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Articles

How to Write Like a Philosopher

Bob Fitter introduces a new labour-saving device.

I first came across the following idea in Sir Ernest Gower’s The Complete Plain Words. The actual example used there is taken from the Canadian Ministry of Defence, so the only originality I can claim is to have modified that example sufficiently for it to have some relevance to philosophy. The whole scheme operates around a diagram called a Buzz-Phrase Generator. I have merely revised the original diagram, so before I give any further information I had better illustrate the Generator itself:

If you, the reader, happen to have lots of good philosophical ideas with a clear understanding of what you want to say and the command of words with which to say it: well, you can move on to the next article. The only additional piece of advice I would give is to avoid using any of the words listed in the Generator.

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