How to Write a Philosophy Essay: The French Dissertation Method

1. Analyse the question word by word

Before any plan, interrogate every term. One misread word distorts the whole essay. Look for the different possible senses, the cases where a word changes value, and the terms that implicitly oppose it.

• Define each concept, then separate its senses (freedom as absence of constraint, freedom as autonomy).
• Note the form of the question: 'can we…' asks about possibility and right; 'should we…' asks about necessity and value.
• List the assumptions of the question: what it takes for granted is usually the heart of the problem.

2. Identify the problem

A problem arises from tension: two answers look equally legitimate and yet exclude each other. State that tension explicitly, in one or two sentences, as an alternative. It is the first thing an examiner looks for.

A quick test: if your question can be answered with an obvious yes, it is not a problem. Go back to the terms until the conflict appears.

3. Build an argument that moves

A plan is not a catalogue of opinions but a progression: each part answers the shortcoming of the previous one. The three-movement structure remains the most solid.

• I. The spontaneous answer, the one that seems obvious — and its serious reasons.
• II. The difficulty it runs into: what it cannot explain.
• III. The shift: a new distinction that resolves the tension.

4. Use references precisely

A reference is useful only if it advances the argument. Three philosophers genuinely understood beat ten names dropped. Always explain the thesis before naming it, then show what it contributes to the problem.

Ground each part in one precise example — historical, literary, scientific, or drawn from experience — and analyse it instead of mentioning it.

5. Write and proofread

Draft the introduction last, once you know where you are going: a brief entry point, analysis of the question, the problem, the announcement of the plan. The conclusion answers the question asked, without drifting into a vague opening.

Keep ten minutes for proofreading: a clear paper with explicit transitions and no spelling mistakes always gains marks.

6. A worked example from start to finish

Take the question 'Can we renounce our freedom?'. Analysing the terms shows that 'renounce' presupposes possession: the question assumes freedom is a good we hold. Yet 'can' interrogates the capacity itself: how could we renounce the very thing that makes renouncing possible? The problem appears — every act of renunciation looks like a free act, confirming freedom at the exact moment it claims to give it up.

The plan then follows the classic progression. I. We seem able to renounce freedom: we limit it daily through commitments — contracts, oaths, obedience — and Rousseau concedes that a man may hand over his freedom as a good. II. But this answer meets a difficulty: to alienate freedom is to abolish what makes us human, and commitments made against freedom are void — Rousseau's own argument in The Social Contract. III. The shift: what we renounce is not freedom but certain uses of freedom; we exchange natural independence for civil autonomy. The distinction between independence and autonomy dissolves the tension.

The example shows the mechanics of the method: an essay is worth the problem it formulates and the distinction it constructs, never the number of philosophers it cites. Rousseau is not there for show — he serves the first two parts precisely because he holds both positions in tension.