The Summary of an Argument

For your first assignment, I asked you to summarize an argument from Kant or Descartes in one page.  What does that mean? An argument is a proposition supported by reasoning and evidence.  So, what you should do is the following:

  1. Read one of the essays very carefully.
  2. Find the central proposition, or thesis, the essay is trying to prove.
  3. List the reasons given to support that proposition.
  4. Show any evidence for those reasons.
  5. Make it all into one or two coherent paragraphs.
That's it.  It's not a graded assignment, but just a starting point, so we can begin talking about what  a philosophical argument is.