Philosophy Self-Study Resources - Where can I find essay questions?
January 23, 2015 3:39 AM Subscribe
I have been reading a few primary texts in philosophy on my own. However, I find that its difficult to engage with a text merely by reading it. I'd like to find a bunch of questions or essay prompts for each book I read that I can then think over, write a page or so on, that help me to focus on the important points of a text in the history of philosophical thought. Google searches have not been very effective at finding questions. (I can sometimes find reading lists and syllabi which are useful but not quite what I want).
For example, I just read Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise, and now would like a prompts to get me thinking about the text in different ways. Which you would normally get by writing an essay on the text at Uni.
Are there any books of "standard essay questions" on particular texts? Something like a a "teachers edition"?
For example, I just read Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise, and now would like a prompts to get me thinking about the text in different ways. Which you would normally get by writing an essay on the text at Uni.
Are there any books of "standard essay questions" on particular texts? Something like a a "teachers edition"?
Response by poster: I have an undergrad degree in philosophy, so I imagine A-Level questions are a bit too "High School" perhaps. Although I'm not really sure what A-Levels are all about as I'm Australian and we don't use that system.
posted by mary8nne at 6:18 AM on January 23, 2015
posted by mary8nne at 6:18 AM on January 23, 2015
If you have any apple products, itunes U will have lectures and sometimes slides, syllabuses and course work, as well as further suggested reading from various courses if you search for the topic.
Also if you search for "topic coursework" on google, you turn up stuff like this.
posted by empath at 7:35 AM on January 23, 2015
Also if you search for "topic coursework" on google, you turn up stuff like this.
posted by empath at 7:35 AM on January 23, 2015
Best answer: The best approach, I imagine, would be to do what we graduate students in philosophy do (or even what undergraduates do if they are studying at a strong department): read an assigned text, read a number of papers about some particular issue in the text, and then write a paper that contributes to the debate.
In order to go about doing this, you can do a Google search along these lines:
<> philosophy seminar syllabus filetype:pdf
or
<> philosophy graduate syllabus filetype:pdf
where you can replace the brackets with the philosopher's name or the work you are reading. For instance, when I insert "Spinoza", I find this very good syllabus. It clearly indicates the sort of issues on which there is debate, and articles that are good for establishing the grounds of the debate, and the articles that set out to establish a position. You can read these articles, and get a sense for what's important. Maybe not in the sense of "What are the main, uncontroversial ideas of this author?" but at least in the sense of, "Which ideas of this author are important enough that people are willing to debate how we should properly understand the author." By reading these debates and writing your own response, you'll be forced to work through the primary text, and try to create an interpretation of the text that is supported by some particular passages, but still coheres with the rest of the paper as well, all the while increasing your familiarity with the work on the whole.
The caveats are that: (1) you'll be limited to the syllabae you can find publicly through Google, and (2) you'll need to find a way to get access to the relevant articles. They may be chapters in books that are either affordable or not, or they may be journal articles. The journal articles will be accessible through JSTOR, but you'll be limited if you don't have access to a university subscription to JSTOR. If you don't, I believe that you can freely register with JSTOR on your own and be granted limited online access to their articles.
posted by Dalby at 3:50 PM on January 23, 2015 [3 favorites]
In order to go about doing this, you can do a Google search along these lines:
<> philosophy seminar syllabus filetype:pdf
or
<> philosophy graduate syllabus filetype:pdf
where you can replace the brackets with the philosopher's name or the work you are reading. For instance, when I insert "Spinoza", I find this very good syllabus. It clearly indicates the sort of issues on which there is debate, and articles that are good for establishing the grounds of the debate, and the articles that set out to establish a position. You can read these articles, and get a sense for what's important. Maybe not in the sense of "What are the main, uncontroversial ideas of this author?" but at least in the sense of, "Which ideas of this author are important enough that people are willing to debate how we should properly understand the author." By reading these debates and writing your own response, you'll be forced to work through the primary text, and try to create an interpretation of the text that is supported by some particular passages, but still coheres with the rest of the paper as well, all the while increasing your familiarity with the work on the whole.
The caveats are that: (1) you'll be limited to the syllabae you can find publicly through Google, and (2) you'll need to find a way to get access to the relevant articles. They may be chapters in books that are either affordable or not, or they may be journal articles. The journal articles will be accessible through JSTOR, but you'll be limited if you don't have access to a university subscription to JSTOR. If you don't, I believe that you can freely register with JSTOR on your own and be granted limited online access to their articles.
posted by Dalby at 3:50 PM on January 23, 2015 [3 favorites]
"The Partially-Examined Life" podcast might be useful. On the introduction to each episode (on the website and in the podcast) they usually list off a series of questions they anticipate discussing. You could try answering the questions before listening to the podcast.
posted by MrBobinski at 5:39 PM on January 23, 2015
posted by MrBobinski at 5:39 PM on January 23, 2015
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posted by everydayanewday at 4:42 AM on January 23, 2015