The importance of the Philosophical Essay within philosophy
By: @RussellA

I intend to argue that within philosophical writing, whilst the philosophical literary form is important in establishing the importance of subjective philosophical opinions, the philosophical essay form is essential in founding those opinions in objective fact using rational argument based on logical reasoning and substantive evidence.

In compliance with guideline 4) of this exercise, this particular piece of philosophical writing must fall under the broad category of a philosophical essay. It is non-fiction. However, as a philosophical essay, it must be rather than "should be" systematic, with an Introduction, Main Body and Conclusion. Also, as a philosophical essay is a formal piece of writing, it cannot be "less formal".

As described by Biljana Radovanović in his article "Philosophy in Literary Forms", there are many different types of philosophical writing. These include the novel ("Animal Farm" by George Orwell), the poetic ("On Nature" by Parmenides, the aphoristic ("Thus Spoke Zarathustra" by Friedric Nietzsche), the journal ("Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius), the epistle (Paul the Apostle in the New Testament), the dialogue ("Epistemology" by Plato), the letter (including Leibniz's personal correspondence) and the essay ("An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding" by John Locke).

In general, philosophical writing makes a claim and then defends it. The philosophical literary form may use the indirectness of the inference or figure of speech. The philosophical essay form must use the directness of the literal or real.

The Philosophical essay form (philosophy essay, philosophy paper) is the standard form of philosophy writing taught to contemporary philosophy students (Zachary Fruhling). It makes a claim in a thesis and then defends it. It uses clear and unambiguous language within a well-structured logical argument. It uses concrete examples and substantive evidence. It is a formal rather than informal. It has an introduction, body and conclusion.

I start with articles linked to by this thread on philosophy writing that set out what a Philosophy Essay is. James Pryor in his article "Guidelines on Writing a Philosophy Paper" logically sets out the minimum that should be included within a philosophical essay. The Harvard College Writing Centre in its "A Brief Guide to Writing the Philosophy Paper" expands on important aspects of the philosophical essay. Adrian Piper in his article "Ten Commandments of Philosophical Writing" concentrates on ten bad aspects of philosophical writing that should be avoided when defending a claim. I finish with an opposing point of view. Mikhail Epstein in his article "Philosophical Feelings" provides a counterargument to the concept of philosophical writing as necessarily being an exercise in analytic, logical reasoning in pointing out that philosophical feelings are as important, if not more important, than philosophical thoughts.

James Pryor in his article "Guidelines on Writing a Philosophy Paper" logically sets out the minimum that should be included within a philosophical essay. He starts by writing that a philosophy paper consists of the reasoned defence of some claim. A claim must be defended, and reasons must be offered in order to persuade the reader to the author's point of view. The defence must be based on commonly agreed assumptions. He continues that the essay must offer an argument. It cannot consist in the mere report of your opinions, nor in a mere report of the opinions of the philosophers being discussed. Your thesis must be defended against someone else's criticism. It is acceptable to point out the strengths and weaknesses of your own argument, as well as those of any potential critic. You must make an argument not merely summarising your own or others opinions and beliefs. Give concrete examples which either help to explain your thesis or make it more plausible. Pryor adds that you should discuss the consequences that the thesis would have if it were true. A philosophy paper makes a modest and small point, and makes it clearly and straightforwardly. The author should avoid being over-ambitious, and attempt earth-shattering conclusions. You must show that you understand the material, and can think critically and independently about it using original thought. Pryor concludes that it is also important to be accurate when attributing views to other philosophers.

The format that Pryor sets out for a philosophical essay is a counter to those making unsubstantiated claims, easy to make yet difficult to defend. It may be claimed that the world is entirely a mental construct and ideas are the highest form of reality, or that objects exist independently of the mind and don't rely on either being perceived or thought about. Defending these claims and persuading others to agree with them is an important role of the philosophical essay. As Pryor points out, successful persuasion needs to be straightforward, clear, logical and reasoned. It must take the opinion of others into account in order to arrive at a general consensus. Philosophy aims at the universal, often complex and highly abstract, but can be made more understandable using particular and concrete examples. A thesis successfully defended has the potential to lead to further philosophical insights. The goal of a philosophical essay is not to invent new and ground-breaking philosophical theories, but to show independent thought in comparing and contrasting existing philosophical theories. The philosophical essay is something that can be learnt, and having learnt what is required, can be used to progress one's own philosophical understanding.

The Harvard College Writing Centre in its "A Brief Guide to Writing the Philosophy Paper" expands on important aspects of the philosophical essay. The Harvard Writing Centre refers to philosophy's "Big Questions", such as "Is there free will?", "What is truth?". It continues that while philosophers may disagree as to how best to answer these questions, they do agree that merely expressing one's opinion is not doing philosophy. There first must be clarity about the question asked and second the answer must be supported by clear, logical structured argument. The ideal philosophical argument should lead the reader from obviously true premises to an unavoidable conclusion. The Harvard Writing Centre continues that the author can use both a negative argument refuting a claim or a positive argument supporting a claim. Whilst positive arguments about a Big Question are extremely hard to construct, they may be tackled by understanding and coming to a conclusion about particular and specific concrete examples. Such examples logically connected to the Big Question are the beginning to be able to answer the broader and more general philosophical concepts. Good philosophy proceeds with modest, careful and clear simple steps. The Harvard Writing Centre concludes that the philosophy paper starts with a thesis that may be explained, supported, objected to and consequences discussed, but all within a clear and logical structure.

I agree with the Harvard Writing Centre that philosophy is about the abstract and the universal not about the particular and concrete. Philosophy may begin with feelings of awe and wonder at the mysteries of the world. It may begin with vague and amorphous opinions and beliefs about unanswered questions. But for any philosophical progress to be made, the inchoate must be given form. Opinions and beliefs must be justified, otherwise the individual, having no solid foundation, may change their mind on a whim, negating personal development. Although philosophy is about the universal, such as the meaning of existence, and not the particular, that postboxes are red, the abstract universal may often only be comprehended by the concrete particular. The question changes from the ontology of existence to whether postboxes exist in the world or the mind. The answer to the particular gives insight into the general. The ability of philosophy to make sense of the concrete and particular can then be used to draw together insights into many particulars to arrive at a general universal understanding. Philosophy is about the Big Questions, about the universals, but first one needs to understand the individual parts in order to arrive at a comprehension of the whole.

Adrian Piper in his article "Ten Commandments of Philosophical Writing" concentrates on ten bad aspects of philosophical writing that should be avoided when defending a claim. Adrian Piper starts with the commandment that your ideas should not be obscured by turgid prose, and difficult and complex ideas should be articulated as clearly as possible. Key philosophical terms with multiple interpretations, having different meanings to different people, such as "just", "unfair" or "beneficial", should be defined or illustrated using examples. Your argument should not be sullied with rhetoric. Terms invoking intense emotional reactions, buzzwords such as "liberal", "right-wing" or "radical", but must be replaced by a detailed analysis of the position you think that they refer to. Concrete examples should be used give clarity to highly abstract philosophical concepts, such as illustrating philosophies influence on social and political events by giving the example of Nietzsche's critique on World War II. Piper comments that your paper should not be padded with filler. Filler that takes up space without contributing to your basic argument, such as "from time immemorial, the question of truth has been central to philosophy". Your paper should be logically structured, thereby minimising any confusion on the reader's part. Your paper must be a discursive, coherent and an easy to follow presentation of your ideas. It should be structured not in your order of thought, but logically structured as an order of exposition. Assertions must be justified by reasons or evidence. Beliefs are supported either by accurate facts or reasoned values. To say "I feel this is true" or "I believe this to be correct" carry no philosophical weight. Quotations should not be lifted out of context. There should be proper footnoting and bibliographic procedures. Piper also notes that the reader should give benefit of the doubt to the author. The paper is a dialogue between the reader and author based on the assumption of equality between them. Piper is clear that any initial lack of understanding should be carefully worked through rather than summarily dismissed.

As Piper writes, opinions and beliefs are the foundation of philosophy. They initiate philosophical enquiry, such as my belief that suffering is bad and my opinion that everyone should have access to a minimum level of free health care. Everyone has a human right to both opinion and beliefs, and all opinions and beliefs are equal. Yet this is not a solid foundation for a society and would lead to anarchy. It is in the philosophical essay that opinions and beliefs need to be justified. Not every justification is equal, and it is only through this inequality in the quality of justification that a consensus can be reached about philosophical topics. From this consensus, philosophical understanding progresses. The philosophical essay enables individual opinions and beliefs through justification, reason and evidence to coalesce within a society to facilitate the long-term cohesion of that society.

Mikhail Epstein in his article "Philosophical Feelings" provides a counterargument to the concept of philosophical writing as necessarily being an exercise in analytic, logical reasoning. He makes the case that philosophical feelings are as important, if not more important, than philosophical thoughts. Mikhail Epstein writes that philosophy is generally identified with rational analytical thought rather than feelings or emotions. He then asks why should philosophy the love (philo) of wisdom (sophia) be manifested in thinking not feeling. As he says, Aristotle considered the emotion of wonder to be the forefather of both philosophy and knowledge. It is because people wonder that they begin to philosophise. When people wonder they begin to ask questions, such as "the principles of existence" or "the origin of the Universe". For Epstein, wisdom is the emotional saturation of thought, and an intellectual saturation of the emotions. He makes the general point that philosophical feelings are not the particular but the universal, such as "human suffering" or "the imperfection of the world". Philosophical feelings relate to the world as a whole, the laws of existence and human nature. In other words, the universal. The universal is the common quality of many phenomena, not only thoughts about "whiteness" or "number" but also about feelings such as "love" or "death". Feelings are philosophical when they are universal. Not a feeling of pleasure when looking at the beauty of a single rose, but a feeling of pleasure of beauty in the world. Epstein identifies categories of philosophical feelings, including contempt of the shallow, wrath against unjustness to fear of existence. For Epstein, the aim of philosophy is neither to explain the world nor change the world but to open our eyes to the universality of our feelings, to "immerse the mind in the heart".

Epstein is correct when he says that there is philosophical wisdom in both feeling and thought. There is the feeling there must be an answer to the mystery of existence. There is the thought that existence is not non-existence, the thought that the existence of an object must be contrasted to its essence, its essential features or qualities which can be understood even if one doesn't know whether the object exists or not. But everyone has feelings, and everyone's feelings are equal. My feeling that theft is never justified is equal to someone else's feeling that theft may be justified under certain circumstances. If everyone's feelings and opinions within a society were equal, then social cohesion would be impossible. Opinions and beliefs are claims, and only when justified using logical reason and solid evidence do opinions and beliefs become the glue to social adhesion. Only when a consensus is arrived at through discussion and dialogue, through clear and persuasive argument, can there be a common foundation to any society. Opinion and belief may well be the catalyst to philosophical enquiry, but without clear justification based on logical reason and solid evidence, philosophy will degenerate into multiple factions forever at odds with each other.

I have argued that within philosophical writing, whilst the philosophical literary form is important in establishing the importance of philosophical opinions, the philosophical essay form is essential in founding those opinions in fact using rational argument based on logical reasoning and substantive evidence. I have not argued that all philosophical writing should be in the form of a philosophical essay, but it is in the philosophical essay that claims made in philosophical writing are attempted to be justified.

The philosophical essay is something that can be learnt, and once learnt, can be used to progress one's own philosophical position. Philosophy is about the Big Questions, about the universals and not the particulars, but one first needs to understand the individual parts in order to arrive at an understanding of the whole. The philosophical essay enables individual opinions and beliefs through justification, reason and evidence to coalesce within a society to facilitate the long-term cohesion of that society. Opinion and belief are the catalyst to philosophical enquiry, but without clear justification based on logical reason and solid evidence, philosophy will degenerate into multiple factions forever at odds with each other.

As it is important that philosophical claims are not only made but should also be justified, the form of the philosophical essay should both be known and regularly used within philosophical discussions.

James Pryor : "Guidelines on Writing a Philosophy Paper"
https://philosophy.tamucc.edu/graphics/berkich/texts/james-pryor-guidelines-on-writing-a-philosophy-paper.pdf

The Harvard College Writing Centre: "A Brief Guide to Writing the Philosophy Paper"
https://philosophy.tamucc.edu/graphics/berkich/texts/brief-guide-to-writing-a-philosophy-paper.pdf

Adrian Piper: "Ten Commandments of Philosophical Writing"
https://philosophy.tamucc.edu/graphics/berkich/texts/adrian-piper-ten-commandments-of-philosophical-writing.pdf

Mikhail Epstein: "Philosophical Feelings"
Philosophy Now Issue 101 March/April 2014
https:philosophynow.org

Biljana Radovanović: "Philosophy in Literary Forms"
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/PHILOSOPHY-IN-LITERARY-FORMS-Radovanovic/98ba2ae50574774d07f8b1445f073569bd1389d6

Zachary Fruhling: "What counts as good philosophical writing"
https://www.zacharyfruhling.com/philosophy-blog/what-counts-as-good-philosophical-writing