A. Read James Pryor’s and Peter Horban's very helpful advice on writing philosophy papers at http://www.jimpryor.net/teaching/guidelines/writing.html and at http://www.sfu.ca/philosophy/writing.htm . B. Follow the general writing advice of the Harvard Writing Center at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~wricntr/documents/Overvu.html and the Dartmouth Writing Center at http://www.dartmouth.edu/~writing/materials/student/toc.shtml . C. Understand that different professors will have different expectations. Here is the advice that I offer my own students in a handout entitled, "Writing a Philosophy Paper": 1. What to do . Your paper must include: (a) A clear statement of the problem you are trying to solve . Getting a clear statement of the problem is more than half the battle. You may not be able to decide on one solution; if not, say why not. (b) A clear statement of the solution you propose, if you believe that...

The history of philosophy is studied in philosophy departments forthe purpose of understanding whether a particular philosophical claimis true. To this end, historians of philosophy examine the particulararguments that have been offered for views held in the past, becausearguments, if they are good ones, will imply that their conclusions aretrue. This enterprise is different from the discipline often known as“the history of ideas,” because such a history need not focus on andexamine arguments that people provided for their views. Instead, thehistory of ideas often focuses on questions like— How did thisparticular idea help to legitimize the ruling class or patriarchy? Orhow was this sort of idea attractive to a person who suffered physicalabuse at a young age? Or how did Athenian Imperialism lead to anexposure to Egyptian ideas? These questions are interesting to help toexplain why certain people came to hold particular views, but answersto these questions do not take us much closer to understanding...

Very little gives me more pleasure than a good philosophical fight, andI suspect that the other women panelists on this site feel the sameway. Perhaps we are the exceptions that prove the rule of the womanlycooperative virtues. Yet I also know of many men who have no stomachfor a good philosophical argument, and I've never heard anyone suggestthat we should change our methods so that more men will feelmore "comfortable" in philosophy. More to the point, I'm not sure that I understand the contrast between adversative and cooperative methods of doing philosophy. The most forceful defense of a philosophical position will often be given by a person who believes that it is true, and correspondingly the most telling criticisms of an argument will often be discovered by those who are skeptical of the truth of its conclusion. But such a give and take between philosophical adversaries seems to me to be the best cooperative means of gaining philosophical insight. As Socrates explained to his...

This conversation reminds me of one that Plato often representsSocrates as having with certain sophists. Socrates asks them just whatin the world they are claiming to teach. They offer an answer that isvery similar to Richard’s: “We teach our students how to think clearlyand well.” Socrates wouldn’t be satisfied. After all, don’t allteachers claim to teach their students how to think well? "About whatsubject matter do philosophers teach us to think well?" Socrates wouldask. The answer, as is evident from this website, is: “A whole lot ofthings.” AsLouise noted in her response to the original question, oneof the things with which philosophers have traditionally been concernedis how one ought to live one’s life. A philosophy department’s offeringswould be seriously lacking if it didn’t include courses in whichstudents were taught to think well about ethical issues. Richard saysthat he doesn't know whether he is an expert on living life well in an effort to explain why it would be inappropriate...

The questions that philosophers consider seem to me to be some of themost important questions there are, and so any answers that we get tothese questions are themselves extremely valuable. Some of the answersand arguments that philosophers have offered in response to thesequestions have themselves been extraordinarily insightful andwonderful, and so for this reason, too, of significant value tous. Besides, it’s just fun to think about philosophical questions. Itdoesn’t, however, follow from these observations that nothing else isof value or even of comparable, if not more significant, value. I thinkthat one of the most important questions that philosophers ask is:“What has value?” However, it seems to me (and to many otherphilosophers) that the best answer to this philosophical question isthat there are many things of very significant value– e.g., otherpeople, their welfare, friendship, nature, understanding ofnon-philosophical matters, beauty–none of which philosophy by itselfprovides. I would bet...

I’d approach the problem in a completely different way. I suspect thatthe problem that you are facing is that none of the philosophical worksthat you are now attempting to read has obvious relevance to your lifeas you now live it– to your career, to your personal relationships, toyour choices about what and where to eat, to your investmentstrategies, to your vacation plans, to your commute, to your life inyour community, etc. Ifso, it's not surprising that it’s hard to maintain interest. Iwould begin, not with philosophy, but with some interesting non-fictionthat is more obviously related to what your life is all about. Ipredict that you will find--such is the nature of philosophy-- that itwill raise interesting philosophical questions that you will feelcompelled to explore. Let me offer just one example. I just finished reading Barry Schwartz’s recent The Paradox of Choice: Why Less is More .Schwartz is a psychology professor at Swarthmore, not a philosopher.But this book raises all sorts...

According to Plato’s dialogues, the philosopher Socrates was a masterat inducing wonder in the minds of others. Before they met Socrates,most people believed that they had a good grasp of matters of someimportance. After he asked them a few questions, it became clear tothem that matters weren’t as simple as they had supposed and that theyreally didn’t know what they were talking about. Having had theirignorance exposed, they began to wonder what in the world they shouldbelieve. Some might take Socrates to be a skeptic. However, Socratesseemed not to agree. He maintained that the wonder that he induced wasthe first step toward acquiring wisdom. I know that there area lot of people who love wonder for its own sake, who revel in themysteries of the world, and who would like the world a whole lot lessif it were less mysterious or puzzling. I myself don’t think that thisattitude is particularly philosophical. Aristotle, who pretty muchdefined the discipline of philosophy as it is known in the West...

I agree, and let me just add my responses to a related question.

Like others, I believe that this popular dichotomy is in many ways morepernicious than helpful. Nonetheless, it might be helpful to make thefollowing observations. The Western philosophical tradition has itsroots in Ancient Greece. After the European rediscovery of Aristotleduring the Crusades, this tradition continued in Europe and eventuallyin the United States and Europe's other former colonies. In the early twentiethcentury, this tradition broke into two distinct styles of approachingphilosophical questions: the so-called Analytic or Anglo-Americantradition (influenced by philosophers Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein,Moore, Carnap, and Quine, some of whom, as has already been observed,are neither Anglo nor American) and the so-called Continental traditionthat continued in continental Europe (whose foundational figure is the19th century German philosopher Hegel, and which also includes suchphilosophers as Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre).

No. Or, at least, not well. Philosophers, like everyone else, are trying to make sense of it all. But how could you make sense of a phenomenon with which you not familiar in its full complexity and messiness? How could you even know what questions need to be answered?