Your third essay is a little more open-ended then your first two, though still focused on the text. For this final section of the class, I have had you read a contemporary philosophical text – Wolf’s argument about how we should understand life’s meaning, and her argument for why this is significant. You also read four comments on her argument and her response to those arguments.
For this final essay, I would like you to continue that work of comment and response. In your essay, you should present a “comment” on Wolf’s work. Specifically, identify areas where you would challenge Wolf’s argument, suggest places where it could be improved or developed, or suggest alternative ways to approach the topic she presents. In doing so, you should situate your comments in relation to Wolf’s text, making reference to specific ideas (and potentially passages) in her. This should be a substantial and extended comment, and should have an overall sense of cohesion. You should also make sure you are commenting based on what you think Wolf is trying to do, not necessarily based on what you would do if you were writing an essay on the meaning of life and why it matters. In other words, if you have comments that go in substantially different directions than Wolf, your focus should be on why those different directions you would go matter for what Wolf says.
Like the comments you read in Wolf’s text, your comment should be multiple paragraphs (and multiple pages). Once you have made that comment then, you should follow it with an argument for how you think Wolf might respond to your comment. You can signal this with something like “I think Wolf would respond to my thoughts by saying . . .” as the opening to the first paragraph of your discussion of what you postulate as her response – or something along those lines. Make sure you explain, based on what you read in Wolf’s original essays and in Wolf’s responses to her commenters.
Although you can write this as one continuous essay, if you find it easier to break this into two sections with their own headers, one for your comment, and one for what you think Wolf’s response might be, do so.
In some ways, this may be the most challenging of the essays you have written, because *you* not only have to come up with what you want to say, but figure out how you relate that back to Wolf. The format is more open ended than the previous two essays, and that gives you more freedom and more challenge. Use the questions I have listed below as a guide to make sure you accomplish everything you should.
