  • Ethics  – Spinoza
  • Theological-Political Treatise  – Spinoza
  • Locke: A Very Short Introduction – John Dunn
  • Locke – Samuel Rickless
  • Locke: A Biography – Roger Woolhouse
  • The Cambridge Companion to Locke – Vere Chappell
  • On Toleration – John Locke
  • Berkeley: A Guide for the Perplexed  – Talia Mae Bettcher
  • Berkeley’s Thought  – George S. Pappas
  • The Cambridge Companion to Berkeley  – Kenneth P. Winkler
  • Berkeley: Philosophical Writings  – George Berkeley
  • The Principles of Human Knowledge  – George Berkeley
  • Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous  – George Berkeley
  • Hume: A Very Short Introduction – A. J. Ayer
  • The Philosophy of David Hume – Norman Kemp Smith
  • Hume: An Intellectual Biography – James A. Harris
  • The Cambridge Companion to Hume – David Fate Norton & Jacqueline Taylor
  • Selected Essays – David Hume
  • Rousseau: A Very Short Introduction – Robert Wokler
  • Rousseau – Nicholas Dent
  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius – Leo Damrosch
  • The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau – Patrick Riley
  • Discourse on the Origin of Inequality – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  • The Confessions – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  • Emile: Or On Education – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  • Kant: A Very Short Introduction – Roger Scruton
  • Kant – Paul Guyer
  • Kant: A Biography – Manfred Kuehn
  • The Cambridge Companion to Kant – Paul Guyer
  • Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals – Immanuel Kant
  • Critique of Judgement – Immanuel Kant
  • Critique of Pure Reason – Immanuel Kant
  • Simply Hegel – Robert L. Wicks
  • An Introduction to Hegel: Freedom, Truth and History – Stephen Houlgate
  • Hegel – Frederick Beiser
  • Hegel: A Biography – Terry Pinkard
  • The Cambridge Companion to Hegel – Frederick C. Beiser
  • Reading Hegel: The Introductions – G. W. F. Hegel

Schopenhauer

  • Schopenhauer: A Very Short Introduction  – Christopher Janaway
  • Schopenhauer – Julian Young
  • Schopenhauer: A Biography  – David E. Cartwright
  • The Cambridge Companion to Schopenhauer  – Christopher Janaway
  • The Essential Schopenhauer – Arthur Schopenhauer
  • Essays and Aphorisms  – Arthur Schopenhauer
  • The World as Will and Representation  – Arthur Schopenhauer

John Stuart Mill

  • Why Read Mill Today? – John Skorupski
  • John Stuart Mill: A Biography – Nicholas Capaldi
  • The Cambridge Companion to Mill – John Skorupski
  • Autobiography – John Stuart Mill

Kierkegaard

  • Kierkegaard: An Introduction – C. Stephen Evans
  • Kierkegaard: A Very Short Introduction – Patrick Gardiner
  • Kierkegaard: A Biography – Alastair Hannay
  • Fear and Trembling – Søren Kierkegaard
  • Either/Or – Søren Kierkegaard
  • The Sickness unto Death – Søren Kierkegaard
  • The Concept of Anxiety – Søren Kierkegaard
  • The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard – A. Hannay & G. Marino
  • Why Read Marx Today? – Jonathan Wolff
  • Karl Marx: A Biography – David McLellan
  • The Cambridge Companion to Marx – Terrell Carver
  • The Communist Manifesto – Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels
  • Capital: Volume 1 – Karl Marx
  • The German Ideology – Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels
  • The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 – Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels
  • Simply Nietzsche – Peter Kail
  • Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist – Walter A. Kaufmann
  • The Oxford Handbook of Nietzsche – Gemes and Richardson
  • Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography – Rüdiger Safranski
  • Basic Writings of Nietzsche – Friedrich Nietzsche
  • Beyond Good & Evil – Friedrich Nietzsche
  • On the Genealogy of Morality – Friedrich Nietzsche
  • The Gay Science – Friedrich Nietzsche
  • The Birth of Tragedy – Friedrich Nietzsche
  • Thus Spoke Zarathustra – Friedrich Nietzsche

William James

  • The Philosophy of William James: An Introduction  – Richard M. Gale
  • William James: His Life and Thought – Gerald E Myers
  • Becoming William James  – Howard M. Feinstein
  • The Cambridge Companion to William James  – Ruth Anna Putnam
  • The Essential William James  – William James
  • Pragmatism  – William James
  • The Varieties of Religious Experience  – William James
  • The Will to Believe  – William James
  • Frege Explained – Joan Weiner
  • Frege: An Introduction to the Founder of Modern Analytic Philosophy – Anthony Kenny
  • Frege: Philosophy of Language – Michael Dummett
  • The Frege Reader – Michael Beaney
  • The Cambridge Companion to Frege – Tom Ricketts
  • Freud: A Very Short Introduction  – Anthony Storr
  • Freud  – Jonathan Lear
  • The Freud Reader  – Peter Gay
  • The Cambridge Companion to Freud  – Jerome Neu
  • The Interpretation of Dreams  – Sigmund Freud
  • Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality  – Sigmund Freud
  • Civilization and Its Discontents  – Sigmund Freud
  • Husserl’s Phenomenology  – Dan Zahavi
  • Husserl  – David Woodruff Smith
  • The Cambridge Companion to Husserl  – Barry Smith & David Woodruff Smith
  • The Essential Husserl: Basic Writings in Transcendental Phenomenology  – Edmund Husserl
  • Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology – Edmund Husserl
  • Logical Investigations  – Edmund Husserl

Bertrand Russell

  • Russell: A Very Short Introduction  – A. C. Grayling
  • Russell: A Guide for the Perplexed  – John Ongley & Rosalind Carey
  • Bertrand Russell: The Spirit of Solitude  – Ray Monk
  • The Cambridge Companion to Bertrand Russell  – Nicholas Griffin
  • The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell  – Bertrand Russell
  • The Problems of Philosophy  – Bertrand Russell
  • Logic and Knowledge  – Bertrand Russell
  • Sceptical Essays  – Bertrand Russell

Wittgenstein

  • How to Read Wittgenstein – Ray Monk
  • Wittgenstein – William Child
  • Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius – Ray Monk
  • Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus – Ludwig Wittgenstein
  • Philosophical Investigations – Ludwig Wittgenstein
  • How to Read Heidegger  – Mark Wrathall
  • Heidegger: A Very Short Introduction – Michael Inwood
  • Heidegger: An Introduction  – Richard Polt
  • The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger  – Charles B. Guignon
  • Basic Writings  – Martin Heidegger
  • Basic Problems of Phenomenology  – Martin Heidegger
  • Being and Time  – Martin Heidegger
  • The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays  – Martin Heidegger
  • How To Read Sartre  – Robert Bernasconi
  • Sartre: A Philosophical Biography  – Thomas R. Flynn
  • The Cambridge Companion to Sartre  – Christina Howells
  • Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic Writings  – Jean-Paul Sartre
  • Existentialism and Humanism  – Jean-Paul Sartre
  • No Exit  – Jean-Paul Sartre
  • Nausea  – Jean-Paul Sartre
  • Being and Nothingness – Jean-Paul Sartre
  • Arendt: A Guide for the Perplexed  – Karin A. Fry
  • Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World  – Elisabeth Young-Bruehl
  • The Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt  – Dana Villa
  • The Portable Hannah Arendt  – Hannah Arendt
  • The Origins of Totalitarianism  – Hannah Arendt
  • The Human Condition  – Hannah Arendt
  • Eichmann in Jerusalem : A Report on the Banality of Evil  – Hannah Arendt
  • Foucault: A Very Short Introduction  – Gary Gutting
  • How to Read Foucault  – Johanna Oksala
  • The Lives of Michel Foucault  – David Macey
  • The Cambridge Companion to Foucault  – Gary Gutting
  • The Foucault Reader – Paul Rabinow
  • Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison  – Michel Foucault
  • The History of Sexuality  – Michel Foucault

The Daily Idea aims to make learning about philosophy as easy as possible by bringing together the best philosophy resources from across the internet. To get started, check out this organized collection of 400+ articles, podcasts, and videos on a wide range of philosophical topics.

A Collection of the Greatest Philosophical Quotations

philosophy essays to read

Follow The Daily Idea on Facebook and Twitter for updates.

  • Faculty of Arts
  • School of Historical and Philosophical Studies
  • Current students
  • Undergraduate

Philosophy essay writing guide

Introduction.

This guide is intended to give new students of philosophy some preliminary advice about writing philosophy essays at university. For many of you, writing a philosophy essay will be something of a new experience, and no doubt many of you will be a little unsure of what to expect, or of what is expected of you. Most of you will have written essays in school for English, History, etc. A philosophy essay is something a little different again. However, it is not an unfathomable, mysterious affair, nor one where anything goes.

Just what a philosophy essay is will depend a lot, as you'd expect, on just what philosophy is. Defining philosophy is always a more or less controversial business, but one way to think of what is done in university philosophy departments is to think of the difference between having a philosophy and doing philosophy. Virtually everyone "has a philosophy" in the sense that we have many basic beliefs about the world and ourselves and use certain key concepts to articulate those beliefs. Many of us initially come to thus "have a philosophy" (or elements of several philosophies) often only unconsciously, or by following "what's obvious" or "what everybody knows", or by adopting a view because it sounds exciting or is intellectually fashionable.

"Doing philosophy", on the other hand, is a self-conscious unearthing and rigorous examination of these basic beliefs and key concepts. In doing so, we try to clarify the meanings of those beliefs and concepts and to evaluate critically their rational grounds or justification. Thus, rather than having their heads in the clouds, philosophers are really more under the surface of our thinking, examining the structures that support - or fail to support - those who trust that they have their feet on the ground. Such examination may even help to develop new and firmer ground.

Doing philosophy, then, begins with asking questions about the fundamental ideas and concepts that inform our ways of looking at the world and ourselves, and proceeds by developing responses to those questions which seek to gain insight into those ideas and concepts - and part of that development consists in asking further questions, giving further responses, and so on. Human beings across the world have been engaged in this sort of dialogue of question and response for many centuries - even millennia - and a number of great traditions of reflection and inquiry have evolved that have fundamentally influenced the development of religion, art, science and politics in many cultures. The influence of philosophical thinking on Western civilization, in particular, can be traced back more than 2,500 years to the Ancient Greeks.

In philosophy, a good essay is one that, among other things, displays a good sense of this dialectic of question and response by asking insightful, probing questions, and providing reasoned, well-argued responses. This means that you should not rest content with merely an unintegrated collection of assertions, but should instead work at establishing logical relations between your thoughts. You are assessed not on the basis of what you believe, but on how well you argue for the position you adopt in your essay, and on how interesting and insightful your discussion of the issues is. That is to say, you are assessed on how well you do philosophy, not on what philosophy you end up having. Nonetheless, you ought to make sure that your essay's discussion is relevant to the topic. (See Section 5.2 below on relevance.)

It is hoped that you enjoy the activity of essay writing. If you have chosen to study Arts, it is likely that you will have a particular interest in - even a passion for - ideas and the variety of forms and genres in which ideas are expressed and explored. The argumentative or discursive formal academic essay is one such form, and one which can be a pleasure to read and to write. Thus, the assessment that is set in philosophy courses is primarily an invitation to you to pursue what is already (or, hopefully, soon to be) your own interest in writing to explore ideas. However, your immediate goal in writing an academic philosophy essay ought not to be to write a personal testament, confession or polemic. Rather, you should primarily aim at articulating, clearly and relatively dispassionately, your philosophical thinking on the topic at hand. Nevertheless, the kind and degree of personal development one can gain from taking up the challenge to think and to write carefully, clearly and thoroughly is certainly something to be greatly valued.

This guide is intended to help you get started in the business of writing philosophy essays. As you practise your philosophical writing skills, you will develop your own technique, and learn what is appropriate in each particular case. So you may well come to "work around" many of these guidelines. Nonetheless, it is important that you pass through that which you seek to pass beyond.* In addition to your own writing, your reading of other philosophers will help you to develop your sense of what constitutes good philosophical writing. As you read, note the various styles and techniques that philosophical authors employ in their treatment of philosophical issues. Practice and studying good examples, then, are the most valuable ways to develop your essay writing skills.

This guide is, moreover, only one of many publications that introduce philosophy students to essay writing. Some others you may like to consult include:

  • A. P. Martinich, Philosophical Writing, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997)
  • J. Feinberg and R. Shafer-Landau, Doing Philosophy: A Guide to the Writing of Philosophy Papers, 2nd ed. (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 2001)
  • Z. Seech, Writing Philosophy Papers, 4th ed. (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 2003)
  • R. Solomon, "Writing Philosophy", Appendix to his The Big Questions: A Short Introduction to Philosophy, 6th ed. (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 2001)
  • S. Gorovitz et al., Philosophical Analysis: An Introduction to its Language and Techniques, 3rd ed. (New York: Random House, 1979)

Also, the websites of many philosophy departments in universities around Australia and the world contain downloadable essay writing guides or links to them.

*This phrase is adapted from Jacques Bouveresse, "Why I am so very unFrench", in Alan Montefiore, ed., Philosophy in France Today (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 12.

What do I do in a Philosophy essay?

Philosophy essay topics are not designed to provide an intellectual obstacle course that trips you up so as to delight a malicious marker. They are designed to invite you to "grapple with" with some particular philosophical problem or issue. That is to say, they are designed to offer you an opportunity to demonstrate your understanding of a particular philosophical problem or issue, and to exhibit your own philosophical skills of analysis, argumentation, etc. These twin goals are usually best achieved by ensuring that your essay performs two basic functions (your understanding and your skills apply to both):

an exposition of the problem or issue in question (often as it is posed in some particular text); and a critical discussion of the problem or text

These two functions can, but need not always, correspond to physically or structurally distinct sections of your essay. See Section 5.1.

The expository ("setting forth") aspect of your essay is where you should make clear what the issue is and why it is an issue. Where you are dealing with an issue as it is presented in some particular text, your aim should be to make clear what it is that the author in question meant in their text, what they see as the issue and why they see it as an issue. This does not involve merely quoting or paraphrasing a text. Of course, occasional quotation and paraphrase may be appropriate - sometimes necessary - but these ought not to constitute the sole or major content of your exposition. Where you do quote or paraphrase, make sure you attribute your sources in footnotes or endnotes. (See Section 7.)

Exposition is, then, primarily a matter of developing in your own words what you think the issue is or what you think the text means. In all expository work you should always try to give a fair and accurate account of a text or problem, even when the exposition becomes more interpretive rather than simply descriptive. You ought to be patient and sympathetic in your exposition, even if you intend later to criticise heavily the philosopher in question. Indeed, the better the exposition in this regard, usually the more effective the critique.

An important part of exposition is your analysis of the text or issue. Here you should try to "break down" the text, issue or problem into its constitutive elements by distinguishing its different parts. (E.g. "There are two basic kinds of freedom in question when we speak of freedom of the will. First, … . Second, …", or "There are three elements in Plato's conception of the soul, namely... He establishes these three elements by means of the following two arguments... ") This also involves showing the relationships between those elements, relationships which make them "parts of the whole".

As well as laying out these elements within a text or issue, you can also (when appropriate or relevant) show how a text or issue "connects up with" other texts, issues, or philosophical and/or historical developments, which can help to shed further light on the matter by giving it a broader context. (eg "Freedom of the will is importantly connected to the justification of punishment", or "Plato's tripartite theory of the soul bears interesting resemblances to Freud's analysis of the psyche", or "Kant's transcendental idealism can be seen as reconciling the preceding rationalist and empiricist accounts of knowledge".)

An exposition of a text need not always simply follow the author's own view of what it means. You should, of course, demonstrate that you understand how the author themself understands their work, but an exposition can sometimes go beyond this, giving another reading of the text. (eg "Heidegger might deny it, but his Being and Time can be read as developing a pragmatist account of human understanding.") A given text or issue may well be susceptible to a number of plausible or reasonable interpretations. An exposition should aim to be sensitive to such variety. When appropriate, you should defend your interpretations against rivals and objections. Your interpretation ought, though, to be aimed at elucidating the meaning or meanings of the text or issue and not serve merely as a "coat-hanger" for presenting your own favoured views on the matter in question, which should be left to your ...

Critical discussion

This is where your thought gets more of the centre stage. Here you should attempt to develop a response to the issues which your exposition has made clear, and/or, in the case of a discussion of some particular text, attempt to give a critical appraisal of the author's treatment of the issue. In developing a response to a philosophical problem, argumentation is, again, of central importance. Avoid making unsupported assertions; back up your claims with reasons, and connect up your ideas so that they progress logically toward your conclusions. Consider some of the various objections to and questions about your views that others might or have put forward, and try to respond to them in defence of your own line of thinking. Your goal here should be to discuss what you have expounded so as to come to some conclusion or judgement about it. ("Critical" is derived from the Ancient Greek for "to decide, to judge".) Critical discussion is thus not necessarily "destructive" or "negative"; it can be quite constructive and positive.

In the case of a critical appraisal of a particular author's text, you can negatively criticise the author's arguments by pointing out questionable assumptions, invalid reasoning, etc. If, on the other hand, you think that the text is good, then your critical discussion can be positive. This can be done by revealing its "hidden virtues" (that is, by showing that there is more to the author's arguments and views than what lies on the surface) and/or by defending an author against possible and/or actual criticisms. (eg "Norman Malcolm argues that Descartes is mistaken in assuming that dreams and waking episodes have the same content.* However, Malcolm fails to appreciate the subtlety of Descartes' argument in the First Meditation, which allows Descartes to claim . . .") Just to expound an author's arguments and then say "I disagree" or "That seems right" is not really enough - you need to "have something to say" about it. Of course, by all means go on, after finding fault with some philosopher, to answer in your own way the questions tackled or raised by the author. (eg "Simone de Beauvoir's analysis of women's oppression in The Second Sex suffers from serious weaknesses, as I have shown in Section 2 above. A better way to approach the issue, I shall now argue, is to . . .".)

Where you are not primarily concerned with evaluating or responding to a particular text, your critical discussion can be more focused on your own constructive response to the issue. (eg "Having used Dworkin's account to clarify the meanings of the concepts of 'the sanctity of life' and 'voluntariness', I shall now argue that voluntary euthanasia is morally permissible because its voluntariness respects what is of value in the notion of the sanctity of life" - where you now leave Dworkin behind as a source and move on to give your own account.)

* See Norman Malcolm, "Dreaming and Skepticism", in Willis Doney, ed., Descartes: A Collection of Critical Essays (London: Macmillan, 1967), p. 56.

Guide to researching and writing Philosophy essays

5th edition by Steven Tudor , for the Philosophy program, University of Melbourne, 2003.

This fifth edition of How to Write a Philosophy Essay: A Guide for Students (previous editions titled A Guide to Researching and Writing Philosophy Essays ) was prepared in consultation with members of the Philosophy program, the University of Melbourne. For advice and assistance on this and earlier editions, thanks are due to Graham Priest, Barry Taylor, Christopher Cordner, Doug Adeney, Josie Winther, Linda Burns, Marion Tapper, Kimon Lycos, Brendan Long, Jeremy Moss, Tony Coady, Will Barrett, Brian Scarlett, and Megan Laverty. Some use was also made of materials prepared by the Philosophy Departments of La Trobe University, the University of Queensland, and The Australian National University.

Disclaimer: University, Faculty and program rules

Please note: this booklet does not provide authoritative statements of the official policies or rules of the University of Melbourne, the Faculty of Arts, or the Philosophy program with regard to student essays and examinations or any other matters. Students should, therefore, not rely on this booklet for such information, for which they should consult the various appropriate notice boards, handbooks, websites, and/or members of staff.

Essay topics

What do philosophy essay topics look like? There are, very roughly, two basic kinds of philosophy essay topics: "text-focused" topics and "problem-focused" topics. Text-focused topics ask you to consider some particular philosopher's writing on some issue. (eg "Discuss critically David Hume's account of causation in Part III of Book I of his A Treatise of Human Nature " or "Was Wittgenstein right to say that 'the meaning of a word is its use in the language', in his Philosophical Investigations, Sec. 43?"). Problem-focused topics are more directly about a particular philosophical problem or issue, without reference to any particular philosopher's text. (eg "Is voluntary euthanasia morally permissible?" or "What is scientific method?")

There is another sort of topic, one which presents a statement and asks you to discuss it, where that statement is a "made up" or, at least, unattributed quote. (eg. "'Without belief in God, people cannot be moral'. Discuss.") I shall regard these as variations of the problem-focused type of topic. Where you are asked to discuss some such statement "with reference to" some specified text or philosopher, then that topic becomes more text-focused. (eg "'Without belief in God, people cannot be moral'. Discuss with reference to J.L. Mackie's Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. ") Occasionally, a topic presents an unattributed statement, but the statement is, in fact, a quote from a particular philosopher you've been studying, or, at least, a good paraphrase of their thinking. (An example of the latter: "'All the ideas in our minds originate from either sense perception or our reflection upon sensory information.' Discuss.", in a course devoted to John Locke, whose views are summed up in the quoted statement, though those words are not actually his.) Should you take such topics as problem- or text-focused? Rather unhelpfully, I'll say only that it depends on the case. You might ask your lecturer or tutor about it. Whichever way you do take it, be clear in your essay which way you are taking it.

The difference between text-focused and problem-focused essay topics is, however, not very radical. This is because, on the one hand, any particular philosopher's text is about some philosophical problem or question, while, on the other hand, most philosophical problems (certainly virtually all those you will be given as essay topics at university) will have been written about by previous philosophers.

The basic way to approach text-focused topics, then, is to treat the nominated text as an attempt by one philosopher to deal with a particular philosophical problem or issue. The essay topic will, generally speaking, be inviting you to do philosophy with that philosopher, to engage with them in thinking about the issue, whether that engagement proves to be as an ally or an adversary. The chosen text will usually be one which has been (or deserves to be) influential or significant in the history of philosophy, but the task is not to pay homage to past masters. But, even if homage is your thing, the best way to do that here is to engage with the master philosophically.

With regard to problem-focused topics, you will often find your exploration of the problem aided by taking some text or texts which have dealt with it as reference points or prompts. This is not always strictly necessary, but many of you starting out in philosophy will find it helpful to do so - it can help you give focus to your response to the question. (Thus, you might, in an essay on the topic "Is voluntary euthanasia morally permissible?" take it upon yourself to use, for example, Ronald Dworkin's Life's Dominion and Peter Singer's Practical Ethics as reference points. Or, in an essay on the topic "What is scientific method?", you might set up your answer via a comparison of the two different accounts in Karl Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery and Paul Feyerabend's Against Method.*) How will you know which texts to adopt as reference points or prompts, if none is mentioned in the essay topic itself? One way is to consider what texts have already been mentioned with regard to the topic in your course reading guide and in lectures and tutorials. Another way is to do some of your own research. On this see Section 4 below.

* In this guide, in giving examples of how to go about answering an essay question, I am not necessarily giving any concrete or reliable advice for any particular topic. The examples are primarily to do with the form or style or strategy you might find helpful.

Researching your essay

To do research for your philosophy essay you need to do only two things: read and think. Actually, for problem-focused essays, thinking is the only truly necessary bit, but it's highly likely that you will find your thinking much assisted if you do some reading as well. Philosophical research at university is a little different to research in most other disciplines (especially the natural sciences), in that it is not really about "collecting data" to support or refute explanatory theories. Rather, the thinking that's involved in philosophical research (as part of one's preparation for philosophical writing) is more a matter of reflecting critically upon the problems in front of one. Researching the writings of other philosophers should, therefore, be primarily directed towards helping you with that reflection rather than aiming at gathering together and reporting on "the relevant findings" on a particular topic. In many other disciplines, a "literature review" is an important research skill, and sometimes philosophy academics do such reviews - but it is rare that philosophy students are asked to do one.

What, then, to read? It should be clear from your lectures and tutorials what some starting points for your reading might be. (All courses provide reading guides; many also have booklets of reading material.) Your tutor and lecturer are also available for consultation on what readings you might begin with for any particular topic in that subject. Independent research can also uncover useful sources, and evidence of this in your essay can be a pleasing sign of intellectual independence. Make sure, though, that what you come up with is relevant to the topic. (See Section 5.2 below on relevance.) Whichever way you proceed, your reading should be purposive and selective.

In the case of essay questions that refer to a particular text, you should familiarise yourself thoroughly with this text. Usually, such a text will be a primary text, i.e. one in which a philosopher writes directly about a philosophical issue. Texts on or about a primary text are called secondary texts. (Many philosophical works will combine these two tasks, and discuss other philosophical texts while also dealing directly with a philosophical issue.) Some secondary texts can be helpful to students. However, don't think you will only ever understand a primary text if you have a nice friendly secondary text to take you by the hand through the primary text. More often than not, you need to have a good grasp of the primary text in order to make sense of the secondary text.

How much to read? The amount of reading you do should be that which maximises the quality of your thinking - that is, you should not swamp yourself with vast slabs of text that you can't digest, but nor should you starve your mind of ideas to chew over. There is, of course, no simple rule for determining this optimal amount. Be wary, though, of falling into the vice of looking for excuses not to read some philosopher or text, as in "Oh, that's boring old religious stuff" or "She's one of those obscure literary feminist types", or "In X Department they laugh at you if you mention those authors in tutes". If someone wants a reason not to think, they'll soon come up with one.

Philosophical writings

Most philosophical writings come in either of two forms: books or articles. Articles appear either in books that are edited anthologies or in academic journals, such as Philosophical Quarterly or Australasian Journal of Philosophy. Some academic journals are also on the internet. Most articles in the journals are written by professional philosophers for professional philosophers; similarly with many books. But by no means let this put you off. Everyone begins philosophy at the deep end - it's really the only kind there is!

There are, however, many books written for student audiences. Some of these are general introductions to philosophy as a whole; others are introductions to particular areas or issues (eg biomedical ethics or philosophy of science). Among the general introductions are various philosophical dictionaries, encyclopedias and "companions". These reference works collect short articles on a wide range of topics and can be very useful starting points for newcomers to a topic. Among the most useful of the general reference works are:

  • Edward Craig, ed., The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (10 vols.) (London: Routledge, 1998)
  • Paul Edwards, ed., The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (8 vols.) (New York: Macmillan, 1967)
  • Robert Audi, ed., The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999)
  • Ted Honderich, ed., The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995)
  • Simon Blackburn, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996)
  • Thomas Mautner, ed., The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy (London: Penguin, 1998)
  • J.O. Urmson and Jonathan Ree, eds., The Concise Encyclopedia of Western Philosophy and Philosophers (London: Routledge, 1993)
  • Edward N. Zalta, ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (an internet-based reference work: plato.stanford.edu/ )

Note taking

Note taking, like your reading, should not be random, but ought to be guided by the topic in question and by your particular lines of response to the issues involved. Note taking for philosophy is very much an individual art, which you develop as you progress. By and large it is not of much use to copy out reams of text as part of your researches. Nor is it generally helpful to read a great number of pages without making any note of what they contain for future reference. But between these two extremes it is up to you to find the mean that best helps you in getting your thoughts together.

Libraries and electronic resources

The University's Baillieu Library (including the Institute of Education Resource Centre), which is open to all members of the University, contains more than 2,500 years' worth of philosophical writings. The best way to become acquainted with them is by using them, including using the catalogues (including the Baillieu's on-line catalogues and subject resources web-pages), following up a work's references (and references in the references), intelligent browsing of the shelves, etc.

In the main Baillieu Library, the philosophical books are located (mostly) between 100–199 in the Dewey decimal system, and philosophical journals are located in the basement. The Reference section on the ground floor also has some relevant works. The Education Resource Centre also has a good philosophy collection.

In addition to hard-copy philosophical writings, there is also a variety of electronic resources in philosophy, mostly internet-based. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy was already mentioned above. Links to other useful internet sites (such as the Australasian Association of Philosophy website) can be found through the Baillieu Library's web-page and the Philosophy Department's web-page.

A strong word of warning, however, for the would-be philosophical web-surfer: because anyone can put material on a website, all kinds of stuff, of varying levels of quality, is out there - and new-comers to philosophy are usually not well placed to sort their way through it. Unless you have a very good understanding of what you're looking for - and what you're not looking for - most of you will be much better off simply carefully reading and thinking about a central text for your course, eg Descartes' First Meditation, rather than wandering about the internet clicking on all the hits for "Descartes". Exercise your mind, not your index finger.

Writing your essay

Planning and structuring your essay.

It is very important that you plan your essay, so that you have an idea of what you are going to write before you start to write it. Of course, you will most likely alter things in later drafts, but you should still start off by having a plan. Planning your essay includes laying out a structure. It is very important that your essay has a clearly discernible structure, ie that it is composed of parts and that these parts are logically connected. This helps both you and your reader to be clear about how your discussion develops, stage by stage, as you work through the issues at hand.

Poor essay structure is one of the most common weaknesses in student philosophy essays. Taking the time to work on the structure of your essay is time well spent, especially since skill in structuring your thoughts for presentation to others should be among the more enduring things you learn at university. A common trap that students fall into is to start their essay by writing the first sentence, then writing another one that seems to follow that one, then another one that sort of fits after that one, then another that might or might not have some connection with the previous one, and so on until the requisite 1,500 words are used up. The result is usually a weak, rambling essay.

There are, of course, no hard and fast rules about how to structure a philosophy essay. Again, it is a skill you develop through practice, and much will depend on the particular topic at hand. Nonetheless, it might be helpful to begin by developing an essay structure around the basic distinction between your exposition and your critical discussion (as discussed above). In this it will be important that you make clear who is putting forward which point, that is, make it clear whether you are presenting your own thoughts or are expounding someone else's. (Again, confusion in this regard is a common problem in student essays.) It can often help your structuring if you provide headings for different sections (possibly numbered or lettered). Again, this helps both your reader to follow your discussion and you to develop your thoughts. At each stage, show clearly the logical relations between and the reasons for your points, so that your reader can see clearly why you say what you say and can see clearly the development in your discussion.

Another key to structuring your essay can be found in the old adage "Tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em. Tell 'em. Then tell 'em what you've told 'em", which provides you with a ready-made structure: Introduction, Main Body, and Conclusion.

In your Introduction, first introduce the issues the essay is concerned with. In doing so, try to state briefly just what the problem is and (if there is space) why it is a problem. This also applies, of course, to issues covered in text-focused essay topics. Next, tell the reader what it is that you are going to do about those problems in the Main Body. This is usually done by giving a brief sketch or overview of the main points you will present, a "pre-capitulation", so to speak, of your essay's structure. This is one way of showing your reader that you have a grasp (indeed, it helps you get a grasp) of your essay as a structured and integrated whole, and gives them some idea of what to expect by giving them an idea of how you have decided to answer the question. Of course, for reasons of space, your Introduction might not be very long, but something along these lines is likely to be useful.

In your Main Body, do what you've said you'll do. Here is where you should present your exposition(s) and your critical discussion(s). Thus, it is here that the main philosophical substance of your essay is to be found. Of course, what that substance is and how you will present it will depend on the particular topic before you. But, whatever the topic, make clear at each stage just what it is you are doing. You can be quite explicit about this. (eg "I shall now present Descartes' ontological argument for the existence of God, as it is presented in his Fifth Meditation. There will be three stages to this presentation.") Don't think that such explicitness must be a sign of an unsophisticated thinker.

A distinct Conclusion is perhaps not always necessary, if your Main Body has clearly "played out" your argument. So you don't always have to present a grand summation or definitive judgement at the end. Still, often for your own sake, try to state to yourself what it is your essay has achieved and see if it would be appropriate to say so explicitly. Don't feel that you must come up with earth-shattering conclusions. Of course, utter banality or triviality are not good goals, either. Also, your essay doesn't always have to conclude with a "solution" to a problem. Sometimes, simply clarifying an issue or problem is a worthy achievement and can merit first-class honours. A good conclusion to a philosophy essay, then, will usually combine a realistic assessment of the ambit and cogency of its claims with a plausible proposal that those claims have some philosophical substance.

What you write in your essay should always be relevant to the question posed. This is another common problem in student essays, so continually ask yourself "Am I addressing the question here?" First-class answers to a question can vary greatly, but you must make sure that your essay responds to the question asked, even if you go on to argue that the question as posed is itself problematic. (eg "To ask ‘What is scientific method?' presupposes that science follows one basic method. However, I shall argue that there are, in fact, several different scientific methods and that these are neither unified nor consistent.") Be wary, however, of twisting a topic too far out of shape in order to fit your favoured theme. (You would be ill-advised, for example, to proceed thus: "What is scientific method? This is a question asked by many great minds. But what is a mind? In this essay, I shall discuss the views of Thomas Aquinas on the nature of mind.")

This requirement of relevance is not intended as an authoritarian constraint on your intellectual freedom. It is part of the skill of paying sustained and focused attention to something put before you - which is one of the most important skills you can develop at university. If you do have other philosophical interests that you want to pursue (such as Aquinas on mind), then please do pursue them, in addition to writing your essay on the set topic. At no stage does the requirement of relevance prevent you from pursuing your other interests.

Citing Philosophical "Authorities"

There might be occasions when you want to quote other philosophers and writers apart from when you are quoting them because they are the subject of your essay. There are two basic reasons why you might want to do this. First, you might quote someone because their words constitute a good or exemplary expression or articulation of an idea you are dealing with, whether as its proponent, critic, or simply its chronicler. (eg "As Nietzsche succinctly put the point, 'There are no moral phenomena at all, only a moral interpretation of phenomena'.*") You may or may not want to endorse the idea whose good expression you have quoted, but simply want to use the philosopher as a spokesperson for or example of that view. But be clear about what you think the quote means and be careful about what you are doing with the quote. It won't do all the work for you.

The second reason you might want to quote a philosopher is because you think their words constitute an "authoritative statement" of a view. Here you want to use the fact that, eg Bertrand Russell maintained that there are two kinds of knowledge of things (namely, knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description) in support of your claim that there are two such kinds of knowledge of things. However, be very careful in doing this, for the nature of philosophical authority is not so simple here. That is to say, what really matters is not that Bertrand Russell the man held that view; what matters are his reasons for holding that view. So, when quoting philosophers for this second reason, be careful that you appreciate in what exactly the authority lies - which means that you should show that you appreciate why Russell maintained that thesis. Of course, you can't provide long arguments for every claim you make or want to make use of; every essay will have its enabling but unargued assumptions. But at least be clear about these. (eg "For the purposes of this essay, I shall adopt Russell's thesis* that ...").

* Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. R.J. Hollingdale (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973 [first German ed.1886]), Sec. 108.

* See Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967 [first pub. 1912]), Ch. 5.

Philosophy is by its nature a relatively abstract and generalising business. (Note that abstractness and generality are not the same thing. Nor do vagueness and obscurity automatically attend them.) Sometimes a longish series of general ideas and abstract reasonings can become difficult for the reader (and often the writer) to follow. It can often help, therefore, to use some concrete or specific examples in your discussion. (Note that there can be different levels of concreteness and specificity in examples.)

Examples can be taken from history, current events, literature, and so on, or can be entirely your own invention. Exactly what examples you employ and just how and why you use them will, of course, depend on the case. Some uses might be: illustration of a position, problem or idea to help make it clearer; evidence for, perhaps even proof of, a proposition; a counter-example; a case-study to be returned to at various points during the essay; or a problem for a theory or viewpoint to be applied to. Again, be clear about what the example is and how and why you use it. Be careful not to get distracted by, or bogged down in, your examples. Brevity is usually best.

English expression

There's another old saying: "If you can't say what you mean, then you can't mean what you say" - and this very much applies to philosophical writing. Thus, in writing philosophically, you must write clearly and precisely. This means that good philosophical writing requires a good grasp of the language in which it is written, including its grammar and vocabulary. (See Section 9.3 for advice for people from non-English speaking backgrounds.) A high standard of writing skills is to be expected of Arts graduates. Indeed, this sort of skill will last longer than your memory of, for example, the three parts of the Platonic soul (though it is also hoped that some of the content of what you study will also stick). So use your time at university (in all your subjects) to develop these skills further.

Having a mastery of a good range of terms, being sensitive to the subtleties of their meaning, and being able to construct grammatically correct and properly punctuated sentences are essential to the clear articulation and development of your thoughts. Think of grammar, not as some old-fashioned set of rules of linguistic etiquette, but rather as the "internal logic" of a sentence, that is, as the relationships between the words within a sentence which enable them to combine to make sense.

Virtually all sentences in philosophical writing are declarative (ie. make statements), as opposed to interrogative, imperative or exclamatory types of sentences. There is some place, though, for interrogative sentences, ie. questions. (Note that, in contrast, this guide, which is not in the essay genre, contains many imperative sentences, ie. commands.) As you craft each (declarative) sentence in your essay, remember the basics of sentence construction. Make clear what the sentence is about (its subject) and what you are saying about it (the predicate). Make clear what the principal verb is in the predicate, since it is what usually does the main work in saying something about the subject. Where a sentence consists of more than one clause (as many do in philosophical writing), make clear what work each clause is doing. Attend closely, then, to each and every sentence you write so that its sense is clear and is the sense you intend it to have. Think carefully about what it is you want each particular sentence to do (in relation to both those sentences immediately surrounding it and the essay as a whole) and structure your sentence so that it does what you want it to do. To help you with your own sentence construction skills, when reading others' philosophical works (or indeed any writing) attend closely to the construction of each sentence so as to be alive to all the subtleties of the text.

Good punctuation is an essential part of sentence construction. Its role is to help to display the grammar of a sentence so that its meaning is clear. As an example of how punctuation can fundamentally change the grammar and, hence, meaning of a sentence, compare (i) "Philosophers, who argue for the identity of mind and brain, often fail to appreciate the radical consequences of that thesis." and (ii) "Philosophers who argue for the identity of mind and brain often fail to appreciate the radical consequences of that thesis." In the first sentence it is asserted (falsely, as it happens) that all philosophers argue for the identity of mind and brain; in the second, only some philosophers are said to argue for the identity of mind and brain. Only the punctuation differs in the two strings of identical words, and yet the meanings of the sentences are very different. Confusions over this sort of thing are common weaknesses in student essays, and leave readers asking themselves "What exactly is this student trying to say?"

It will be assumed that you can spell - which is not a matter of pressing the "spell-check" key on a word-processor. A good dictionary and a good thesaurus should always be within reach as you write your essay.

Also, try to shorten and simplify sentences where you can do so without sacrificing the subtlety and inherent complexity of the discussion. Where a sentence is becoming too long or complex, it is likely that too many ideas are being bundled up together too closely. Stop and separate your ideas out. If an idea is a good or important one, it will usually deserve its own sentence.

Your "intra-sentential logic" should work very closely with the "inter-sentential logic" of your essay, ie. with the logical relations between your sentences. (This "inter-sentential logic" is what "logic" is usually taken to refer to.) For example, to enable sentences P and Q to work together to yield sentence R as a conclusion, you need to make clear that there are elements within P and Q which connect up to yield R. Consider the following example: "Infanticide is the intentional killing of a human being. However, murder is regarded by all cultures as morally abhorrent. Therefore, people who commit infanticide should be punished." This doesn't work as an argument, because the writer has not constructed sentences which provide the connecting concepts in the various subjects and predicates, even though each sentence is grammatically correct (and possibly even true).

If you are concerned to write not only clearly and precisely, but also with some degree of grace and style (and I hope you are), it's still best to get the clarity and precision right first, in a plain, straightforward way, and then to polish things up afterwards to get the style and grace you want. But don't sacrifice clarity and precision for the sake of style and grace - be prepared to sacrifice that beautiful turn of phrase if its presence is going to send your discussion down an awkward path of reasoning. Aim to hit the nail on the head rather than make a loud bang. What you are likely to find, however, is that a philosophy essay which really is clear and precise will have a large measure of grace and style in its very clarity and precision.

Remember that obscurity is not a sign of profundity. (Some profound thought may well be difficult to follow, but that doesn't mean that one can achieve profundity merely through producing obscure, difficult-to-read writing.) Your marker is interested in what's actually in your essay, not what's possibly inside your head (or indeed what's possibly in some book you happen to have referred to in your essay). So avoid hinting at or alluding suggestively to ideas, especially where they are meant to do some important work in your essay. Instead, lay them out explicitly and directly. Of course, you won't have space to spell out every single idea, so work out which ideas do the most important work and make sure that you at least get those ideas clearly articulated. In expounding a text or problem that ultimately just is vague, muddled, or obscure, try to convey such vagueness, muddle or obscurity clearly, rather than simply reproducing it in your own writing. That is, be clear that and how a text or problem has such features, and then perhaps do your best to make matters clearer.

Despite these stern pronouncements, don't be afraid of sometimes saying things which happen to sound a little odd, if you have tried various formulations and think you have now expressed your ideas just as they should be expressed. Philosophy is often an exploratory business, and new ways of seeing and saying things can sometimes be a part of that exploration.

The need for clarity and precision in philosophical writing sometimes means that you need to stipulate your own meaning for a term. When you want to use a particular word in a particular way for the purposes of your essay - as a "technical term" - be clear about it. (eg "In this essay, I shall intend ‘egoism' to mean ...") Also, be consistent in your technical meanings, or else note when you are not. Be wary, though, of inventing too many neologisms or being too idiosyncratic in your stipulations.

With regard to what "authorial pronoun" to adopt in a philosophy essay, it's standard to write plainly in the first person singular ("I", "me", "my", etc.) rather than use the royal "we" (as in "we shall argue that ..."), or the convoluted quasi-legal indirect form ("It is submitted that ..."), or the scientific objectivity of a physics experimental report. Nonetheless, stick closer to "I argue", "I suggest", "my definition", etc., than to "I wish", "I hate", "my feeling", etc. A philosophy essay is still something more intellectual and formal than a personal reminiscence, polemic, or proclamation. In terms of audience, it's probably best to think of your reader as someone who is intelligent, open to discussion and knows a little about the topic you're writing on, but perhaps is not quite clear or decided about the issues, or needs convincing of the view you want to put forward, or is curious about what you think about the issues.

Try also to use non-discriminatory language, ie. language which does not express or imply inequality of worth between people on the basis of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and so on. As you write, you will be considering carefully your choice of words to express your thoughts. You will almost always find that it is possible to avoid discriminatory language by rephrasing your sentences.

Other things to avoid:

  • waffle and padding
  • vagueness and ambiguity
  • abbreviations (this guide I'm writing isn't an eg. of what's req'd. in a phil. essay)
  • colloquialisms (which can really get up your reader's nose)
  • writing whose syntax merely reflects the patterns of informal speech
  • unnecessary abstractness or indirectness
  • unexplained jargon
  • flattery and invective
  • overly-rhetorical questions (do you really need me to tell you what they are?) and other flourishes

There are many guides to good writing available. Anyone who writes (whether in the humanities or the sciences, whether beginners or experienced professionals) will do well to have some on hand. Most good bookshops and libraries will have some. Among the most consulted works are (check for the latest editions):

  • J. M. Williams and G. C. Colomb, Style: Toward Clarity and Grace (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995)
  • W. Strunk and E. B. White, The Elements of Style, 4th ed. (New York: Longman, 2000)
  • E. Gowers, The Complete Plain Words, 3rd ed. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987)
  • R. W. Burchfield, ed., The New Fowler's Modern English Usage (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996)
  • Pam Peters, The Cambridge Australian English Style Guide (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1995)
  • Australian Government Publishing Service, Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers, 5th ed. (Canberra: AGPS, 1995)

Vocabulary of logical argument

Closely related to the above points about English expression is the importance of having a good grasp of what can rather generally be called "the vocabulary of logical argument". These sorts of terms are crucial in articulating clearly and cogently a logical line of argument. Such argumentation will, of course, be of central importance in whatever discipline you are studying, indeed in any sphere of life that requires effective thinking and communication. I have in mind terms such as these (grouped a little loosely):

all, any, every, most, some, none, a, an, the that, this, it, he, she, they if . . . , then. . . ; if and only if . . . , then . . . ; unless either . . . or . . .; neither . . . nor . . . not, is, are therefore, thus, hence, so, because, since, follows, entails, implies, infer, consequence, conditional upon moreover, furthermore which, that, whose and, but, however, despite, notwithstanding, nevertheless, even, though, still possibly, necessarily, can, must, may, might, ought, should true, false, probable, certain sound, unsound, valid, invalid, fallacious, supported, proved, contradicted, rebutted, refuted, negated logical, illogical, reasonable, unreasonable, rational, irrational assumption, premise, belief, claim, proposition argument, reason, reasoning, evidence, proof

Most of these are quite simple terms, but they are crucial in argumentative or discursive writing of all kinds. (Many are themselves the subject of study in logic, a branch of philosophy). The sloppy use of these sorts of terms is another common weakness in students' philosophy essays. Pay close and careful attention to how you employ them. Moreover, pay close and careful attention to how the authors you read use them. For further discussion of some of these terms and others, see:

  • Basic Philosophical Vocabulary, prepared by the staff of the Philosophy Department and available from the programs Office
  • Wesley C. Salmon, Logic, 2nd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1973)
  • Antony Flew, Thinking About Thinking (London: Fontana, 1985)
  • Graham Priest, Logic: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)
  • Joel Rudinow and Vincent E. Barry, Invitation to Critical Thinking, 4th ed. (Fort Worth, Texas: Harcourt Brace, 1999)

Revising your essay

It is virtually essential that you write a first draft of your essay and then work on that draft to work towards your finished essay. Indeed, several drafts may well be necessary in order to produce your best possible work. It is a rare philosopher indeed who can get things perfectly right on the first attempt, so be prepared to revise and re-develop what you write. Don't be too precious about what you have written, if it appears that it should be sacrificed in the revision process. There is usually a very marked difference between essays which are basically first draft rush-jobs done the night before they are due and those which have been revised and polished. Give yourself time to revise by starting writing early on. For most philosophy students, the greater part of the work in essay writing is in the writing, not in the preliminary researches and planning stages. So be wary of thinking "I've done all the research. I only need to write up my notes, which I can do the night before the essay's due". This is likely to lead to a weak, perhaps non-existent, essay (and very likely a sleepless night).

Stick to the word limit given for your essay. Why are word limits imposed? First, to give the markers a fair basis for comparing student essays. Second, to give you the opportunity to practise the discipline of working creatively under constraints. Skill in this discipline will stand you in very good stead in any sphere where circumstances impose limitations. Again, word limits are not constraints on your intellectual freedom. Outside your essay you are free to write without limit. But even there you'll probably find that your creativity is improved by working under a self-imposed discipline.

As a general rule, most student essays that fall well short of the word limit are weak or lazy attempts at the task, and most essays that go well over the limit are not much stronger or the result of much harder work - the extra length is often due to unstructured waffle or padding which the writer hasn't thought enough about so as to edit judiciously. If you structure your essay clearly, you'll find it easier to revise and edit, whether in order to contract or expand it. ("Hmm, let's see: section 2 is much longer than section 4, but is not as important, so I'll cut it down. And I should expand section 3, because that's a crucial step. And I can shift that third paragraph in the Introduction to the Conclusion.")

Plagiarism and originality

Plagiarism is essentially a form of academic dishonesty or cheating. At university level, such dishonesty is not tolerated and is dealt with severely, usually by awarding zero marks for a plagiarised essay or, in some cases, dismissing a student from the university.

When you submit your essay, you are implicitly stating that the essay is your own original and independent work, that you have not submitted the same work for assessment in another subject, and that where you have made use of other people's work, this is properly acknowledged. If you know that this is not in fact the case, you are being dishonest. (In a number of university departments, students are in fact required to sign declarations of academic honesty.)

Plagiarism is the knowing but unacknowledged use of work by someone else (including work by another student, and indeed oneself - see below) and which is being presented as one's own work. It can take a number of forms, including:

  • copying : exactly reproducing another's words
  • paraphrasing : expressing the meaning of another's words in different words
  • summarising : reproducing the main points of another's argument
  • cobbling : copying, paraphrasing or summarising the work of a number of different people and piecing them together to produce one body of text
  • submitting one's own work when it has already been submitted for assessment in another subject
  • collusion : presenting an essay as your own independent work when in fact it has been produced, in whole or part, in collusion with one or more other people

None of the practices of copying, paraphrasing, summarizing or cobbling is wrong in itself, but when one or more is done without proper acknowledgment it constitutes plagiarism. Therefore, all sources must be adequately and accurately acknowledged in footnotes or endnotes. (See Section 7.) Plagiarism from the internet in particular can be a temptation for a certain kind of student. However, be warned: there is a number of very good internet and software tools for identifying plagiarism.

With regard to collusion, it's undoubtedly often very helpful to discuss one's work with others, be it other students, family members, friends or teachers. Indeed, philosophy thrives on dialogue. However, don't kid yourself that you would simply be extending that process if you were to ask your interlocutor to join with you in the writing of your essay, whether by asking them to tell you what you should write or to write down some of their thoughts for you to reproduce in your essay. At the end of the day, you must be the one to decide what goes into your essay.

Originality

Students sometimes worry about whether they will be able to develop "original ideas", especially in light of the fact that nearly every philosophical idea one comes up with seems to have been thought of before by someone else. There is no denying that truly original work in philosophy is well rewarded, but your first aim should be to develop ideas that you think are good and not merely different. If, after arguing for what you believe is right, and arguing in way that you think is good, you then discover that someone else has had the same idea, don't throw your work away - you should feel vindicated to some extent that your thinking has been congruent with that of another (possibly great) philosopher. (If you have not yet handed your essay in when you make this discovery, make an appropriately placed note to that effect.) Don't be fooled, however, into thinking that plagiarism can be easily passed off as congruent thinking. Of course, if that other philosopher's ideas have helped you to develop your ideas, then this is not a matter of congruent ideas but rather of derivative ideas, and this must be adequately acknowledged. If, after developing your ideas, you discover that they are original, then that is an added bonus. But remember that it is more important to be a good philosopher than an original one.

Quotations, footnotes, endnotes and bibliography

Quotations in your essay should be kept to a minimum. The markers know the central texts pretty well already and so don't need to have pages thereof repeated in front of them. Of course, some quotation will usually be important and useful - sometimes essential - in both exposition and critical discussion.

When you quote the words of someone else directly, you must make the quotation clearly distinct from your own text, using quotation marks . (eg "Descartes said that 'it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once.'* He makes this claim …" - where the words quoted from Descartes are in 'single quotation marks'. Note that it is relatively arbitrary whether one uses 'single' or "double" quotation marks for "first order" quotations, but whichever style you adopt, use it consistently in the one essay.) Alternatively, where the quoted passage is greater than three lines, put the quoted words in a separate indented paragraph , so that your essay would look like this:

In his First Meditation , Descartes argues as follows:

Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true I have acquired either from the senses or through the senses. But from time to time I have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once.* In this essay I shall argue that prudence does not in fact require us to distrust our senses and that Descartes's sceptical method is therefore seriously flawed.

In both cases, the quotations must be given proper referencingin a footnote or endnote.

When you are not quoting another person directly, but are still making use of their work - as in indirect quotations (eg "Descartes says that it is wise not to trust something that has deceived us before"*), paraphrases, summaries, and cobblings - you must still acknowledge your debts, using footnotes or endnotes.

* Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy , trans. John Cottingham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986 [first French ed., 1641]), p. 12.

Footnotes and endnotes

Footnotes appear at the foot of the same page on which the cited material appears, clearly separated from the main body of the text, each one clearly numbered. Endnotes appear at the end of the essay, again clearly separated from the main body of text, numbered and headed "Endnotes" or "Notes". Either method is acceptable, but you should choose one and stick with it throughout the one essay.

Below are some examples of how to put the relevant referencing information in footnotes and endnotes. This is not intended as an exercise in pedantry, but as a guide to how to provide the information needed for adequate referencing. The reason we provide this information is to enable our readers to find the sources we use in order to verify them and to allow them to pursue the material further if it interests them. In your own researches you will come to value good referencing in the texts you read as a helpful source of further references on a topic. Again, it is this sort of research skill that an Arts graduate will be expected to have mastered.

There are various conventions for writing up footnotes and endnotes. The Philosophy Department does not require that any particular convention be followed, only that you be consistent in your use of the convention that you do choose. For other conventions see the style guides mentioned above, or simply go to some texts published by reputable publishers and see what formats they employ.

Imagine, then, that the following are endnotes at the end of your essay. I will explain them below.

  • James Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy , 2nd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993), p. 25.
  • Philippa Foot, "Moral Relativism", in Michael Krausz and Jack W. Meiland, eds., Relativism: Cognitive and Moral (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982), p. 155.
  • Ibid., p. 160.
  • Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, trans. H. J. Paton (New York: Harper and Row, 1964 [first German ed., 1785]), p. 63.
  • Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, (London: Dent, 1973 [first pub. 1651]),p. 65.
  • Rachels, The Elements, p. 51.
  • Peter Winch, "The Universalizability of Moral Judgements", The Monist 49 (1965), p. 212.
  • Antony Duff, "Legal Punishment", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2001 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2001/entries/legal-punishment/ at 15 June 2003, sec. 6.

Notes explained

  • This is your first reference to a book called The Elements of Moral Philosophy. The title is given in full and in italics. If you are unable to use italics, then you should underline the title. The book's author is James Rachels. It's the 2nd edition of that book, which was published in New York, by the publishers McGraw-Hill, in 1993. The page you have referred to in your main text is page 25
  • This is your first reference to Philippa Foot's article, "Moral Relativism", the title of which is put in "quotation marks". This article appeared in a book (title in italics) which is an anthology of different articles, and which was edited by Krausz and Meiland (names in full). The rest is in the same style as note (1)
  • "Ibid." is short for "ibidem", which means "in the same place" in Latin. Use it on its own when you want to refer to exactly the same work and page number as in the immediately preceding note. So here the reference is again to Foot's article at page 155
  • Ditto, except this time you refer to a different page in Foot's article, namely page 160
  • This is reference to a book by Kant. Same book details as per note (1), except that, because this is a translation, you include the translator's name, and the date of the first edition in the original language
  • This is a book reference again, so it's the same as note (1), except that, because it's an old book, you include the date of the original edition. (How old does a book have to be before it merits this treatment? There is no settled view. Note, though, that this convention is not usually followed for ancient authors)
  • Here you are referring to Rachels' book again, but, because you are not in the very next note after a reference to it, you can't use "ibid.". Simply give the author's surname and a short title of the book, plus page reference. There is also a common alternative to this, whereby you give the surname, and write "op. cit." (which is short for "opere citato", which is Latin for "in the work already cited") and page reference (eg "Rachels, op. cit., p. 51.") Your reader then has to scan back over the notes to see what that "op." was exactly. The first option (author plus short title) is usually easier on the reader
  • This is a reference to an article by Peter Winch in a journal called The Monist. The article's title is in "quotes", the journal title is in italics. The volume of the journal is 49, the year of publication is 1965, the page referred to is p. 212
  • This is a reference to an article in the internet-based Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The article is titled "Legal Punishment" and was written by Antony Duff. The Encyclopedia was edited by Edward N. Zalta. Note that I have basically followed the mode of citation that the Encyclopedia itself recommends. (This is one sign of the site being a reputable one. Where a site makes such a recommendation, it's best to follow it.) I have, however, also added the date on which the article was retrieved from the site, and put the author's given name first, to be consistent with the other footnotes. I have also added the reference to section 6, in an effort to be more precise as to where in the article the material I used came from. Since web pages aren't numbered in the manner of hard copy works, it will help if you are able to refer to some other feature, such as paragraphs or sections, so as to pin-point your reference. In the absence of a site recommending a mode of citation to its own material, the basic information needed for adequate citation of internet-based material is (where identifiable) the author, the document title, the year the document was created, the website name, the uniform resource locator (URL) in <arrow-brackets>, date of retrieval, and a pin-point reference*

* I am here following the mode of citation of internet materials recommended in Melbourne University Law Review Association Inc, Australian Guide to Legal Citation , 2nd ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Law Review Association Inc, 2002), pp. 70-73. I have, though, added the desirability of a pin-point reference.

Bibliography

At the end of your essay (after your endnotes, if used) you should list in a bibliography all of the works referred to in your notes, as well as any other works you consulted in researching and writing your essay. The list should be in alphabetical order, going by authors' surnames. The format should be the same as for your notes, except that you drop the page references and should put surnames first. So the bibliography of our mock-essay above would look like this:

  • Duff, Antony, "Legal Punishment", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2001 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2001/entries/legal-punishment/ at 15 June 2003
  • Foot, Philippa, "Moral Relativism", in Michael Krausz and Jack Meiland, eds., Relativism: Cognitive and Moral (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982)
  • Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan (London: Dent, 1973 [first pub.1651])
  • Kant, Immanuel, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals , trans. H.J. Paton (New York: Harper and Row, 1964 [first German ed. 1785])
  • Rachels, James, The Elements of Moral Philosophy , 2nd ed., (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993)
  • Winch, Peter, "The Universalizability of Moral Judgements", The Monist 49 (1965)

Presentation of essays and seeking advice

Generally, you should present an essay that is legible (hand-writing is OK, but typed or word-processed essays are preferable), in English, on one side of pieces of paper that are somewhere in the vicinity of A4 size and are fixed together . You should attach a completed Cover Sheet provided by the Philosophy program. Plastic document covers, spiral binding and other forms of presentational paraphernalia are not necessary (nor are they usually even desirable, as they mostly just get in the marker's way).

Late essays

Late essays are penalised . (For details of penalties consult the Philosophy program's notice board.)

Essays not handed in

Essays not handed in at all get zero marks. An essay that is handed in but gets a mark below 50 (and so is technically a "failed" essay) still gets some marks. (At least, it will so long as it's not so extremely late that the deducted marks wipe out all the marks it would have received if handed in on time.) All marks received for your essay (whether pass or fail) go toward your final score in the subject. Therefore, even if you think your essay is bound to fail (but please let your marker be the judge of that), or the due date has already passed, or both, it is still in your interests to hand your essay in .

Tutors and lecturers

Philosophy staff are not there just to be listened to by you; they are also there to listen to you. So don't hesitate to contact your tutor or lecturer to discuss questions or problems you have concerning your work.

If you have a legitimate excuse, you may be granted an extension on the due date for your essay by the lecturer in charge. Similarly, special consideration may also be granted when illness or other circumstances adversely affect your work. Applications for special consideration are made online via the Special Consideration web page.

Student counselling

Some personal or non-philosophical academic difficulties you might have you might want to discuss with someone other than your tutor or lecturer. Student Counselling and Psychological Services are there for you to discuss all sorts of problems you might encounter. Please consult your student diary for details on the counselling service.

English language assistance

As noted above, good philosophical writing requires a good grasp of the language in which it is written. If you are from a non-English speaking background and are having difficulties with your English expression in an academic context, you might like to make use of the services provided by Student Services Academic Skills . Many native English speakers, too, can benefit from short "refresher" courses and workshops run by the Centre. Please consult your student diary for details about this service.

A bit on Philosophy exams

Essays of the sort discussed so far in this guide are not the only form of assessment in the Philosophy program - examinations are also set. What is to be said about them?

First, not much that is different from what's been said above about philosophy essays. This is because what you write in a philosophy exam is none other than a philosophy essay . Have a look at past philosophy exam papers, in the Gibson and Baillieu libraries, to get a feel for them. The only basic difference between essays and exams is the matter of what constraints you're working under. Essays have word limits; exams have time limits . Again, stick to them. (Actually, you'll be made to stick to them by the exam invigilators.)

It's best, then, to think about how long to spend writing on an exam essay topic, rather than about how many words to write on it. Simple arithmetic will tell you how much time to spend on each exam question. (eg if you have a 2-hour exam and have to answer 3 questions, each worth one-third of the exam mark, then spend 40 minutes on each question.) Avoid the trap of "borrowing time" from a later question in order to perfect your answer to an earlier question, and then working faster on the later questions to catch up on lost time - this is likely to get you in a tangle. There are no word limits in philosophy exam essays, but don't think that the more you scrawl across the page, the more marks you'll get. Nonetheless, use the time you've got so as to maximise your display of your philosophical understanding and skills in answering the question.

Planning and structuring remain very important in exam essays. With regard to the niceties of footnotes, endnotes and bibliographies, etc., these are not necessary, so don't waste time on these. However, if you quote or refer to a specific passage from a text, do indicate clearly that it is a quotation or reference. (The principle of being clear as to who is saying what remains central.) If you have the reference handy, just put it briefly in the text of your exam essay. (eg "As Descartes says in Meditation I (p. 12), . . ." or "'[I]t is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once' (Descartes, Meditation I, p. 12)".) Generally speaking, you will show your familiarity with any relevant texts by how you handle them in your discussion. This is also true for your non-exam essays.

Your preparation for the exam should have been done well before entering the exam hall. Note that various subjects have restrictions on what texts and other items can be brought into the exam hall. (Consult the Philosophy program's notice board for details.) Many subjects will have "closed book" exams. Even if an exam is "open book", if you are properly prepared, you should not need to spend much time at all consulting texts or notes during the exam itself.

You won't have time for redrafting and revising your exam essay (which makes planning and structuring your answers before you start writing all the more important). If you do want to delete something, just cross it out clearly. Don't waste time with liquid paper or erasers. Write legibly . Don't wr. "point form" sav. time. Diff. kn. mean. use incomp. sent.

Finally, read the instructions at the beginning of the exam paper. They are important. (eg it's not a good strategy to answer two questions from Part A, when the Instructions tell you to answer two questions, one from Part A and one from Part B.) Note the (somewhat quaint) University practice of starting Reading Time some time before the stated time for the exam. Philosophy exams usually have 15 minutes of reading time. (Check for each of your exams.) So, if your exam timetable says the exam is at 2.15 pm, with reading time of 15 minutes, then the reading time starts at 2.00 pm and the writing time starts at 2.15pm - so get to the exam hall well before 2.00 pm. Reading time is very important. Use it to decide which questions you'll answer and to start planning your answers.

Checklist of questions

  • Do I understand the essay question ? Do I know when the essay is due ?
  • Do I know which texts to consult? Do I know where to find them?
  • Have I made useful notes from my reading of the relevant texts?
  • Have I made a plan of how I'll approach the question in my essay?
  • Have I given myself enough time to draft and redraft my essay?
  • Have I written a clearly structured essay? Is it clear what each stageis doing? Do I do what I say I'll do in my Introduction?
  • Have I clearly distinguished exposition and critical discussion ? Have I given a fair and accurate account of the author(s) in question?
  • Is my response to the topic relevant ? Do I answer the question? Have I kept my essay within the general bounds of the topic?
  • Have I displayed a good grasp of the vocabulary of logical argument ? Are my arguments logically valid and sound? Are my claims supported by reasons ? Am I consistent within my essay?
  • Is my English expression clear and precise ? Are my grammar, punctuation and spelling correct? Have I said what I meant to say? Is my writing legible?
  • Have I fully acknowledged all my sources in footnotes or endnotes? Are my quotations accurate? Have I included a bibliography ?
  • Do I need to revise any part of my essay again?
  • Have I made a copy or photocopy of my essay for myself?
  • Have I kept the receipt for my handed-in essay?
  • Department of Philosophy

University | A to Z | Departments

  • Current staff and students
  • For current students

Writing Philosophy essays

  • Current undergraduates
  • Current research students
  • Current taught MA and Graduate Diploma students
  • Visiting students
  • Elective Modules

Preparation

Referencing & help.

  • Good essay writing begins with good course preparation. You should remember that just attending courses is not enough. You will engage with the lectures and seminars only if you do the required primary and secondary reading. By the time you come to write your first essay you should already know enough to approach the subject confidently.
  • Make sure you have properly understood the question. If you do not, ask. Review your lecture notes and the course outline in order to put the question into context and to relate it to other aspects of the subject. If you can break down the question into parts, do so. Decide which are the most important and weight each part accordingly.
  • Read the suggested texts with your question or questions in mind. If you find the reading hard to understand, try reading a whole article or chapter to get the gist and then re-read slowly, making notes.
  • Think for yourself. Don't borrow thought or ideas without giving yourself time to digest them. Discuss them with your fellow students. It can be very helpful to discuss the articles and books you read with others. Also, when you take notes, don't simply excerpt long passages, write them in your own words.
  • Always start from a plan, however rudimentary; but you will inevitably find your argument developing a dynamic of its own, so do not be afraid to revise your plan as you go along. As Socrates says in Plato's Republic: 'Where the argument takes us, like a wind, hither we must go.'
  • Write a draft, leave it for a while, then come back and revise it. On the first draft concentrate on getting the content and structure right and do not dwell on the style. Do not be held up by the precise formulation of a sentence, jot down a phrase and move on.
  • Write the final draft. Check the spelling, grammar and make sure all the bibliographical details are correct. leave a wide margin on the right hand side of your page for the marker's comments. Be kind on your marker: use a font that is easy to read and a line spacing of at least 1.5 or 2. Make a photocopy of your essay as a precaution, since they sometimes can go astray.
  • Your essay should contain a clear exposition of the theory you are studying, a detailed discussion and critical assessment of that theory. The criticisms you look at may be your own, or those of other philosophers.
  • Make sure you indicate when you are expounding the view of someone else and when you are writing in your own voice. Don't just write a long list of objections to a particular argument. Indicate whether you endorse or reject them and give your reasons.
  • Use examples to illustrate your point. Preferably, choose your own examples. Always make the point of your example clear to the reader.
  • Don't worry too much about the 'originality' of the content of your essay. Nobody expects you to come up with a new philosophical theory in your first four pages of writing. Your essay will be original enough if you think for yourself, use your own words, give your own examples and always provide reasons for accepting or rejecting a particular view.
  • Avoid rambling introductions and conclusions. Some books begin with a portentous opening sentence e.g., 'Philosophy, from the earliest times, has made greater claims, and achieved fewer results, than any other branch of learning.' (B. Russell) You can get away with such a sentence as the opening line of a 400 page book, but not as the opening line of a 4 page essay. State briefly what you think the question involves, if this is not obvious, and get stuck in to your answer. With conclusions, sum up your argument if you want to and leave it at that.
  • Think small or be methodical. There is a gap between your brain's ability to grasp something and your ability to express in writing what you have already understood. It is as if your intuition can leap up whole flights of stairs at once, whereas your written explanations climb one step at a time. This means that you can easily get ahead of yourself, producing the illusion that your ideas are far more lofty than they really are. Only by patiently stepping through the details of an argument can you avoid such illusions. So be patient! If you are not sure whether you have made your point, try putting it another way; 'The upshot of this argument is...', 'the point of this example is...'. Do not simply repeat yourself, try instead to look at your subject from different angles. Sometimes it will feel as if your point is trivial and not worth making. But a trivial point can be a solid step in an interesting argument. The ability to tease out the subtleties of a small point will serve you better than a grand philosophy of life, the universe and everything.
  • One way to structure your essay is to outline an argument, consider an objection, then reply to the objection and then move on to the next point. Avoid the two extremes of length and unbroken paragraphs on the one hand, and staccato sound bytes on the other. Divide your essay into clearly defined paragraphs and devote a whole paragraph to each point. Make the connections between them explicit, by telling the reader what they are. Write things like, 'There are two major objections to this line of thought...' or 'what this example shows is...' Think of these connections as signposts telling the reader where she is, where she has been or reminding her where she is heading.
  • 'Style is the feather in the arrow, not the feather in the cap.' Do not worry about repeating important words or phrases. In philosophy it is more important to be consistent in your terminology than to find new and imaginative ways of saying the same thing. Clear prose has its own elegance, wordiness can sometimes cloud the issue.
  • Empathise with your reader. Once you understand something, you forget what it was like not to understand it; but doing just this will help you to get your point across. To write clearly you have to put yourself in the place of your reader. Imagine the reader is someone who knows nothing about the subject. What would you have to do firstly to convince them and secondly to maintain their interest. Generally speaking a concrete example will get you much further than a passage of purple prose or a string of high-falutin' epithets. One useful way to attain clarity and simplicity of style is to write in short sentences. It is easier to waffle in long rambling sentences.
  • Use 'signposts' to let the reader know what you are trying to do. You can say things like , 'one objection is...', 'A possible reply to this is...', 'What this example shows...', 'This importance of this point is that...', 'What X is assuming is that...'. Be explicit about what you are arguing and why.
  • Stylistically it is vital to use your own words. Quite apart from the dangers of plagiarism, if you borrow chunks of text from another author and then insert them into your essay, you will end up with a patchwork of different styles that reads awkwardly. By all means paraphrase someone else's view, although make it clear that you are paraphrasing. This will help you to understand the position you are adumbrating; and there is a lot of skill involved in a lucid and concise exposition of somebody else's argument.
  • Occasionally you will want to cite somebody else's words directly. Be sparing in your use of quotation. There is much less skill to quotation than to paraphrase or précis. When you select a passage for quotation, make sure it is both brief and relevant. There is nothing worse than reading a string of long quotations interspersed with brief and gnomic comments.
  • Use a dictionary (or spell check) and a grammar. Good spelling and good grammar are not wholly unrelated to the content of your essay. The thread of an essay is easier to follow if the reader does not have to guess the word which you actually meant to write. Good grammar makes not only for elegant but for precise prose. So do not be ashamed to use a dictionary. I prefer the Chambers to the Collins single volume dictionary, but both are good. (Webster's and M.S. Word dictionaries are American.) Michael Dummet, the philosopher, has written an excellent little English grammar for his students, published by Duckworth.

Use of sources

  • All verbatim quotations, whether long or short should be enclosed in inverted commas or indented, and the precise source given. Make sure that you give enough information for the reader to find the passage, i.e. author, work, edition page number or section.
  • Passages of close paraphrase should be acknowledged, and the purpose of these paraphrases made clear e.g. as a summary of a view to be discussed disputed or agreed with.
  • When a point has been derived directly from an author, even though it mode of expression may be original, this should be acknowledged in a footnote or parenthesis.
  • Extensive use of an essay written by another student should be acknowledged. This applies to essays borrowed from the 'Essay Bank' and to essays which are borrowed on a personal basis. Just as the rule that you should acknowledge your dependence on published sources is not supposed to discourage you from reading widely, the rule that you should acknowledge your dependence where it exists, on other students' essays, is not supposed to discourage you from reading each others' essays. In the end however the only thing of value to you and of interest to us is work in which you express and develop your own thoughts.
  • At the end of any essay to be submitted for formal assessment (not tutorial essays) write a list in alphabetical order of all the works consulted or read during the preparation and writing of the essay, as well as those from which you quote directly (see Referencing).

Referencing

The Philosophy Department accepts the Harvard or MLA styles of referencing.  Please refer to the specific information below on each permitted style.

Additional help

You may find the extra help below useful when writing Philosohy essays.

This guide to writing Philosophy essays was written by Gordon Finlayson

Department of Philosophy University of York , York , YO10 5DD , UK Tel: work +44 (0)1904 323251 | Fax: fax +44 (0)1904 324023 | [email protected]

Legal statements | Privacy | Cookies | Accessibility © University of York | Modify | Direct Edit

Celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with These Great Reads

  • Discussions
  • Reading Challenge
  • Kindle Notes & Highlights
  • Favorite genres
  • Friends’ recommendations
  • Account settings

Facebook

Philosophy Essays Books

The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

Welcome back. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account.

philosophy essays to read

2.6 Writing Philosophy Papers

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

  • Identify and characterize the format of a philosophy paper.
  • Create thesis statements that are manageable and sufficiently specific.
  • Collect evidence and formulate arguments.
  • Organize ideas into a coherent written presentation.

This section will provide some practical advice on how to write philosophy papers. The format presented here focuses on the use of an argumentative structure in writing. Different philosophy professors may have different approaches to writing. The sections below are only intended to give some general guidelines that apply to most philosophy classes.

Identify Claims

The key element in any argumentative paper is the claim you wish to make or the position you want to defend. Therefore, take your time identifying claims , which is also called the thesis statement. What do you want to say about the topic? What do you want the reader to understand or know after reading your piece? Remember that narrow, modest claims work best. Grand claims are difficult to defend, even for philosophy professors. A good thesis statement should go beyond the mere description of another person’s argument. It should say something about the topic, connect the topic to other issues, or develop an application of some theory or position advocated by someone else. Here are some ideas for creating claims that are perfectly acceptable and easy to develop:

  • Compare two philosophical positions. What makes them similar? How are they different? What general lessons can you draw from these positions?
  • Identify a piece of evidence or argument that you think is weak or may be subject to criticism. Why is it weak? How is your criticism a problem for the philosopher’s perspective?
  • Apply a philosophical perspective to a contemporary case or issue. What makes this philosophical position applicable? How would it help us understand the case?
  • Identify another argument or piece of evidence that might strengthen a philosophical position put forward by a philosopher. Why is this a good argument or piece of evidence? How does it fit with the philosopher’s other claims and arguments?
  • Consider an implication (either positive or negative) that follows from a philosopher’s argument. How does this implication follow? Is it necessary or contingent? What lessons can you draw from this implication (if positive, it may provide additional reasons for the argument; if negative, it may provide reasons against the argument)?

Think Like a Philosopher

The following multiple-choice exercises will help you identify and write modest, clear philosophical thesis statements. A thesis statement is a declarative statement that puts forward a position or makes a claim about some topic.

  • How does Aristotle think virtue is necessary for happiness?
  • Is happiness the ultimate goal of human action?
  • Whether or not virtue is necessary for happiness.
  • Aristotle argues that happiness is the ultimate good of human action and virtue is necessary for happiness.
  • René Descartes argues that the soul or mind is the essence of the human person.
  • Descartes shows that all beliefs and memories about the external world could be false.
  • Some people think that Descartes is a skeptic, but I will show that he goes beyond skepticism.
  • In the meditations, Descartes claims that the mind and body are two different substances.
  • Descartes says that the mind is a substance that is distinct from the body, but I disagree.
  • Contemporary psychology has shown that Descartes is incorrect to think that human beings have free will and that the mind is something different from the brain.
  • Thomas Hobbes’s view of the soul is materialistic, whereas Descartes’s view of the soul is nonphysical. In this paper, I will examine the differences between these two views.
  • John Stuart Mill reasons that utilitarian judgments can be based on qualitative differences as well as the quantity of pleasure, but ultimately any qualitative difference must result in a difference in the quantity of pleasure.
  • Mill’s approach to utilitarianism differs from Bentham’s by introducing qualitative distinctions among pleasures, where Bentham only considers the quantitative aspects of pleasure.
  • J. S. Mill’s approach to utilitarianism aligns moral theory with the history of ethics because he allows qualitative differences in moral judgments.
  • Rawls’s liberty principle ensures that all people have a basic set of freedoms that are important for living a full life.
  • The US Bill of Rights is an example of Rawls’s liberty principle because it lists a set of basic freedoms that are guaranteed for all people.
  • While many people may agree that Rawls’s liberty principle applies to all citizens of a particular country, it is much more controversial to extend those same basic freedoms to immigrants, including those classified by the government as permanent residents, legal immigrants, illegal immigrants, and refugees.

[ANS: 1.d 2.c 3.c 4.a 5.c]

Write Like a Philosopher

Use the following templates to write your own thesis statement by inserting a philosopher, claim, or contemporary issue:

  • [Name of philosopher] holds that [claim], but [name of another philosopher] holds that [another claim]. In this paper, I will identify reasons for thinking [name of philosopher]’s position is more likely to be true.
  • [Name of philosopher] argues that [claim]. In this paper, I will show how this claim provides a helpful addition to [contemporary issue].
  • When [name of philosopher] argues in favor of [claim], they rely on [another claim] that is undercut by contemporary science. I will show that if we modify this claim in light of contemporary science, we will strengthen or weaken [name of philosopher]’s argument.

Collect Evidence and Build Your Case

Once you have identified your thesis statement or primary claim, collect evidence (by returning to your readings) to compose the best possible argument. As you assemble the evidence, you can think like a detective or prosecutor building a case. However, you want a case that is true, not just one that supports your position. So you should stay open to modifying your claim if it does not fit the evidence . If you need to do additional research, follow the guidelines presented earlier to locate authoritative information.

If you cannot find evidence to support your claim but still feel strongly about it, you can try to do your own philosophical thinking using any of the methods discussed in this chapter or in Chapter 1. Imagine counterexamples and thought experiments that support your claim. Use your intuitions and common sense, but remember that these can sometimes lead you astray. In general, common sense, intuitions, thought experiments, and counterexamples should support one another and support the sources you have identified from other philosophers. Think of your case as a structure: you do not want too much of the weight to rest on a single intuition or thought experiment.

Consider Counterarguments

Philosophy papers differ from typical argumentative papers in that philosophy students must spend more time and effort anticipating and responding to counterarguments when constructing their own arguments. This has two important effects: first, by developing counterarguments, you demonstrate that you have sufficiently thought through your position to identify possible weaknesses; second, you make your case stronger by taking away a potential line of attack that an opponent might use. By including counterarguments in your paper, you engage in the kind of dialectical process that philosophers use to arrive at the truth.

Accurately Represent Source Material

It is important to represent primary and secondary source material as accurately as possible. This means that you should consider the context and read the arguments using the principle of charity. Make sure that you are not strawmanning an argument you disagree with or misrepresenting a quote or paraphrase just because you need some evidence to support your argument. As always, your goal should be to find the most rationally compelling argument, which is the one most likely to be true.

Organize Your Paper

Academic philosophy papers use the same simple structure as any other paper and one you likely learned in high school or your first-year composition class.

Introduce Your Thesis

The purpose of your introduction is to provide context for your thesis. Simply tell the reader what to expect in the paper. Describe your topic, why it is important, and how it arises within the works you have been reading. You may have to provide some historical context, but avoid both broad generalizations and long-winded historical retellings. Your context or background information should not be overly long and simply needs to provide the reader with the context and motivation for your thesis. Your thesis should appear at the end of the introduction, and the reader should clearly see how the thesis follows from the introductory material you have provided. If you are writing a long paper, you may need several sentences to express your thesis, in which you delineate in broad terms the parts of your argument.

Make a Logical and Compelling Case Using the Evidence

The paragraphs that follow the introduction lay out your argument. One strategy you can use to successfully build paragraphs is to think in terms of good argument structure. You should provide adequate evidence to support the claims you want to make. Your paragraphs will consist of quotations and paraphrases from primary and secondary sources, context and interpretation, novel thoughts and ideas, examples and analogies, counterarguments, and replies to the counterarguments. The evidence should both support the thesis and build toward the conclusion. It may help to think architecturally: lay down the foundation, insert the beams of your strongest support, and then put up the walls to complete the structure. Or you might think in terms of a narrative: tell a story in which the evidence leads to an inevitable conclusion.

Connections

See the chapter on logic and reasoning for a developed account of different types of philosophical arguments.

Summarize Your Argument in the Conclusion

Conclude your paper with a short summary that recapitulates the argument. Remind the reader of your thesis and revisit the evidence that supports your argument. You may feel that the argument as written should stand on its own. But it is helpful to the reader to reinforce the argument in your conclusion with a short summary. Do not introduce any new information in the conclusion; simply summarize what you have already said.

The purpose of this chapter has been to provide you with basic tools to become a successful philosophy student. We started by developing a sophisticated picture of how the brain works, using contemporary neuroscience. The brain represents and projects a picture of the world, full of emotional significance, but this image may contain distortions that amount to a kind of illusion. Cognitive illusions produce errors in reasoning, called cognitive biases. To guard against error, we need to engage in effortful, reflective thinking, where we become aware of our biases and use logical strategies to overcome them. You will do well in your philosophy class if you apply the good habits of mind discussed in this chapter and apply the practical advice that has been provided about how to read and write about philosophy.

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

This book may not be used in the training of large language models or otherwise be ingested into large language models or generative AI offerings without OpenStax's permission.

Want to cite, share, or modify this book? This book uses the Creative Commons Attribution License and you must attribute OpenStax.

Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/introduction-philosophy/pages/1-introduction
  • Authors: Nathan Smith
  • Publisher/website: OpenStax
  • Book title: Introduction to Philosophy
  • Publication date: Jun 15, 2022
  • Location: Houston, Texas
  • Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/introduction-philosophy/pages/1-introduction
  • Section URL: https://openstax.org/books/introduction-philosophy/pages/2-6-writing-philosophy-papers

© Dec 19, 2023 OpenStax. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License . The OpenStax name, OpenStax logo, OpenStax book covers, OpenStax CNX name, and OpenStax CNX logo are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written consent of Rice University.

An image shows the earth horizon at night seen from space. The lights of a city glow beneath the vast starry night of space

Alien life is no joke

Not long ago the search for extraterrestrials was considered laughable nonsense. Today, it’s serious and scientific

philosophy essays to read

History of ideas

Reimagining balance

In the Middle Ages, a new sense of balance fundamentally altered our understanding of nature and society

A marble bust of Thucydides is shown on a page from an old book. The opposite page is blank.

What would Thucydides say?

In constantly reaching for past parallels to explain our peculiar times we miss the real lessons of the master historian

Mark Fisher

A man and a woman in formal evening dress but with giant fish heads covering their faces are pictured beneath a bridge on the foreshore of a river

The environment

Emergency action

Could civil disobedience be morally obligatory in a society on a collision course with climate catastrophe?

Rupert Read

An early morning view across an old bridge towards the spires of a historic medieval city partially obscured by fog

Return of the descendants

I migrated to my ancestral homeland in a search for identity. It proved to be a humbling experience in (un)belonging

Jessica Buchleitner

philosophy essays to read

Economic history

Credit card nation

Americans have always borrowed, but how exactly did their lives become so entangled with the power of plastic cards?

Sean H Vanatta

philosophy essays to read

Metaphysics

The enchanted vision

Love is much more than a mere emotion or moral ideal. It imbues the world itself and we should learn to move with its power

Mark Vernon

philosophy essays to read

What is ‘lived experience’?

The term is ubiquitous and double-edged. It is both a key source of authentic knowledge and a danger to true solidarity

Patrick J Casey

philosophy essays to read

Human rights and justice

My elusive pain

The lives of North Africans in France are shaped by a harrowing struggle to belong, marked by postcolonial trauma

Farah Abdessamad

philosophy essays to read

Thinkers and theories

Philosophy is an art

For Margaret Macdonald, philosophical theories are akin to stories, meant to enlarge certain aspects of human life

philosophy essays to read

Neuroscience

How to make a map of smell

We can split light by a prism, sounds by tones, but surely the world of odour is too complex and personal? Strangely, no

Jason Castro

philosophy essays to read

Conscientious unbelievers

How, a century ago, radical freethinkers quietly and persistently subverted Scotland’s Christian establishment

Felicity Loughlin

IMAGES

  1. Guide to Writing Philosophy Essays

    philosophy essays to read

  2. A Brief Guide to Writing the Philosophy Paper.pdf

    philosophy essays to read

  3. philosophy personhood essay

    philosophy essays to read

  4. Philosophy

    philosophy essays to read

  5. How to Write a Philosophical Essay: An Ultimate Guide

    philosophy essays to read

  6. Philosophy Essay Guide

    philosophy essays to read

VIDEO

  1. How to Read & understand Philosophy

  2. How to write philosophy essays

  3. 5 Philosophy Books You Should Read 📚 #book #philosophy #books #booktube #shorts

  4. Tips on How to Introduce Yourself and What Information to Incorporate

  5. Introduction to Ancient Philosophy

  6. How to write Philosophical Essay & Gain 140+ Marks

COMMENTS

  1. 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology

    Welcome to 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology, an ever-growing set of over 180 original 1000-word essays on philosophical questions, theories, figures, and arguments. We publish new essays frequently, so please check back for updates, follow us on Facebook, Twitter / X, and Instagram, and subscribe by email on this page to receive ...

  2. PhilPapers: Online Research in Philosophy

    PhilPapers is a comprehensive index and bibliography of philosophy maintained by the community of philosophers. We monitor all sources of research content in philosophy, including journals, books, and open access archives . We also host the largest open access archive in philosophy . Our index currently contains 2,856,276 entries categorized in ...

  3. PDF Philosophy Reading List

    Philosophy Reading List . Some suggestions for those intending to read philosophy and/or beginning a philosophy course. Introductions to Philosophy . Julia Annas, Ancient Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2000) Simon Blackburn, Think (Oxford University Press, 2001) Peter Catapano and Simon Critchley,

  4. Which Essays Should All Philosophy Graduate Students Read?

    A philosophy professor tasked with teaching the required proseminar for incoming graduate students has a question for Daily Nous readers. He writes: This fall I'm again teaching the mandatory proseminar for incoming graduate students, and so once again I'm wondering: what essays should all philosophy students read? It would be helpful to know if other people

  5. 1,000-Word Philosophy: Philosophy for Everyone

    "Professional philosophy can seem abstract, esoteric, and hyper-specialized. But we all ask and try to answer philosophical questions myriad times daily: philosophy is the purview not just of the expert, but of all thoughtful people. 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology is an open-access journal of philosophy. Its essays are introductions rather than argumentative articles.

  6. Philosophy

    Philosophy Essays from Aeon. World-leading thinkers explore life's big questions and the history of ideas from Socrates to Simone de Beauvoir, political philosophy to philosophy of mind, the Western canon and the non-Western world. ... Rupert Read. Save. essay. Metaphysics. The enchanted vision. Love is much more than a mere emotion or moral ...

  7. PDF A Brief Guide to Writing the Philosophy Paper

    GOOD WRITING EXAMPLE Jen was an excellent philosophy writer who received the following assignment: Evaluate Smith's argument for the claim that people lack free will. Jen decided before she began writing her paper that Smith's argument ultimately fails because it trades on an ambiguity. Accordingly, she began her paper with the following ...

  8. How to Read Philosophy

    This essay will help you get the most out of your reading by providing a 3-step strategy for reading philosophical texts. Actively reading a philosophy text. 1. Step 1: Skim to Get the Lay of the Land. Once you're ready, you can start by skimming the text to try to figure out the topic: e.g., God's existence, what knowledge is, the morality ...

  9. 2.5 Reading Philosophy

    Our mission is to improve educational access and learning for everyone. OpenStax is part of Rice University, which is a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit. Give today and help us reach more students. Help. OpenStax. This free textbook is an OpenStax resource written to increase student access to high-quality, peer-reviewed learning materials.

  10. Tackling the Philosophy Essay Guide

    Tackling the Philosophy Essay Guide (Word version) 09 Plagiarism 2018revJuly18. Student Feedback & Support. Student Feedback & Support overview. Student Representation & Student-Staff Committee. Philosophy Student-Staff Committee Meeting Minutes. SSC minutes 1May18. Final SSCMinutes 30Oct18.

  11. 2.5: Reading Philosophy

    This exercise will work best if the reading is a fairly short, primary source reading from someone who is doing philosophy. Follow the three-step method for reading: Pre-read; Fast read with flagging; Close read and revise flagging; Consider the following prompts in writing a short review of the article (no more than two paragraphs in length):

  12. Reading as a Philosopher

    What follows is a top 10 list of the things I wish I had known when I started reading philosophy. (1) There is no such thing as reading without qualification. Instead there is reading as a philosopher, historian, cartographer, journalist, and so on. Even within a discipline there is no single way to read. In part, this is because there are many ...

  13. Writing philosophy : a student's guide to reading and writing

    Writing Philosophy: A Student's Guide to Reading and Writing Philosophy Essays, Second Edition, is a concise, self-guided manual that covers how to read philosophy and the basics of argumentative essay writing. It encourages students to master fundamental skills quickly--with minimal instructor input--and provides step-by-step instructions for ...

  14. A collection of over 120 philosophy reading lists organised by topic

    Eros, Agape, and Philia: Readings in the Philosophy of Love - Alan Soble. The Routledge Handbook of Love in Philosophy - Adrienne Martin. Lysis, Symposium, Phaedrus, Alcibiades, with Selections from Republic and Laws - Plato. Nicomachean Ethics - Aristotle. The Art of Loving - Erich Fromm.

  15. Folktales like philosophy startle us into rethinking our values

    The folklorist Maria Tatar writes that, in the world of the folktale, 'anything can happen, and what happens is often so startling … that it often produces a jolt.'. Folklore and philosophy are both in the business of startling us. Philosophy demands that we confront humanity's deepest anxieties and longings.

  16. Philosophy essay writing guide

    Researching your essay Research. To do research for your philosophy essay you need to do only two things: read and think. Actually, for problem-focused essays, thinking is the only truly necessary bit, but it's highly likely that you will find your thinking much assisted if you do some reading as well.

  17. Writing Philosophy essays

    Structure Structure. Avoid rambling introductions and conclusions. Some books begin with a portentous opening sentence e.g., 'Philosophy, from the earliest times, has made greater claims, and achieved fewer results, than any other branch of learning.' (B. Russell) You can get away with such a sentence as the opening line of a 400 page book, but not as the opening line of a 4 page essay.

  18. 1.1 What Is Philosophy?

    Among the ancient Greeks, it is common to identify seven sages. The best-known account is provided by Diogenes Laërtius, whose text Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is a canonical resource on early Greek philosophy. The first and most important sage is Thales of Miletus.Thales traveled to Egypt to study with the Egyptian priests, where he became one of the first Greeks to learn ...

  19. Philosophy Essays Books

    avg rating 4.16 — 7,947 ratings — published 1934. Books shelved as philosophy-essays: The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays by Albert Camus, The Republic by Plato, A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf, ...

  20. 2.6 Writing Philosophy Papers

    Our mission is to improve educational access and learning for everyone. OpenStax is part of Rice University, which is a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit. Give today and help us reach more students. Help. OpenStax. This free textbook is an OpenStax resource written to increase student access to high-quality, peer-reviewed learning materials.

  21. Essays

    Going to a child psychoanalyst four times a week for three years was bad enough. Reading what she wrote about me was worse. Michael Bacon. The latest and most popular Essays from Aeon. Longform articles on philosophy, psychology, science, society, history and the arts, written by the world's leading thinkers.

  22. List of important publications in philosophy

    Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of History, 1822, 1828, 1830, printed 1837. Auguste Comte, Course of Positive Philosophy, 1830-1842. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835. William Whewell, The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences: Founded upon their History, 1840.

  23. Philosophy Essays

    A Possibility of Peace in the State of Nature. Example essay. Last modified: 29th Oct 2021. This paper disagrees with Raymond Aron's statement that implies that since the state of nature is one of anarchy, it is essential that statesmen prioritize their interests when engaging in international affairs, to ensure the survival of the state....