The APA's guide to philosophy for undergraduates
UNC’s Philosophy Department shares some reasons why majoring in philosophy is a good idea.
Notre Dame’s philosophy department explains the benefits of obtaining a degree in philosophy.
The department of philosophy at WUSTL describes the types of skills you obtain from studying philosophy.
Central Michigan University's Department of Philosophy, Anthropology and Religion shares 8 things you might not know about philosophy, benefits of studying philosophy, and career paths for philosophy majors.
A video by Kevin deLaplante of the Critical Thinker Academy about the reasons why you should study philosophy.
The philosophy department at Northwestern provides a brief overview of studying philosophy, including famous individuals who have a degree in philosophy.
This document created by UMSL includes information on careers, salaries, grad school, and well-known philosophy majors.
A journalist discusses reasons why the most valuable courses she took were philosophy courses.
An article by Winnie Hu published in the New York Times looks at the trend towards more philosophy majors.
An APA info sheet showing that philosophy majors excel on the law school admission exam as compared to other students.
An APA info sheet showing that philosophy majors consistently perform better than their peers on the graduate school admissions test.
Well-known people in business, politics, entertainment, and other disciplines who studied philosophy at some point in their lives.
Catherine Nolan, a philosophy graduate student at SUNY Buffalo and an APA member, has created a great poster featuring names and photos of well-known people who majored in philosophy.
The results of an alumni survey conducted by SUNY New Paltz in summer 2022 on the vocational, educational, and professional activities of its majors after graduation.
The APA's directory of undergraduate philosophy clubs and groups throughout the US and Canada—and around the world. Find one near you, or !
From its inception, the SEP was designed so that each entry is maintained and kept up to date by an expert or group of experts in the field. Answers questions about what it means to be a philosophy major, which courses to take, and more.
UNC provides links to information about philosophy, including undergraduate philosophy journals, guides to writing good philosophical papers, and pursuing graduate school.
Short videos by prominent philosophers on different topics that are presented in a fun, interesting manner and are accessible to people with no background in the subject.
A federally funded program designed to prepare undergraduate students from under-represented groups for success in graduate school.
Choosing to major in any of the humanities disciplines brings with it many intellectual challenges and rewards.
Newphilosopher.com is the website of New Philosopher magazine. It's an online portal for exploring philosophical ideas on ways to live a more fulfilling life. Read the articles, join in discussions, watch free online documentaries and plan your trip to the next festival near you.
PublicHealth.org wants to help students avoid overwhelming student loan debt, so their team created this guide to financial aid to help students understand all of their options.
A list maintained by Ashley Denney, Library Services Assistant at St. John’s College in Annapolis. You can with changes or additions.
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About the university, research at cambridge.
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Philosophy at Cambridge enables you to look behind the curtain to ask the toughest questions that no other subject can address.
Explore human thought, the basis of knowledge, the nature of reason, consciousness and cognition, as well as the foundations of value and political theory.
Philosophy is the investigation of very general and fundamental questions. Among other things, these questions explore knowledge, reality, mind, morality, logic, language, reasoning, politics, art and value.
Studying philosophy requires complex critical thinking, rigorous analysis and consideration of new perspectives.
Cambridge occupies a distinguished place in the history of philosophy. Here, in the early 20th century, Russell, Moore, Wittgenstein, Ramsey and others developed the analytic style of philosophy. This style of philosophy is now prominent in much of the world. Today, the course combines this more traditional, analytical style with study of the history of philosophy from Plato to the present day.
During the first year you’ll get a solid grounding in some of the central areas of analytic philosophy and history of philosophy. You’ll then have more freedom to explore your interests, in areas such as:
Our academic staff are both world-class researchers and committed teachers.
The Faculty has close links with related faculties such as Classics, Psychology, and History and Philosophy of Science, so you can take advantage of a wide range of specialised lectures and seminars.
Our Faculty of Philosophy is home to:
You'll also have access to the impressive Cambridge University Library, one of the world’s oldest university libraries.
When you go to university, you’ll need to consider two main costs – your tuition fees and your living costs (sometimes referred to as maintenance costs).
Your living costs will include costs related to your studies that are not covered by your tuition fees. There are some general study costs that will apply for all students – you can find details of these costs here .
There are no compulsory additional course costs for Philosophy. If you have any queries about resources/materials, please contact the Faculty.
A Philosophy degree isn’t an essential qualification for any particular career. But, the analytical and critical skills developed through its study will prepare you for a range of professions, in:
Around one in 4 of our graduates go on to further study, while others start careers in:
Teaching is provided through lectures, with additional classes for some subjects, such as first year Logic classes.
You will also have small-group supervisions, for which you’ll do topical reading and write an essay which you then discuss with your supervisor.
Typically you’ll have 6 to 12 lectures, and 1 to 3 supervisions and/or small classes each week.
Assessments mainly take place through written examinations.
In year 2 and 3 you can replace one written examination with two essays of 3,000 to 4,000 words.
In year 3 you can replace one written examination with a dissertation of 6,000 to 8,000 words on a subject of your choice.
You won't usually be able to resit any of your exams.
In first year, you develop reasoning skills that will help you to tackle philosophical problems. You'll also learn to think intelligently about abstract questions.
You’re encouraged to approach topics in your own way. We also organise regular discussion groups for first and second year students.
You get an introduction to philosophy through the study of 5 core compulsory papers:
You explore the philosophical aspects of a range of issues, both practical and theoretical.
You take compulsory papers:
You then choose 3 further subjects from:
You develop an understanding of various contemporary debates and familiarise yourself with current philosophical concepts.
There are no compulsory papers. You choose 4 papers from an extensive range of subjects. Papers recently available include:
It’s also possible to take a paper from another course, such as Classics.
For further information about this course and the papers you can take see the Faculty of Philosophy website.
It’s really important to think carefully about which course you want to study before you apply.
In rare cases, it may be possible to change course once you’ve joined the University. You will usually have to get agreement from your College and the relevant departments. It’s not guaranteed that your course change will be approved.
You might also have to:
For more information visit the Faculty website .
You can also apply to change to:
You can't apply to this course until you're at Cambridge. You would usually apply when you have completed 1 year or more of your original Cambridge course.
You should contact your College’s Admissions Office if you’re thinking of changing your course. They will be able to give you advice and explain how changing courses works.
A level: A*AA IB: 41-42 points, with 776 at Higher Level Other qualifications : Check which other qualifications we accept .
While we don't ask for any specific subjects to apply to Philosophy, we would recommend certain subjects for a strong application:
You can find more information about the subjects our typical entrants have studied below.
Most Philosophy students (who had studied A levels and started at Cambridge in 2018, 2019 and 2023) achieved at least A*A*A (64% of entrants).
Almost all (99%) had studied at least one of the subjects recommended above.
The majority of students who studied IB achieved at least 43 points overall and/or grades 777 at Higher Level.
This information shows some of the common subjects our applicants have studied. Although these are common subject combinations, this doesn't mean they're favoured.
When you're choosing your post-16 subjects, it's most important to check whether any subjects are required for your course. You can also check our guidance on choosing your high school subjects for more information.
There is an admission assessment at all Colleges for this course. You do not need to register in advance.
Check the College admission assessments page for more information.
You won't usually be asked to submit examples of written work. You may be asked to do some reading prior to your interview, but if this is required the College will provide full details in your interview invitation.
The minimum offer level and subject requirements outline the minimum you'll usually need to achieve to get an offer from Cambridge.
In some cases, you'll get a higher or more challenging offer. Colleges set higher offer requirements for a range of reasons. If you'd like to find out more about why we do this, check the information about offers above the minimum requirement on the entry requirements page.
Some Colleges usually make offers above the minimum offer level. Find out more on our qualifications page .
All undergraduate admissions decisions are the responsibility of the Cambridge Colleges. Please contact the relevant College admissions office if you have any queries.
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Discover Uni allows you to compare information about individual courses at different higher education institutions. This can be a useful method of considering your options and what course may suit you best.
However, please note that superficially similar courses often have very different structures and objectives, and that the teaching, support and learning environment that best suits you can only be determined by identifying your own interests, needs, expectations and goals, and comparing them with detailed institution- and course-specific information.
We recommend that you look thoroughly at the course and University information contained on these webpages and consider coming to visit us on an Open Day , rather than relying solely on statistical comparison.
You may find the following notes helpful when considering information presented by Discover Uni.
The above list is not exhaustive and there may be other important factors that are relevant to the choices that you are making, but we hope that this will be a useful starting point to help you delve deeper than the face value of the Discover Uni data.
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Writing Philosophy is a brief tutorial/manual that covers the basics of argumentative essay writing and encourages students to master fundamental writing skills with minimal teacher input. It provides step-by-step instructions for each phase of the writing process, from formulating a thesis and creating an outline, to writing a final draft. For the benefit of both students and teachers, it uses a rulebook format that encapsulates core principles of good writing while providing models of well-written essays, outlines, introductions, and conclusions.
Brian D. Earp
I wrote up the following tips a couple of years ago when I was teaching assistant for an introductory philosophy class at Yale led by Daniel Greco called “Problems in Philosophy.” The tips were intended, then, for college students, many of them right out of high school, and most of whom had never written a philosophy paper before. So the focus is on clarity and mastering the basics. With that in mind, I hope you will find these tips helpful for teaching or writing in philosophy (or any other relevant field or discipline).
The Philosophical Quarterly
Carla Bagnoli
Benjamin P. Davis
I wrote this "tip sheet" for philosophical writing a la other tip sheets passed around in creative writing workshops. I invite feedback on what has worked for your students and how you might modify my suggestions.
South African Journal of Philosophy
Ewa Latecka
This article aims at presenting the argument for the modification of Dennis Earl’s “four-sentence paper” template into the “six-line essay” writing intervention. The underlying reason for this research is a relative paucity of literature covering the topic of philosophy writing interventions at a beginner’s level. In order to fill this gap, the article takes the following course. For general background, it presents the general views on teaching essay writing and the relative unavailability of philosophydirected methods and techniques. It then describes Earl’s template in relative detail. Further, it refers to my experience teaching philosophical writing to University of Zululand students. Next, it describes the specific group of students with whom I first tried the method in 2019 and whose needs prompted the modifications. I then explain the “six-line essay” model step by step, commenting on the rationale behind each step and the way in which it is presented to students. True to form, the article also presents objections and the relevant counterarguments. Finally, the article points to the possibility of further, more structured research, with formal questionnaires/ structured interviews and their subsequent analysis.
tilahun guade
IJOLTL: Indonesian Journal of Language Teaching and Linguistics
Assessment of essay writing varies in product oriented, primary trait scoring system, and process oriented. This study examines how rubric in argumentative essay writing are developed. The findings emphasized that essay writing focused on the argumentative essay. Models of essay utilized for TOEFL test are considerably suggested for the topics. In addition, descriptors of the essay elaborated for standard assessment refer to characteristics of a good paragraph outlining: topic sentence and controlling ideas, developing sentences, and concluding sentence; and those for essay writing would emphasize on introductory paragraph whose thesis statement is included in the paragraph, developing paragraphs for details, and concluding paragraph.
Eduscience Journal
Fuad Abdullah , Fuad Abdullah
Since argumentative writing skills play an indispensable role in higher educational contexts, the students are required to produce academic works representing their academic insights and critical perspectives towards problematized issues around them. Conversely, the students may frequently encounter intricacies while applying complicated syntactic forms and proper aspects during writing Discussion essays as one of the argumentative writing genres. For this reason, the current study aimed at exploring how Talk-Write technique facilitates the students in writing Discussion essays. This study involved 30 EFL students and an experienced writing teacher at a university in Indonesia. The data were analyzed through thematic analysis following the notions of Talk-Write (Meyers, 1985; Ling, 1986; Radcliffe: Crasnich & Lumbelli, 2005). The findings indicated that Talk-Write technique enables the students to produce the Discussion essays. Besides, it stimulated them to speak actively in English while negotiating ideas, exchanging debatable arguments and positioning stance and voice. Briefly, Talk-Write technique can facilitate the students in exchanging vocal to scribal dialogue, gaining pivotal and desired ideas and fostering professional competencies as the talkers and the writers and personal styles.
Journal of English for Academic Purposes
Ursula Wingate
Journal of Writing Research
Montserrat Castello
This study investigated students' practice of philosophical thinking through collaborative writing in secondary education. A philosophy course was developed following the rationale of the learning communities in which writing was used as an epistemic tool. 45 students organized into 13 teams participated in the course. In this study, a subsample of six students working in 2 teams during one collaborative argumentative writing activity were analyzed. These groups were selected on the basis of their output (high and medium quality) and because both followed an integrating construction strategy for collaborative writing. Data collected included audio, video and computer screen recordings of both groups' discourse and writing activity during collaborative writing (using Camtasia and Atlas-ti software). Analysis focused on collaborative writing interaction (types of talk; evidence of philosophical competences - problematization, argumentation and conceptualization; regulation of ...
IJARW Research Publication
Studies on teaching argumentative writing are well-documented regarding the adaptation of critical thinking skills, writing strategies, writing behaviors and writing difficulty. However, research on teachers' perceptions and practices of best writing approaches for designing writing materials centering on argumentative essays is still meagre. This review paper aims to put forth an appropriate base and approach for designing writing materials of teaching argumentative essays for upperintermediate students at English Faculty, School of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University. To this end, it reviews different approaches to teaching writing in EFL classrooms as well as previous studies on teaching argumentative essays, forming a firm base for material development in general and for teaching argumentative academic essays in particular. As a result, an integrative approach to writing instruction comprising writing-as-a-process, writing as a product, and writing following different genres is supposed to be conducive for teaching academic argumentative essays and shall be the cornerstone base for the material development.
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Shazna Abu Bakar , Aysha Sharif
Teaching Philosophy
Laura Duhan-Kaplan
Dimitar Resov
International Journal for Research in Applied Sciences and Biotechnology
Muhammad Hattah Fattah
PREMISE: Journal of English Education
Jeffrey McDonough
afraz ahmad
Analytic Teaching and Philosophical Praxis
Grant Eckstein
Neda Mohamadi
Dina Mamdouh
James Elander
Trystan S Goetze
yesinta panjaitan
Educational Review
Hélène Maire
Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Education, Language, Literature, and Arts (ICELLA 2021)
Emma Febriyanti
William W Baber
Malik Naeem
Mustapha ibrahim garba
Burak TOMAK
22nd Annual Meeting Society for Text and Discourse
Silvia Del Longo , Lerida Cisotto
About the university, research at cambridge.
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The following are real answers to Tripos questions. Following each answer is an indication of the expected class of an essay at this level together with a brief justification. They are supposed to give you some idea of what the examiners are expecting to see.
We are very grateful to those undergraduates who agreed to release their papers for this purpose.
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Aristotelian Metaphysics, Essays in Honour of David Charles was published on May 20, 2024 by Oxford University Press.
IMAGES
COMMENTS
n philosophical writing:Avoid direct quotes. If you need to quote, quote sparingly, and follow your quotes by expla. ning what the author means in your own words. (There are times when brief direct quotes can be helpful, for example when you want to present and interpret a potential amb.
This short book, written by recent Cambridge PhD students, is designed to introduce students to the process of writing an essay in philosophy. Containing many annotated examples, this guide demonstrates some of the Do's and Don'ts of essay writing, with particular attention paid to the early stages of the writing process (including the creation ...
RCES303234CONTACT THE AUTHORS35From the AuthorsThis guide began as a collection of supplementary mater. al for a one-off workshop on essay-writing in philosophy. It is now presented to you as a han. book for students on the basics of philosophical writing. As supervisors ourselves, the four of us began the project out of a desire to offer extra ...
Undergraduate Exams. Student Feedback & Support. Philosophy Faculty Guidelines for Discussion Sessions. phil-essay-guide.pdf. University Assistant Professor in Philosophy [Temporary Cover] 11th Jul 2024. Call for Expressions of Interest for British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship applications: deadline Friday 23rd August 2024. 29th Jun 2024.
in the papers you write is to explain and evaluate the arguments given in the works you are studying. When you explain and eval-uate an argument you focus on an individual philosopher's par-ticular argument for a specific claim. Your aim is to explain what the argument is and to evaluate it. For example, suppose you are
Write the final draft. Check the spelling, grammar and make sure all the bibliographical details are correct. leave a wide margin on the right hand side of your page for the marker's comments. Be kind on your marker: use a font that is easy to read and a line spacing of at least 1.5 or 2. Make a photocopy of your essay as a precaution, since ...
Guide to researching and writing Philosophy essays. 5th edition by Steven Tudor, for the Philosophy program, University of Melbourne, 2003. This fifth edition of How to Write a Philosophy Essay: A Guide for Students (previous editions titled A Guide to Researching and Writing Philosophy Essays) was prepared in consultation with members of the ...
Writing a philosophy essay is probably different from any kind of writing you have done before. What is most distinctive about philosophy is its focus on argument - developing a position, defending it against objections, considering alternatives, and so on. In this guide, we offer some advice about how to construct successful argumentative ...
Writing philosophy essays is a key part of studying philosophy. Make sure first to understand the assignment, looking out for the questions asked and paying attention to prompts such as "outline" or "evaluate" or "compare". Most philosophy assignments will ask you to demonstrate your understanding of the subject through exposition ...
2. Appropriate Structure and Style for a Philosophy Paper. Organizing the Paper. Although the philosophical canon includes a wide variety of styles and structures, including argumentative essays, axiomatically-organized systems of propositions, dialogs, confessions, meditations, historical narratives, and collections of aphorisms, most of these styles and structures are inappropriate for the ...
Simon Fraser University. Good writing is the product of proper training, much practice, and hard work. The following remarks, though they will not guarantee a top quality paper, should help you determine where best to direct your efforts. I offer first some general comments on philosophical writing, and then some specific "do"s and "don't"s.
the actual. arguments.k.} ConclusionDuring the writing of the essay, you should already know what you are going. to write as a conclusion. Obviously, in the conclusion you should succinctly answer the essay question and leave no. oubt what your answer is. From your conclusion one should be able to t.
Philosophy is the practice of making and assessing arguments. An argument is a set of statements (called premises) that work together to support another statement (the conclusion). Making and assessing arguments can help us get closer to understanding the truth. At the very least, the process helps make us aware of our reasons for believing ...
Introduction. Philosophy is quite unlike any other field. It is unique both in its methods and in the nature and breadth of its subject matter. Philosophy pursues questions in every dimension of human life, and its techniques apply to problems in any field of study or endeavor. No brief definition expresses the richness and variety of philosophy.
Writing philosophy essays is a key part of studying philosophy. Make sure first to understand the assignment, looking out for the questions asked and paying attention to prompts such as outline or evaluate or compare. Most philosophy assignments will ask you to demonstrate your understanding of the subject through the exposition of arguments ...
Aims. A philosophy essay is never a mere report, nor a presentation of your opinions of someone else's opinions, but should be both analytical and critical.It is analytical in the sense that it presents a careful examination of the topic, and tries to make complete sense of it. Therefore a philosophy essay always goes beyond a mere presentation of the "facts" in the case.
The philosophical essay generally follows a very simple structure: State the proposition to be proved. Give the argument for that proposition. Show that the argument is valid. Show that the premises are true. Consider an objection to your argument and respond to that objection. State the upshot of what has been proven.
Philosophy Resources on the Web, University of Northern Colorado. UNC provides links to information about philosophy, including undergraduate philosophy journals, guides to writing good philosophical papers, and pursuing graduate school. Wi-Phi: Open Access Philosophy.
Philosophy at Cambridge. Philosophy is the investigation of very general and fundamental questions. Among other things, these questions explore knowledge, reality, mind, morality, logic, language, reasoning, politics, art and value. Studying philosophy requires complex critical thinking, rigorous analysis and consideration of new perspectives.
Further, it refers to my experience teaching philosophical writing to University of Zululand students. Next, it describes the specific group of students with whom I first tried the method in 2019 and whose needs prompted the modifications. I then explain the "six-line essay" model step by step, commenting on the rationale behind each step ...
Second 2i answer for Paper 3, Ethics. First Class Extended Essay for Paper 3 Ethics Part 1. First Class Extended Essay for Paper 3 Ethics Part 2. First for Paper 5 Early Modern Philosophy (21). Part II. First Class answer for Paper 1, Metaphysics. First Class answer for Paper 8, Philosophical Logic.
learning and assessment methods that go to make up a Philosophy course unit: lectures and tutorials, writing essays, exam technique, and independent study. It is intended both as an introduction to the study of Philosophy at The University of Manchester for first year students, and as a useful point of reference for second and third year students.
Here are 10 reasons why you should study a Bachelor's or Master's in Philosophy: 1. Ask the most fundamental questions. Philosophy loves asking all kinds of questions. And asking the right questions is often more important than the answers themselves.
Aristotelian Metaphysics, Essays in Honour of David Charles was published on May 20, 2024 by Oxford University Press.