Many people struggle to evaluate or analyse something in philosophy. Students are told that evaluation is the most important thing in an essay, or that their essays, while showing a clear understanding of the topic at hand, ‘need more evaluation’. It’s quite common to feel that ‘evaluation’ is something simply added on at the end of everything else; that a good essay will have an evaluation section. But philosophy, in a sense, IS evaluation. It is the act of thinking at maximum level, thinking about thinking, and taking to pieces everything you have seen or read or experienced in order to see if it makes sense or not. This is as true of an experience as it is of a theory. Exactly how to analyse, to evaluate, seems however to remain unclear, confusing and difficult. But philosophy itself teaches you how to analyse.
Let’s look at an example of a theory or argument, then how to evaluate it so that this can be woven into an essay - whether that be for university or A Level. It is also an act of thinking, only to be thought and never written in an essay. But thinking the idea through will sharpen your skill and your mind.
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics contains the so-called Function Argument. In a longer essay on Aristotle’s ethics, you might be expected to evaluate this argument. What are the steps?
The process can be broken into four stages, repeated with any theory or argument, and this in itself is what you can call EVALUATION.
Step 1 - exposition - this means: present and explain the idea. Step 2 - object - this means: explain a criticism of the argument. Step 3 - reply - this means: present and explain a response to the objection, i.e., a point of view which criticises the objection. Step 4 - EVALUATION/ANALYSIS - the step which earns the most points in an exam, an essay and overall shows the greatest philosophical skills is the final step, and the one most commonly omitted, and least often understand. Here, you weigh up if the objection or the reply is stronger, and whether this defeats, defends or strengthens the theory.
Let’s apply to above steps to Aristotle’s Function Argument.
Step 1 - exposition [explain the idea]
What is the Function Argument?
Aristotle had a teleological worldview, arguably a view very different to our own contemporary worldview. Teleological means purposive or goal directed, with ‘telos’ meaning goal. For Aristotle, all organisms have a purpose or, we might say, a function, or ‘ergon’ in Greek. (By linking ‘ergon’ to ergonomic, i.e., design, it is easy to remember this word.) This is less ‘serving a purpose’ than ‘being a certain way’, a potential to be realised. In a sense, the function of anything is easy to comprehend: it is for that thing to be what it is at its optimal level. The function of a plant is to be a plant optimally. What is optimally? Imagine a withered plant starved of light. We might see that this plant is ‘not living well’, it is not a plant in its fullest capacity. A plant that is doing well is also easy to image: receiving the right amount of light for the kind of plant it is, having the right amount of foliage, enough nutrients - thriving and capable of reproduction. Function can be understood, then, as ‘being something at is maximum given what a thing is’. Given Aristotle’s claim that all living organisms have a function, humans, being living organisms, must also have a function.
In order to determine the specific function of a human, as opposed to a plant or a non-human animal, Aristotle explores features common to all and asks what is distinctive of humans? With plants, we share needs of nutrition and reproduction. Non-human animals have these things too but also motion and sense perception. An animal ‘doing well’ with then do so in a way that’s different from a plan doing well. Human are different still from non-human animals, although we share with them motion and perception. Aristotle argues that the defining characteristic of humans is rationality. Therefore, what a human is is a rational being, a rational animal, therefore a human ‘doing well’, i.e., being a human at the optimal level, will be satisfying all the needs they share in common with plants and other animals, but crucially will be embracing and using their rationality at the highest level. Therefore, by a process of comparison and elimination, Aristotle arrives its the claim that the function of a human is to be fully rational. This concept fits into his overall notion of eudaimonia or the Good Life, i.e., living well for humans. This concept underpins the Nicomachean Ethics, and defining it is the central task of that book. Without exploring that complex area in detail here, let us turn to whether or not the Function Argument in itself can be defended.
[Step 1 has outlined, in some detail, what Aristotle’s argument claims, from his point of view, with some historical referencing, and some contextualisation.]
Step 2 - objection
There are numerous objections to this argument, but for the present purposes, focussing on one will be the most beneficial. We can invoke here the so-called Problem of Analogy. An argument from analogy claims that because one thing has a certain property, a similar thing can be argued to have the same property. We could say that cats are similar to dogs. Cats enjoy being pets, therefore, dogs must enjoy this too. Without analysing this claim to deeply, it could be loosely accepted. The logic behind it can be that cats are mammals and enjoy certain kinds of comfort and predictability. If cats enjoy being pets, perhaps we can say that, given cats and lions are similar, lions enjoy beings pets too. Yet something immediately seems off. Somehow, we are not comparing things in the right way. Information is missing, or the comparison is ill-formed because the nature or cats and lions is in fact very different, and so the comparison, the ‘analogy’ is not legitimate. The comparison is suffering from the Problem of Analogy, i.e., when a strong connection cannot be found but is in a sense forced. Aristotle is comparing things which shouldn’t be compared. He claims that a ‘good knife’ is one that cuts because the function of a knife is to cut. A knife that does so fulfils its function, therefore we call it ‘good’. While this reasonable in itself, it seems a leap to jump from a man-made artefact which has a ‘design’ imposed on it, its very reason for existing is this function, and its existence is the product of human contrivance. To compare a non-natural artefact with a naturally occurring phenomenon, i.e., a human, and to argue that this too has a function, is leap we cannot defend. Furthermore, Darwin has shown that nature unfolds randomly, responding to changes and ‘adapting’, and that this is no overall design in mind. Even the notion of ‘function’ is humanly imposed. Aristotle’s attempt to assign a deep structural function to humans and other living creatures is in error.
[Step 2 reviews, and brings in new information - the knife - to explain why the Function Argument is weak. Step 2 does not assess whether the objection is good - it merely states it.]
Step 3 - reply
We can acknowledge the weakness of the comparison between a knife and a living creature - why should we suppose that because artefacts have designated functions that humans do too? - admitting that this is a stretch, but still preserve the core of the argument, i.e., humans have a certain thing which marks them out as distinctively human, and fulfilling this is how humans can flourish. Even the objection of ‘design’/evolution can be rejected because Aristotle isn’t claiming that a function comes from a pre-set plan, for example as per a creator. Rather, he is saying that organisms have a certain nature and to be living at their optimal level, they have to have to be in accordance with their nature. Thus, while image of a knife might be vivid but stretched, Aristotle’s deeper point remains. Furthermore, the more persuasive part of his analysis is not any kind of comparison but rather that he reaches his characterisation of the human via an exploration of what humans share in common with other organisms, and what is unique to them. Thus he is entitled to say that ‘being rational’ is the human function or ergon.
[Step 3 seeks to assess the validity of the objection (Step 2) and provide a response or rejection of the criticism, even while admitting the objection has some validity and power.]
Step 4 - Evaluation
Which of the two sides - the argument itself [or reply] or the objection is the most effective, and does the original argument survive? Overall, we can argue in favour of Aristotle’s idea that there is something distinctively human which should be fulfilled, a thing which is not shared by plants, though we might have to admit today that there are other rational animals, though this is a point which needs clarifying. Translation with Aristotle or any Ancient Greek philosopher is always an issue to be handled with care. Function may not mean ‘purpose’ in the direct sense we tend to take it so much as ‘the full possibility of what a thing is’. Aristotle may lean us towards one kind of translation by using the knife analogy, but arguably his deeper insight is that humans have a nature, a ‘what they are’, and by embracing that to their fullest, just as plants and non-human animals have their natures and potentialities, we are able to move towards the Good Life. When a plan is deprived of the things is requires to be what it is at its optimal level, it is easy to see that the plant is not living well. Aristotle’s analogy is strongest when he says that because other organisms have a kind of ‘what they are’ humans will too. It is a credible claim to make that an organism going towards the fullness of its own nature is the key condition which allows living well to take place, and this is the insight which Aristotle’s Function Argument is laying out so that a fuller discussion of eudaimonia becomes possible.
[Evaluation - this section aims to weigh up merits and defects of both the objection and the reply and to state whether or not the original argument or theory can survive.]
Summary
These sections are deliberately more detailed and lengthy than required in an A Level essay question, though they would be the right amount as part of an undergraduate answer. Either way, if you follow these four steps in any essay you are writing, you will soon begin to internalise how to evaluate or analyse of a philosophical argument or theory.
At first, practice in a way that is quite artificial and self-conscious. Number your points 1 - 4. This way, you will know that you are covering the key elements of analysing an argument. Let’s review the steps:
1. Exposition - say what the theory is. 2. Objection - criticise it. 3. Reply - defend the theory against the objection [even if you disagree with the theory] 4. Evaluation - show the winner: is the theory or the objection stronger? How does the reply help the theory, or is the reply too weak to do that? In the final sentence or so of your section, summarise what has gone before and link everything back to the argument itself.
Practice this set up - 1, 2, 3, 4. Do that for each section of each essay you write, and soon analysing or evaluating will start to become second nature.
If you would like any further tips on how to analyse or write philosophically, please contact:
simonrichards@riseup.net
Good luck!