How To Write A Philosophy Essay

How to Write A Philosophy Essay – The Battlefield Analogy

Think of yourself as the general of an army, you’re going up against another army, you don’t want to get on to the battlefield without a plan. You need to have thought ahead about what your opponents’ weaknesses are and how to exploit them and about how to play to your strengths in order to win the battle. Otherwise you get on the battlefield and just sort of see what happens which means it’s not likely you’ll win. So if you’re arguing, for example, for empiricism, you need to think, what are the strong points of empiricism and the weak points of rationalism so that you can emphasise them, and what are the weak points of empiricism and the strong points of rationalism so that you can minimise them. Which are the best arguments for empiricism, which are the worst? Why? If you’re aware that a particular argument for empiricism is a bad one then either you don’t include it or you do but point out that it’s bad and that there are better arguments for empiricism. Whereas if you were arguing for rationalism then you would emphasise an argument like this and all its flaws.

Clip – See the first scene of Gladiator

Intro – In the intro you are giving background so you explain why there’s a conflict between the two ‘armies’ in the first place, for example, rationalism and empiricism, and you can weave a definition of the two positions into this. You then state which side you will be fighting for after which you can either briefly explain why/your main reason for this, or you can give a brief outline of what arguments you will be looking at and the course the essay will take (in other words your ‘battle plan’). The intro is the prelude to the battle, you’re setting yourself and the reader up for the battle.

Main body – The battle itself, as above, if you want to ensure victory, this shouldn’t be left to chance, you should have a battle plan so you should know in advance how the battle is going to go and how you’re going to win. There shouldn’t be any surprises. Think in terms of strengths and weaknesses (of your army and of the enemy’s). You will put forward the strengths of your position/army, you must anticipate counter-attacks so that you can overcome them. You then consider ‘attacks on your army’, in other words, put forward arguments against your position, and again you need to think about how to defeat these attacks. In order to win the battle your attacks must succeed and your enemy’s attacks must fail.

Conclusion – You ‘declare victory’ saying that your ‘army’ is victorious and explaining why in terms of what happened during the ‘battle’ (in the main body of the essay).