Narrow this down to a clear question about a particular assertion or view, the answer to which will ultimately be your thesis.

find yourself by doing a literature search (see advice below).Advice Remember that this is a philosophical essay: an extended argument for a claim (your thesis). For a reminder of how to write a good philosophy essay, see the Walsh handout in the Course Documents folder on Blackboard. Focus, clarity, and depth are you aims, so it is much better to (say) discuss a particular claim in the readings and/or adjudicate a disagreement between two or three authors on a particular point, than to engage in a very sweeping or general discussion of too many issues or arguments or people.In picking a topic, try to focus on something that interested or inspired you from the readings and our discussions – something that you want to get clearer on. Narrow this down to a clear question about a particular assertion or view, the answer to which will ultimately be your thesis. This question needn’t appear in your essay, though you can always raise it in your introduction. It’s primarily a tool to help you focus your thinking about what you will write. Use the sorts of questions we’ve discussed in class, and the questions for the take-home test, as models (please don’t recycle the take-home test questions, though!; think of something different). If you like, please feel free to check in with me regarding your “focus question”.In doing your literature search for an external source(s), one good place to look is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on the meaning of life (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/life-meaning/) by Thaddeus Metz. If you find something relevant to your focus question there, have a look at the references he gives for that issue.

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