Summary Assignment #1
Hi everyone. Here's your first official assignment: After reading pages 3-9 in the course reader, please *summarize* the argument that Aquinas puts forward in his 2nd Way.
Whenever I ask you to summarize one of the arguments from the reading material you do not have to worry about filling in all of the details. All I really want you to do is (i) identify the main point (or conclusion) of the argument being put forward in the reading, (ii) identify the reasons (or premises) that are being used to support the main point of the argument, (iii) try to wrap your mind around what each of those statements are supposed to mean and then (iv) simply restate—in your own words—the gist (or basic idea) of the argument in a line by line format. For example:
Philosopher X’s Argument for Y
(P1) The gist of premise 1…
(P2) The gist of premise 2…
(P3) The gist of premise 3…
-- insert more premises here if needed --
--------------------------------------
(Conclusion) Therefore, the gist of the conclusion…
That's it! Trust me, learning to summarize arguments--even in this simple manner--is a great skill to develop and will certainly come in handy as we work our way through the course material.
Best, Chris
Whenever I ask you to summarize one of the arguments from the reading material you do not have to worry about filling in all of the details. All I really want you to do is (i) identify the main point (or conclusion) of the argument being put forward in the reading, (ii) identify the reasons (or premises) that are being used to support the main point of the argument, (iii) try to wrap your mind around what each of those statements are supposed to mean and then (iv) simply restate—in your own words—the gist (or basic idea) of the argument in a line by line format. For example:
Philosopher X’s Argument for Y
(P1) The gist of premise 1…
(P2) The gist of premise 2…
(P3) The gist of premise 3…
-- insert more premises here if needed --
--------------------------------------
(Conclusion) Therefore, the gist of the conclusion…
That's it! Trust me, learning to summarize arguments--even in this simple manner--is a great skill to develop and will certainly come in handy as we work our way through the course material.
Best, Chris
<< Home