PLEASE READ INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY –

I will be adding more content to help you with the research.

With papers this short, you can dispense with introductions and background descriptions, as well as with concluding remarks. Just open by saying something like “Augustine argues against the skeptic that …” and close with the last sentence of your critique – no recap – no final flourish.

About half of the paper should be exegesis – that is, summarizing and organizing the argument from the text. You have to get this part right to get the next part (the critique of the argument) right, so be careful. It’s ok to use point form if you have an explicit formulation of an argument in mind (i.e. Premise 1 – Premise 2 – etc). You must, however, cite the text at some point when giving your summary of the argument.

The other half of the paper is critique of the argument. We’re not looking to see if you agree with it or not. Rather, we want to see if you can spot any problems with the argument itself. Typical problems for an argument are things like: One of the premises is false (or dubious) ; it relies on a tacit (suppressed) premises that is false or dubious; it fails to take into account some fact that makes the inference from premise to conclusion weak or false; it misconstrues the opponent’s position; etc.

It is not enough to say that the argument is ‘good’, or that you can’t find anything wrong with it.