You have just been given your first writing assignment for the blog “Human Nature RAW”. The (badly named) blog is a commercial venture, with paid subscribers who get access to special content about philosophy. You need the money, so you need to keep the editor happy to stay employed. The editor wants you to write a series of three connected posts; they have just emailed instructions for the first of those three. The blog’s regular readers are folks from all walks of life who usually have a college degree, but haven’t read much philosophy before. They like clear, detailed, informative, reasonable, plain writing in blog posts, and dislike writers who use fancy words in an artificial way or without really knowing what the words mean. They are more interested in clarity and the merits of arguments than in exploring metaphors or analogies (however beautiful). They mock overblown rhetoric and flourishes. They’re brutal in their comments for posts that have spelling errors, grammatical errors, run on sentences, sentences without main verbs, etc. The blog’s regular readers are intellectually curious and detail-oriented, and they will often check interpretive claims made by an author by looking up the text themselves. If an author doesn’t provide enough specific detail for the readers to do this quickly and efficiently, the readers get annoyed, leading to nasty comments on the posts and reduced visitor numbers. For this reason, the editor wants you to justify your interpretive claims by reference to the text. There are two basic ways to justify interpretive claims by reference to the text. The first is to use direct quotes, with a detailed specific reference to indicate where the quote comes from. The second is to paraphrase what the text says, with a detailed specific reference to indicate what is being paraphrased. You need to exercise judgment about how much to do this: you don’t need to do it for every single sentence, but you do need to do it for the philosophically important claims you’ll be talking about. Here is what the editor emailed you: *** From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Date: 1/29/2019 Subject: First writing assignment OK rookie, I’m giving you a three part series to write. 1 Pedagogical note: Preparatory Writing Assignments A, B, and C are aimed at preparing you to write a clearly structured 4-5 page paper. When you have finished all three assignments you will have a penultimate draft of a complete paper ready. (You would just need to add an appropriate introduction and conclusion.) When you do the 4-5 page paper assignment, use what you learn from these preparatory assignments to structure the 4-5 page paper, which will be on a different topic. Tue 29 Jan 2019, PHI 197 Human Nature, Syracuse University Instructor: Kim Frost For your first post, I want you to give an argument analysis of a part of Book II of Plato’s Republic: either the second part of Glaucon’s speech (the bit about the ring of Gyges’s ancestor, and how most people don’t think justice is good in itself) or the third part (the bit about the most just man and the most unjust man, and how justice clearly isn’t good in itself.) You choose: but be aware that you’ll have to write about this bit of philosophy for three posts; you don’t get to change topics between posts. Whichever part of the speech you choose, I want you to explain what that part is supposed to show and how. Identify the main argument in that part of the speech, and make clear what the conclusion of the argument is supposed to be, and what the main premises are supposed to be. Explain any special or unusual terms in those claims. You should also clearly identify any claims about human nature, or what’s of value in a human life, on which the argument relies for its plausibility. (You might find those claims are in other parts of the speech.) If you get lost, here’s a hint: Glaucon tells you explicitly what the parts of his speech are supposed to show; check the pre-amble in Book II before he starts talking about the origin of justice and all that stuff. You don’t have to use argument diagrams, or numbered premises, or the terms “premise” and “conclusion”; there are other more conversational ways to give an argument analysis that our readers are happy with. That said, if you use those terms and argument diagrams well, that’s good too. Personally, I find it’s just easiest to talk about the conclusion and the reasons given for the conclusion. It would also be nice if you can indicate one reason why the argument seems worth paying attention to (i.e. why some halfway reasonable folk might think it’s on the right track). That said, you don’t have much space, so don’t make this your first priority. Premises and conclusions are always either implicit or explicit. If they’re explicit and important, you might as well directly quote them. If they’re implicit and important, it’s worth saying as much, and then indicating why your interpretation is a reasonable one (i.e. why you’re right to think that claim is implicit.) I recommend using one long paragraph to outline the argument and back up your main interpretive claims by reference to the text (either by paraphrase or direct quotation, with a maximally-specific reference to what is being paraphrased or where the quote is from). Then, if the argument relies for its plausibility on a view of human nature or what’s of value in a human life, use a shorter second paragraph to explain and justify that to the reader. This is Plato, so you can just use the marginal numbering system and a footnote (e.g. Plato, Republic, 358a-c) to give a reference for a direct quote or paraphrase; don’t bother with page numbers. You don’t have much space: 2 pages (double spaced) maximum, 1 and a bit is ideal. Be efficient! Focus on the argument, not narrative structure; don’t just tell the story of the text. A perfectly good way to start the post is “In Book II of Plato’s Republic, Glaucon offers an argument for the conclusion that … The argument works by extending a story about a ring of invisibility … / The argument works by examining the lives of two men…” Don’t start your post with one of those corny lines like “Mankind has always wondered…” Our readers hate that stuff; if you start the post like that I will send the draft straight back. Remember you need to explain what the argument is and how it’s supposed to work. Give examples whenever they’re useful. Be specific. Think about how your reader will (or won’t) take in what you write. Whichever part you choose to write about, make sure to justify your interpretive claims by reference to the text! The readers get pissed when we forget to do that enough. They also get mean when we do it too much, so use your judgment: justify your philosophically important interpretive claims. Later on you’ll do posts critically examining the argument: in this post, you just want to make sure you’ve got the argument right. OK, that’s it: I want draft copy in a week; no excuses – JJ.
Sample Solution