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Please critique and help with my thesis
Fattestvirgin
Registered User
Registered User
I skipped my first paragraph for a paper and now came back to do it and I feel it is rather week. I'm not asking for someone to redo it for me, but I'd like a good writer to offer me some suggestions to make it stronger.
Thanks.
__________________
For millennia, philosophers have pondered, questioned, and reasoned. Above all else, they have searched for knowledge. These quests are in vain. We cannot claim knowledge, we cannot have knowledge, and we do not deserve knowledge. Humans are worthless beings and the reasons we will never have knowledge are innumerable. Without free will and without anything of value to contribute to the universe, humans are doomed to an existence of trivial and mindless routine.
Thanks.
__________________
For millennia, philosophers have pondered, questioned, and reasoned. Above all else, they have searched for knowledge. These quests are in vain. We cannot claim knowledge, we cannot have knowledge, and we do not deserve knowledge. Humans are worthless beings and the reasons we will never have knowledge are innumerable. Without free will and without anything of value to contribute to the universe, humans are doomed to an existence of trivial and mindless routine.
Fattestvirgin on
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"The quest for knowledge is in vain." Boom. Start the paper. The beginning part at the moment is trite.
I also don't follow how knowledge leads into free will and anything of value. Are you suggesting knowledge is the only way to free will? Or Free will is the only way to knowledge? Or are they independent of each other? If that's the case, then I wonder what is their connection.
So overall, I'd suggest a stronger opener and clarify how the ideas work within (or without) each other.
I see your thesis, and I'll say that it sounds pretty silly from how you present it. If I understand it correctly, you posit that 1) humans cannot get knowledge; 2) humans do not deserve knowledge.
The bigger issue is that your ascribing this lack of knowledge to a lack of free-will. Is this an assumed pillar of the assignment? Because arguing against free will is the larger and more important discourse, if you're going to make that claim. Essentially, there's no need to include essentially opinion (points 1 and 2 above) if the argument focuses on a lack of free will. If lack of free will is something you need to prove, that should probably be the thesis.
And don't begin by giving a bad definition of a "philosopher". You may as well just quote Webster.
If you want to PM me, I'd be happy to look at the paper as a whole. It's difficult to know which direction you need to move in without seeing the arguments and ideas.
Your word choice, to me, comes off as amateur and needlessly confrontational. The bolded phrases are especially bad. This reads like bad poetry or (I'm going to be brutally honest here) something a melodramatic high school student feeling especially disenfranchised with humanity would write. But you aren't those things.
I really can't imagine what sort of paper you would write based on this thesis, and frankly, I wouldn't want to read it. You've hit just about every "humans are bad" argument in the book in the space of six sentences. If you want to explore issues of free will and the nature of truth, there are better ways to introduce a reader to the concept. If you want to explore the triviality of life as viewed on a universal scale, ditto.
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you've got some interesting ideas to put forth here. In which case, your thesis is selling you short. It's a cheap grab, and unprofessional.
What is it that truly makes us free? Is it our actions? Can we claim unselfishness when are actions are rooted in self-serving motivations? Do we possess free will? These are questions addressed by psychological egoism, the view that humans are always motivated by self-interest. Arguments in support of this view are powerful and not easily rebuttaled.
Be specific as to which arguments are powerful and not easily rebutted. Briefly note three or so.
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This is for the same paper? Wow. Completely different take on the subject, with an entirely different tone.
What's confusing me is the way the rhetorical questions mesh (or rather, how they don't). It feels like you're trying to establish the nature of free will and the moral implications of deeds as your focal point, but I'm having a hard time envisioning the whole based on this thesis. The concepts of free will and self-serving actions don't seem to fit well together.
Oh, and that last sentence serves no purpose - I'd remove it.
What is the thesis statement?
Lose the questions, you're not trying to write a bestseller. Present the arguments and facts, unplug and get off the stage.
You need to give a quick rundown of everything you're going to talk about. Each major argument, each refutation, etc. Don't worry about it "sounding good" or being clever, you can add that in later when you actually have a coherent opening paragraph.
And, honestly, again it's wicked tough to give feedback when we don't know any of the details. A high school paper is different from a college-level paper. A 10-pager is different from a 5-pager, etc.
are you sure you're writing a thesis?
It's a 5 page college paper, and I've never written a philosophy paper before so I'm very confused
Okay, that makes more sense.
Your opening should put forth facts. While a philosophy assignment is going to "feel" like an opinion paper, it isn't. Since we're talking about 5 pages, you probably don't have to worry too much about stating arguments, etc. beyond a quick, declarative sentence or two.
I used to lay everything out in an outline first:
1. Problem of Evil
Argument 1: God cannot be all loving, all knowing and allow suffering in the world.
Argument 2: Our world is the "perfect world".
Counter-Argument 2: If this is the "perfect world" and God allows suffering, God cannot be all-loving and all-knowing.
The intro would read something like this, keeping in mind you want FACTS and not opinion statements:
The Problem of Evil has eluded both theologians and philosophers for the better part of Judeo-Christian history. It is accepted as theological doctrine that God is both all-loving and all-knowing, yet these attributes prove a conundrum when addressing the reality of suffering within our world. A God that allows non-subjective suffering from events such as earthquakes and tsunamis would not, by definition, be "all-loving". Theologians have often put forth a theory of the "gauntlet" in order to explain this seeming contradiction. By attributing our world an agency in which God tests our faith and resolve, theologians argue that God is, in fact, all-loving when he tests our faith and resolve by natural, "acts of God". Yet many philosophers have stated that any suffering constitutes a breach of God's status as "all-loving". This essay seeks to explore this conundrum by defining and discussing what, exactly, it would mean for God to be all-loving.
Don't kill yourself over 5 pages, but I think the best advice would be to remain factual and to keep your own ideas out if they are not supported, directly, by text or instruction. Unless this is specifically an opinion paper, that is.
I will be concerned with human motivations, and more precisely the motivations of our actions. Psychological egoism, the moral theory for which I will be arguing, is the view that self-interest is the underlying motive for every human action. I will illustrate how selfishness is always the reason for an act even in seemingly altruistic behavior, and I will argue how selfishness is our nature; thus self-centered acts shouldn’t be condemned, nor should we expect altruism from others. Lastly, I will defend psychological egoism from the arguments critics have formed against it.