DD203 - Power, Dissent, Equality : Handwriting Speed, therefore length of exam answers.

My tutor advised that we have a go at handwriting a section of text to get an idea of how much we can write in the exam, giving that the handwriting has to be legible and you need a bit of time to plan and some thinking time mid-essay.

I managed 120 words in five minutes copying a section of text, it wasn't as legible as it could have been, but it wasn't too bad.

So if I work on 10 minutes to read the question and set out the essay plan and ideas, 5 minutes during writing as thinking time and 5 minutes at the end to read and if necessary edit/add, that leaves me about 40 minutes of writing, which is effectively 1000 words.

100 - 120 words - into.

150 - 180 words - definition

210 - 255 words - argument  A

210 - 255 words - argument B

210 - 255 words - argument  C

120 - 145 words - conclusion

1000 - 1210 Words in total.

So, this week and over the weekend I'll get the materials needed for TMA06 together, and then the following week I'll see how realistic this schedule really is.

A222 - Exploring Philosophy : TMA06 Marked and Returned

That was quick !!!

I'm really pleased to get this TMA mark back so quickly as I can now move on to get some revision done without repeatedly checking the website to see if the mark is in yet. I do find it really difficult to move on to another part of the course with a marked TMA still outstanding.

Another solid Pass 2, which is good as I spent a lot less time on this than other TMAs, which is not to say I didn't put much effort in, I did. But rather that in the other TMAs I spent a lot of time on editing and re-wording the essay, which in the final analysis probably added little to the essay.

I did get marked down for not putting both sides of the argument, but as we were supposed to be proving one premise false (or so I thought) there wasn't much room for both sides of the story. However, if I did it again I would write something like "While is it understandable that there is a view that says that States with inequalities are unjust due to ................. This essay disagrees with that point of view and will show that states with inequalities can indeed be just." or something like that. At least acknowledge there is an alternative point of view.

Anyway, so it now means that the final course mark is reliant solely on the exam which is a frightening thought, as with the TMAs there was always the possibility of recovering from one bad score, but one 'bad day at the office' with the exam will sort of blight the course.....forever.... (is that a bit too dramatic).

A222 - Exploring Philosophy : TMA06 Finished

I'm less confident in this essay than some of the others I have submitted, but I now have about 1,700 words and have covered everything I intend to. As anything other than a simple pass is just a vanity exercise (I know the band the TMA marks so far have put me in), it is probably best to cut and run and get on with revision, although until I get the mark back it is always difficult to move on to the next task.

I managed to reference Rawls, Noisack, Dworkin, Kymlicka and Anderson and find three valid objections to the second premise that covered a practical real world view, and also from the egalitarian and libertarian perspectives, so hopefully successfully objected from all possible view points.


I'll leave it a couple of days, then re-read and submit. In the mean time I should review again what I intend to cove for the exam. 

There is four weeks to go to the exam, I want to revise 4 possible books, so time to have a guess at what will be in it.

A222 - Exploring Philosophy : Week 33

12 May •

Assignment week

• Assessment resources Resource page

Events

• Assignment: TMA 06 (cut-off date 17 May)

A222 - Exploring Philosophy : TMA 06 and writers block

Third objection now thought through and completed. Fourth objection appears not to exist - so I'll stop looking for that.

Now at 1300 words and that is basically all I have to say on the essay. This is the first time this has happened, I'm usually struggling to get under the maximum word count.

I'm gonna leave it for a couple of days and see if anything else comes to mind, but it has to be bulked out somehow

A222 - Exploring Philosophy : TMA 06 underway, and its heavy going.

Its been a bit of  a motivational struggle to get the first 600 words down, but I guess that is the essay about a 1/3 of the way there.

     Into - Done

     Explanation of valid deductive arguments as it relates to this question - Done.

     First objection to Premise 2 - Pretty much done.

     Second objection - Not fully thought out.

     Third Objection - May not exist.

     Fourth Objection - Is but a dream.

     Conclusion - Already stated in Intro.

     References -  Are just a pain.


What else can I do to avoid writing essay apart from this blog - plenty, I'm just getting started avoiding this essay.

A222 - Exploring Philosophy : Week 32

5 May •

The blog may show this post as 4th of May...... but its 5th of May where I am.

Book 6: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY Chapter 4, Justice and equality

• Book 6, Chapter 4: Justice and equality PDF document (297.4KB)
  
  
• Nozick on libertarian theories of justice sound file (6.7MB)
  
  
• Varieties of egalitarianism 1 sound file (11.9MB)
  
  
• Varieties of egalitarianism 2 sound file (9.1MB)
  
  
• Book 6 Chapter 4 Quiz

A222 - Exploring Philosophy : Revised Essay Plan

Luckily bellatrix left a comment on the post about the TMA06 Essay Plan pointing out that the assignment guide points out (if read properly) that you have to concentrate on one aspect of the argument - NOT BOTH.

The assignment guide says,

This question asks you to evaluate an argument. The argument has two premises and a conclusion. For the argument to be sound, the premises need to both be true and the inference from them to the conclusion needs to be valid.

You cannot possibly discuss every aspect of the argument in the space you have available. 

This final assignment is calling for you to give a focused discussion of one or two aspects of an argument and to explain the overall implications of your discussion for that argument. How you choose to focus is up to you. Here are two possibilities, for illustration:

1. You may choose to argue that the first premise is false: citizens are sometimes obliged even to states that are broadly unjust. That by itself would be enough to show that the argument is unsound, so you would not need to discuss the second premise or the validity of the inference.
2. You may think the argument is sound, but even then you don’t need to defend all parts of the argument in detail. You could, for example, pass quite quickly over the validity question and the first premise in order to focus on responding to a possible weakness in the second premise.

But as well as focusing on one or two specific aspects of the argument you must explain the implications of your discussion for the soundness of the argument as a whole. You should do this as you go along and in a separate ‘upshot’ paragraph at or near the end of your essay. In the two examples above, your upshot paragraph might include sentences like:

1. ‘I have focused on trying to show that the first premise is false. If I am right, this is enough to show that the argument as a whole is unsound.’
2. ‘I have used the space available to argue that an apparently quite strong objection to the second premise fails. A more substantial defence of the argument would need to consider other possible objections to this or the other premise, and to defend the validity of the inference from these premises to the conclusion.’

So, I need a revised essay plan.
As I don't really think I can argue against Premise 1, and I actually disagree with Premise 2, I guess I will be concentrating on arguing that Premise 2 is False and therefore the argument is Not Sound.


Perhaps this was something that may have been discussed at the tutorial I missed, oh well, thanks to bellatrix I should be on the right track now.

A222 - Exploring Philosophy : Unable to connect to Elluminate Tutorial

For some reason while I'm abroad I cannot connect to the Elluminate Tutorials. It was not too much of a surprise the first time as I had just sort of expected it to work and it didn't - that was about two weeks ago.

However the I.T. Dept have been wrestling with this problem since then and even they can't punch a hole through the Firewall or sort the proxy settings or whatever is wrong, so this will be the second online tutorial that I have missed.

Oh well, better get on with reading and studying Book 6 then.

A222 Exploring Philosophy : Essay Plan TMA06

The OU has now posted  the updated question for TMA 06 as the first question caused some confusion regarding terms and actual meaning. 

The last TMA actually looks like about 6 separate sections,

1. Introduction, 

2. Definition of Terms, 

3. Discussion of Premise 1, 

4. Discussion of Premise 2, 

5. Discussion of Conclusion, 

6. Essay Conclusion

Premise 1: Citizens only have obligations towards their state if that state is broadly just.

Basically carve out the arguments from Chapters 1 & 2 to present this as Premise as TRUE.

Premise 2: States that exhibit large economic inequalities between citizens are not broadly just

Find arguments from Chapters 3 & 4 to refute this Premise and show it to be FALSE.

Conclusion : So citizens can have no obligations to such states.’
The argument is VALID but it is not sound because PREMISE 2 is FALSE

It is going to be difficult keeping this below 2,000 words

A222 - Exploring Philosophy : Week 31

28 April •

Book 6: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY Chapter 3, What is distributive justice?

• Book 6, Chapter 3: What is distributive justice? PDF document (810KB)
• Rawls on distributive justice sound file (7.2MB)
• Book 6 Chapter 3 Quiz

A222 - Exploring Philosophy : Week 30

21 April •

Book 6: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY Chapter 2, Consent and consequences

• Book 6, Chapter 2: Consent and consequences PDF document (424.8KB)
• The problem of political obligation sound file (13.2MB)
• Courage to refuse sound file (11.6MB)
• Book 6 Chapter 2 Quiz

A222 - Exploring Philosophy : Week 29

14 April •

Book 6: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY Chapter 1, Plato and the variety of arguments for political obligations

• Book 6, Chapter 1: Plato and the variety of arguments for political obligations PDF document (358.7KB)
• The problem of political obligation sound file (13.2MB)
• Two theories of political obligation sound file (9.5MB)
• Book 6 Chapter 1 Quiz

A222 - Exploring Philosophy : TMA06 and Exam

The TMA following the next book, Politics, covers aspects of all 4 chapters of the book, so unlike the previous 5 TMA's it should not be possible to skip or skim bits of this book if a good mark on the TMA is to be achieved.

This is not such a bad thing as it takes part of the decision regarding which books to study for the exam away.

The exam gives you 2 questions from each of the 6 books, you have to answer 3 questions, all from different books. I think I will study 4 books and drop 2, not sure which yet. but at present it looks like Self, Politics will certainly be part of the four.