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:
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Read one of the essays very carefully.
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Find the central proposition, or thesis, the essay is trying to prove.
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List the reasons given to support that proposition.
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Show any evidence for those reasons.
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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.