what starting points should I always use before I made an idea. to make sure it makes sense?
How do you make it ‘so’ that you are NOT making it up?
this is so basic its almost too basic for this forum? (I’m going to take philosophy next semester - couldn’t this one)
Please comment. Thank you.
A logical order of your thought processes is a good place to start.
It’s important to have an audience in mind. Do not write to ‘the world’.
So an analytical framework is the tool you use to move forward in your thought process? As opposed to what your intuition tells you (whatever that flys into your head that ‘seems’ right) - you can’t count out intuition - some people have incredibly intuitive insights. Still, the day to day rigor made in philosophy is done through analysis not through insight?
Is that what you’re saying? Or do I need to rely on intuition?
I can always rehash the good old days when I relied on intuition alone, and came up with (you’re right) novice views. So, it sounds like you ‘turn-on’ logic before you start insight - instead of turnign on insight (gut feeling) and then starting logic.
It’s not that simple. Assent to logic is an intuition. Asking where you’re supposed to begin isn’t ultimately fruitful, because you’ve already begun. The question is, where are you going to go next? No matter how you proceed in philosophy, it will be build upon what you think right now, including your gut- even if the way you continue is to actively reject those things. You can’t reject what has never occurred to you.
Read philosophy. Learn how people examine ideas, learn how people who are good at this do it, and be like them. In the long run, you’ll get much further by going with your gut, and paying careful, critical attention to what it tells you, than by continually rejecting everything that comes into your head because you don’t know how to defend or present it (to whom?) yet.
I’ll go with Ucci, we all have a certain context that we think in. Starting from first principles is nice to a certain extent since it lets everybody follow your argument but I think it involves a certain degree of insincerity since no one actually starts from first principles so instead when first principles are listed they are more retroactively created to justify a conclusion – and I think we can all agree that isn’t very good philosophy.
So instead it is better to identify one’s self with a particular tradition and understand one’s place in said tradition. Argue from that point, since it lets you know where you are and where you are going.
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Show me someone who started from first principles in an honest way. We can proceed from there, because I’ll show you that they didn’t. The self is always encumbered and it is better to recognize that and proceed from it as opposed to pretending it doesn’t exist.
As for critics, read any critic of Descartes . . .
Does he have anything written?
Edit: Got it, BRB
Edit: I’m seeing a lot of junk, help me out and give me an essay where he does such effectively.
Listening to podcasts is difficult for me since I’m rarely in an environment with a computer where I can do that. I was looking at his “essays” section and I didn’t find any first-principle arguments there.
Regarding original post, I found something that might be the answer you’re looking for here, but a simpler explanation might be that you begin with your premise which is basically a proposition (a phrase / assumption) about what you think is.
Many philosophy papers close with, rather than a supporting statement (as with normal essays), instead with a sort of internal argument like the socratic method. Ie: You can close your paper by arguing against yourself and accepting the argument rather than just trying to convince the reader of one thing. Eg: "I believe the pen is blue. But there is some evidence that could still suggest the pen is red, as follows . . . "
A good philosophy paper will still be dilligent to have separate points - using bullets, or each paragraph remaining on a single point. Often a philosophy essay can be ontological rather than argumentative. Ie: It can be a paper to discuss your way of categorizing different things and why they could be categorized this certain way, as opposed to a common essay, which normally goes to make one very specific argument alone.
A philosophy paper can also use formulae in modal logic or propositional logic to support a statement, the same way that a science paper will often have a mathematical formula to describe something.
Generally, a good essay, any good essay at all, will still have that basic format - it sticks to one subject, it opens very simple, gets into detail, and closes with some ideas of what the issue depends on.