Theory of knowledge

Paper instructions

I like to feel the intensity of your thinking. (Yes, you can use the word I.) So it really helps to write on something you actually care about. I grade on command, that is, I reward papers that demonstrate (1) a command of the texts that are being discussed, here slow rereading and careful citations help, and (2) a command of the subject matter you are writing about, here spending time rethinking helps. Don’t rush. Your first reactions are likely to be superficial and not so much thought out for yourself as dim memories of something you overheard somewhere or something you think you should believe.

You are carefully building a diving platform with your texts and then executing from that secure platform a breathtakingly beautiful personal dive.
1) Picking and organizing your own topic.

?(a) Something that you disagree with is a good thing to write on. Something that has got under your skin and whenever the author you are writing about says it, you get angry or turn up your nose or something. An optional, fairly plain but good, way to organize your response to what is under your skin is this: Your paper will consist in
?(i) explaining to your reader what the author is saying, this may take a while cause you will have to articulate the problem the author is grappling with as well how the author thinks that what they have said solves or ameliorates the problem, and citations are your proof €” you are not giving yourself a celebrity interview €” and then
??(ii) explaining why it is getting under your skin, and then
?(iii) offering a better account of what the author is talking about that you could sign your name to, then
?(iv) articulate the best criticism that you can imagine might be given of your better view, a criticism that your chosen author might give is good and then finally
??(v) show me why you are unconvinced by that best criticism.
?(b) Something you are thrilled by is (sadly) harder to get going with. An optional, fairly straightforward way of structuring this would begin with
?(i) your account of the problem aIDressed by your author in the thrilling way, this may take a while cause you will be trying to get your reader to share your sense of the importance of this problem, perhaps by drawing attention to the problems with fairly familiar ways of dealing with it.
?(ii) here is where you describe the thrilling thing that you author said, you will be describing it in detail and with citations which are your proof
?(iii) you will then show how this thrilling thing negotiates the dangers you characterized in (i). here is where you describe how absolutely thrilling the thing is, show what changes once we look at it in this thrilling way and why those changes are so thrillling to you.
?(iv) articulate the best criticism you could imagine being made to the thrilling thing you discussed in (iii). and finally
??(v) show me why you are unconvinced by that best criticism.