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.

DD203 - Power, Dissent, Equality : Registration Complete

Well its not the snappiest title, but I've now registered for,

DD203 Power, dissent, equality: understanding contemporary politics

which starts October 2012.

 

Luckily for me, the fees for this course come under the transitional fees arrangement, and are ONLY £735 for the 60 point unit. I say ONLY £735 as if I'd been starting this course now the full fees would have been £2,500 and I would not have been doing this course. 

 It is taking a lot to save for the £735 per 60 point course, £2,500 is simply unaffordable for those who are self-funding.

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.