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Developmental Philosophy Essay

This essay builds on the simple philosophy essay. The simple philosophy essay (1) introduces a philosophical topic, (2) clarifies a philosophical theory or concept, and then (3) evaluates the theory or concept by arguing for some thesis. The developmental philosophy essay extends this type of paper by (4) raising a possible objection or criticism to the argument supplied in the simple paper and (5) responds to that objection.

The goals of this paper are the same as the simple philosophy paper except one additional goal is to encourage the writer to critically about their thesis and argument.

How to Write

Let’s start the paper by downloading the developmental essay from the templates folder.

Notice that the structure of this essay is similar to the simple essay except that there are five sections instead of four sections. Here are the sections:

  1. Introduction
  2. Clarification of a Problem
  3. Argument
  4. Objection and Response (new section!)
  5. Conclusion

For details concerning how to write sections (1)-(3) and (5), review the simple philosophy essay. In what follows here, we will consider how to complete section 4 (Objection and Response).

Section 4 should have two parts: (1) a criticism (objection) to your argument and (2) a response to that criticism. Let’s start with the criticism portion first.

Expressing the criticism

If section 3 is completed, then you should have an argument for a thesis and this argument should be expressed in standard form. It should look something like this:

An argument is typically criticized in one of three ways. First, the argument is said to be invalid (its conclusion does not follow from its premises). Second, one of the premises is said to be false (e.g., P1 is false). Third, one of the premises is said to be irrelevant to the conclusion (e.g., P2 is irrelevant to C).

Let’s focus on criticizing the argument by claiming one of the premises is false. In terms of writing, you would explicitly state (1) which premise is false and (2) give reasons (or an argument) for why it is false.

“P1 states that X is the case. This is false for reasons A, B, and C.”

Responding to that criticism

Now that the criticism has been raised, the second part of Section 4 should respond to this criticism. Here are some suggestions on how to do this:

  1. Show the criticism is flawed. For example, if the criticism is expressed as an argument, then you can show that one of the premises in the argument is false.
  2. Argue that the criticism is based on a misunderstanding of what the theory you defend (or the argument you put forward) asserts. Your response would be to clarify the theory / argument so the criticism does not apply.
  3. Modify the theory and your original argument. For example, you might contend that the objection is a good objection but the proper response to it is to slightly modify the theory in some way.
  4. Argue that the objection is good but it does not undermine your theory since it applies to all of your theory’s rivals. Generally, we choose the best available theory and so if an objection applies to every theory, the objection is not decisive.

Basic Rubric