Ah! Sorry there was a delay on this blog, I had accidentally read the syllabus wrong and not only read the wrong article, but did the wrong work too >:(.
Anyway… I have an assignment for my philosophy class coming up soon. It’s a two quarter class, and so far we have learned about human nature, the “definition” of death, the “goodness/badness” of death, the desirability of immortality, bereavement, and now, we are learning about arguments for and against the possibility of immortality and/or the afterlife. I know, cool stuff.
However, my assignment is an essay. An essay where I have to attack, defend, or create my own argument for the possibility of immortality/afterlife. Once I take an original position to write about, I must create my own original arguments and premises. This seems daunting as is, but on top of that, I have to make sure that my argument and points are philosophically-sane and reasonable. Yikes.
Source: Pixabay (Geralt)
Now how will I plan to start approaching this essay and write it? Well I can’t use outside sources, since our arguments have to be our own original reflection. But just because I can’t quote/use outside sources doesn’t mean I can’t use them for background in BEAM. By this I mean that I intend to research the writings of other philosophers who have further developed the positions which have only been introduced to us at a surface level. I find that the best way to develop my own argument is to analyze other arguments and further develop those.
As I said earlier though, a lot of my essay development is mental, long, and passive. To paraphrase my other words: I tend to dig ideas into the back of my mind and let them resonate throughout the days. I let my mind drift on the idea I want to explore when I’m laying in bed, taking breaks from homework, at the gym, meditating, if I ever get bored in class, etc. It’s nothing I do directly, but something which just happens. If I create an idea I like, I make note of it on paper or on my phone, With these ideas, I further develop them, apply them to our in-class arguments, and build more ideas off of their foundation. Once I get all of this, I map everything out and the easy part comes: writing.
Honestly, before I wrote this post, I was stressing about how I would approach this essay. However, this helped me to solidify and feel more confident about my plan and organization. This isn’t the first essay I’ve written of this type, but they’re definitely not my favorite. In my new plan, I am combining my previous and similar methodologies to hopefully find what works best. Let’s see how this goes.
Photo Sources:
https://pixabay.com/en/stress-man-hand-flame-burn-fire-543658/