Typically, an essay has five paragraphs: an introduction, a conclusion, and three body paragraphs. However, there is no set rule about the number of paragraphs in an essay.
The number of paragraphs can vary depending on the type and scope of your essay. An expository or argumentative essay may require more body paragraphs to include all the necessary information, whereas a narrative essay may need fewer.
To enhance the coherence and readability of your essay, it’s important to follow certain rules regarding the structure. Take a look:
1. Arrange your information from the most simple to the most complex bits. You can start the body paragraph off with a general statement and then move on to specifics.
2. Provide the necessary background information at the beginning of your essay to give the reader the context behind your thesis statement.
3. Select topic statements that provide value, more information, or evidence for your thesis statement.
There are also various essay structures , such as the compare and contrast structure, chronological structure, problem method solution structure, and signposting structure that you can follow to create an organized and impactful essay.
An impactful, well-structured essay comes down to three important parts: the introduction, body, and conclusion.
1. The introduction sets the stage for your essay and is typically a paragraph long. It should grab the reader’s attention and give them a clear idea of what your essay will be about.
2. The body is where you dive deeper into your topic and present your arguments and evidence. It usually consists of two paragraphs, but this can vary depending on the type of essay you’re writing.
3. The conclusion brings your essay to a close and is typically one paragraph long. It should summarize the main points of the essay and leave the reader with something to think about.
The length of your paragraphs can vary depending on the type of essay you’re writing. So, make sure you take the time to plan out your essay structure so each section flows smoothly into the next.
When it comes to writing an essay, the introduction is a critical component that sets the tone for the entire piece. A well-crafted introduction not only grabs the reader’s attention but also provides them with a clear understanding of what the essay is all about. An essay editor can help you achieve this, but it’s best to know the brief yourself!
Letâs take a look at how to write an attractive and informative introductory paragraph.
1. Construct an attractive hook
To grab the reader’s attention, an opening statement or hook is crucial. This can be achieved by incorporating a surprising statistic, a shocking fact, or an interesting anecdote into the beginning of your piece.
For example, if youâre writing an essay about water conservation you can begin your essay with, âClean drinking water, a fundamental human need, remains out of reach for more than one billion people worldwide. It deprives them of a basic human right and jeopardizes their health and wellbeing.â
2. Provide sufficient context or background information
An effective introduction should begin with a brief description or background of your topic. This will help provide context and set the stage for your discussion.
For example, if you’re writing an essay about climate change, you start by describing the current state of the planet and the impact that human activity is having on it.
3. Construct a well-rounded and comprehensive thesis statement
A good introduction should also include the main message or thesis statement of your essay. This is the central argument that you’ll be making throughout the piece. It should be clear, concise, and ideally placed toward the end of the introduction.
By including these elements in your introduction, you’ll be setting yourself up for success in the rest of your essay.
Letâs take a look at an example.
The Wright Brothers’ invention of the airplane in 1903 revolutionized the way humans travel and explore the world. Prior to this invention, transportation relied on trains, boats, and cars, which limited the distance and speed of travel. However, the airplane made air travel a reality, allowing people to reach far-off destinations in mere hours. This breakthrough paved the way for modern-day air travel, transforming the world into a smaller, more connected place. In this essay, we will explore the impact of the Wright Brothers’ invention on modern-day travel, including the growth of the aviation industry, increased accessibility of air travel to the general public, and the economic and cultural benefits of air travel.
You can persuade your readers and make your thesis statement compelling by providing evidence, examples, and logical reasoning. To write a fool-proof and authoritative essay, you need to provide multiple well-structured, substantial arguments.
Letâs take a look at how this can be done:
1. Write a topic sentence for each paragraph
The beginning of each of your body paragraphs should contain the main arguments that youâd like to address. They should provide ground for your thesis statement and make it well-rounded. You can arrange these arguments in several formats depending on the type of essay youâre writing.
2. Provide the supporting information
The next point of your body paragraph should provide supporting information to back up your main argument. Depending on the type of essay, you can elaborate on your main argument with the help of relevant statistics, key information, examples, or even personal anecdotes.
3. Analyze the supporting information
After providing relevant details and supporting information, it is important to analyze it and link it back to your main argument.
End one body paragraph with a smooth transition to the next. There are many ways in which this can be done, but the most common way is to give a gist of your main argument along with the supporting information with transitory words such as âhoweverâ âin addition toâ âthereforeâ.
Hereâs an example of a body paragraph.
The Wright Brothers’ invention of the airplane revolutionized air travel. They achieved the first-ever successful powered flight with the Wright Flyer in 1903, after years of conducting experiments and studying flight principles. Despite their first flight lasting only 12 seconds, it was a significant milestone that paved the way for modern aviation. The Wright Brothers’ success can be attributed to their systematic approach to problem-solving, which included numerous experiments with gliders, the development of a wind tunnel to test their designs, and meticulous analysis and recording of their results. Their dedication and ingenuity forever changed the way we travel, making modern aviation possible.
A powerful concluding statement separates a good essay from a brilliant one. To create a powerful conclusion, you need to start with a strong foundation.
Letâs take a look at how to construct an impactful concluding statement.
1. Restructure your thesis statement
To conclude your essay effectively, don’t just restate your thesis statement. Instead, use what you’ve learned throughout your essay and modify your thesis statement accordingly. This will help you create a conclusion that ties together all of the arguments you’ve presented.
2. Summarize the main points of your essay
The next point of your conclusion consists of a summary of the main arguments of your essay. It is crucial to effectively summarize the gist of your essay into one, well-structured paragraph.
3. Create a lasting impression with your concluding statement
Conclude your essay by including a key takeaway, or a powerful statement that creates a lasting impression on the reader. This can include the broader implications or consequences of your essay topic.
Hereâs an example of a concluding paragraph.
The Wright Brothers’ invention of the airplane forever changed history by paving the way for modern aviation and countless aerospace advancements. Their persistence, innovation, and dedication to problem-solving led to the first successful powered flight in 1903, sparking a revolution in transportation that transformed the world. Today, air travel remains an integral part of our globalized society, highlighting the undeniable impact of the Wright Brothers’ contribution to human civilization.
Most essays are derived from the combination or variation of these four main types of essays . letâs take a closer look at these types.
1. Narrative essay
A narrative essay is a type of writing that involves telling a story, often based on personal experiences. It is a form of creative nonfiction that allows you to use storytelling techniques to convey a message or a theme.
2. Descriptive essay
A descriptive essay aims to provide an immersive experience for the reader by using sensory descriptors. Unlike a narrative essay, which tells a story, a descriptive essay has a narrower scope and focuses on one particular aspect of a story.
3. Argumentative essays
An argumentative essay is a type of essay that aims to persuade the reader to adopt a particular stance based on factual evidence and is one of the most common forms of college essays.
4. Expository essays
An expository essay is a common format used in school and college exams to assess your understanding of a specific topic. The purpose of an expository essay is to present and explore a topic thoroughly without taking any particular stance or expressing personal opinions.
While this article demonstrates what is an essay and describes its types, you may also have other doubts. As experts who provide essay editing and proofreading services , weâre here to help.
Our team has created a list of resources to clarify any doubts about writing essays. Keep reading to write engaging and well-organized essays!
What is the difference between an argumentative and an expository essay, what is the difference between a narrative and a descriptive essay, what is an essay format, what is the meaning of essay, what is the purpose of writing an essay.
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How do you structure a paragraph in an essay?
If you’re like the majority of my students, you might be getting your basic essay paragraph structure wrong and getting lower grades than you could!
In this article, I outline the 11 key steps to writing a perfect paragraph. But, this isn’t your normal ‘how to write an essay’ article. Rather, I’ll try to give you some insight into exactly what teachers look out for when they’re grading essays and figuring out what grade to give them.
You can navigate each issue below, or scroll down to read them all:
1. Paragraphs must be at least four sentences long 2. But, at most seven sentences long 3. Your paragraph must be Left-Aligned 4. You need a topic sentence 5 . Next, you need an explanation sentence 6. You need to include an example 7. You need to include citations 8. All paragraphs need to be relevant to the marking criteria 9. Only include one key idea per paragraph 10. Keep sentences short 11. Keep quotes short
Paragraph structure is one of the most important elements of getting essay writing right .
As I cover in my Ultimate Guide to Writing an Essay Plan , paragraphs are the heart and soul of your essay.
However, I find most of my students have either:
Paragraphs in essay writing are different from paragraphs in other written genres .
In fact, the paragraphs that you are reading now would not help your grades in an essay.
Thatâs because Iâm writing in journalistic style, where paragraph conventions are vastly different.
For those of you coming from journalism or creative writing, you might find you need to re-learn paragraph writing if you want to write well-structured essay paragraphs to get top grades.
Below are eleven reasons your paragraphs are losing marks, and what to do about it!
1. your paragraphs must be at least 4 sentences long.
In journalism and blog writing, a one-sentence paragraph is great. Itâs short, to-the-point, and helps guide your reader. For essay paragraph structure, one-sentence paragraphs suck.
A one-sentence essay paragraph sends an instant signal to your teacher that you donât have much to say on an issue.
A short paragraph signifies that you know something â but not much about it. A one-sentence paragraph lacks detail, depth and insight.
Many students come to me and ask, âwhat does âadd depthâ mean?â Itâs one of the most common pieces of feedback youâll see written on the margins of your essay.
Personally, I think âadd depthâ is bad feedback because itâs a short and vague comment. But, hereâs what it means: Youâve not explained your point enough!
If youâre writing one-, two- or three-sentence essay paragraphs, youâre costing yourself marks.
Always aim for at least four sentences per paragraph in your essays.
This doesnât mean that you should add âfluffâ or âpaddingâ sentences.
Make sure you don’t:
a) repeat what you said in different words, or b) write something just because you need another sentence in there.
But, you need to do some research and find something insightful to add to that two-sentence paragraph if you want to ace your essay.
Check out Points 5 and 6 for some advice on what to add to that short paragraph to add âdepthâ to your paragraph and start moving to the top of the class.
Okay, so I just told you to aim for at least four sentences per paragraph. So, whatâs the longest your paragraph should be?
Seven sentences. Thatâs a maximum.
So, here’s the rule:
Between four and seven sentences is the sweet spot that you need to aim for in every single paragraph.
Hereâs why your paragraphs shouldnât be longer than seven sentences:
1. It shows you can organize your thoughts. You need to show your teacher that youâve broken up your key ideas into manageable segments of text (see point 10)
2. It makes your work easier to read. You need your writing to be easily readable to make it easy for your teacher to give you good grades. Make your essay easy to read and youâll get higher marks every time.
One of the most important ways you can make your work easier to read is by writing paragraphs that are less than six sentences long.
3. It prevents teacher frustration. Teachers are just like you. When they see a big block of text their eyes glaze over. They get frustrated, lost, their mind wanders ⊠and you lose marks.
To prevent teacher frustration, you need to ensure thereâs plenty of white space in your essay. Itâs about showing them that the piece is clearly structured into one key idea per ‘chunk’ of text.
Often, you might find that your writing contains tautologies and other turns of phrase that can be shortened for clarity.
Turn off âJustifiedâ text and: Never. Turn. It. On. Again.
Justified text is where the words are stretched out to make the paragraph look like a square. It turns the writing into a block. Donât do it. You will lose marks, I promise you! Win the psychological game with your teacher: left-align your text.
A good essay paragraph is never ‘justified’.
Iâm going to repeat this, because itâs important: to prevent your essay from looking like a big block of muddy, hard-to-read text align your text to the left margin only.
You want white space on your page â and lots of it. White space helps your reader scan through your work. It also prevents it from looking like big blocks of text.
You want your reader reading vertically as much as possible: scanning, browsing, and quickly looking through for evidence youâve engaged with the big ideas.
The justified text doesnât help you do that. Justified text makes your writing look like a big, lumpy block of text that your reader doesnât want to read.
What’s wrong with Center-Aligned Text?
While Iâm at it, never, ever, center-align your text either. Center-aligned text is impossible to skim-read. Your teacher wants to be able to quickly scan down the left margin to get the headline information in your paragraph.
Not many people center-align text, but itâs worth repeating: never, ever center-align your essays.
Donât annoy your reader. Left align your text.
The first sentence of an essay paragraph is called the topic sentence. This is one of the most important sentences in the correct essay paragraph structure style.
The topic sentence should convey exactly what key idea youâre going to cover in your paragraph.
Too often, students donât let their reader know what the key idea of the paragraph is until several sentences in.
You must show what the paragraph is about in the first sentence.
You never, ever want to keep your reader in suspense. Essays are not like creative writing. Tell them straight away what the paragraph is about. In fact, if you can, do it in the first half of the first sentence .
Iâll remind you again: make it easy to grade your work. Your teacher is reading through your work trying to determine what grade to give you. Theyâre probably going to mark 20 assignments in one sitting. They have no interest in storytelling or creativity. They just want to know how much you know! State what the paragraph is about immediately and move on.
Suggested: Best Words to Start a Paragraph
Ideal Essay Paragraph Structure Example: Writing a Topic Sentence If your paragraph is about how climate change is endangering polar bears, say it immediately : âClimate change is endangering polar bears.â should be your first sentence in your paragraph. Take a look at first sentence of each of the four paragraphs above this one. You can see from the first sentence of each paragraph that the paragraphs discuss:
When editing your work, read each paragraph and try to distil what the one key idea is in your paragraph. Ensure that this key idea is mentioned in the first sentence .
(Note: if thereâs more than one key idea in the paragraph, you may have a problem. See Point 9 below .)
The topic sentence is the most important sentence for getting your essay paragraph structure right. So, get your topic sentences right and you’re on the right track to a good essay paragraph.
All topic sentences need a follow-up explanation. The very first point on this page was that too often students write paragraphs that are too short. To add what is called âdepthâ to a paragraph, you can come up with two types of follow-up sentences: explanations and examples.
Letâs take explanation sentences first.
Explanation sentences give additional detail. They often provide one of the following services:
Letâs go back to our example of a paragraph on Climate change endangering polar bears. If your topic sentence is âClimate change is endangering polar bears.â, then your follow-up explanation sentence is likely to explain how, why, where, or when. You could say:
Ideal Essay Paragraph Structure Example: Writing Explanation Sentences 1. How: âThe warming atmosphere is melting the polar ice caps.â 2. Why: âThe polar bearsâ habitats are shrinking every single year.â 3. Where: âThis is happening in the Antarctic ice caps near Greenland.â 4. When: âScientists first noticed the ice caps were shrinking in 1978.â
You donât have to provide all four of these options each time.
But, if youâre struggling to think of what to add to your paragraph to add depth, consider one of these four options for a good quality explanation sentence.
>>>RELATED ARTICLE: SHOULD YOU USE RHETORICAL QUESTIONS IN ESSAYS ?
Examples matter! They add detail. They also help to show that you genuinely understand the issue. They show that you donât just understand a concept in the abstract; you also understand how things work in real life.
Example sentences have the added benefit of personalising an issue. For example, after saying âPolar bearsâ habitats are shrinkingâ, you could note specific habitats, facts and figures, or even a specific story about a bear who was impacted.
Ideal Essay Paragraph Structure Example: Writing an ‘Example’ Sentence “For example, 770,000 square miles of Arctic Sea Ice has melted in the past four decades, leading Polar Bear populations to dwindle ( National Geographic, 2018 )
In fact, one of the most effective politicians of our times â Barrack Obama â was an expert at this technique. He would often provide examples of people who got sick because they didnât have healthcare to sell Obamacare.
What effect did this have? It showed the real-world impact of his ideas. It humanised him, and got him elected president â twice!
Be like Obama. Provide examples. Often.
Provide a reference to an academic source in every single body paragraph in the essay. The only two paragraphs where you donât need a reference is the introduction and conclusion .
Let me repeat: Paragraphs need at least one reference to a quality scholarly source .
Let me go even further:
Students who get the best marks provide two references to two different academic sources in every paragraph.
Two references in a paragraph show youâve read widely, cross-checked your sources, and given the paragraph real thought.
Itâs really important that these references link to academic sources, not random websites, blogs or YouTube videos. Check out our Seven Best types of Sources to Cite in Essays post to get advice on what sources to cite. Number 6 w ill surprise you!
Ideal Essay Paragraph Structure Example: In-Text Referencing in Paragraphs Usually, in-text referencing takes the format: (Author, YEAR), but check your schoolâs referencing formatting requirements carefully. The âAuthorâ section is the authorâs last name only. Not their initials. Not their first name. Just their last name . My name is Chris Drew. First name Chris, last name Drew. If you were going to reference an academic article I wrote in 2019, you would reference it like this: (Drew, 2019).
Where do you place those two references?
Place the first reference at the end of the first half of the paragraph. Place the second reference at the end of the second half of the paragraph.
This spreads the references out and makes it look like all the points throughout the paragraph are backed up by your sources. The goal is to make it look like youâve reference regularly when your teacher scans through your work.
Remember, teachers can look out for signposts that indicate youâve followed academic conventions and mentioned the right key ideas.
Spreading your referencing through the paragraph helps to make it look like youâve followed the academic convention of referencing sources regularly.
Here are some examples of how to reference twice in a paragraph:
Youâve just read one of the key secrets to winning top marks.
Every paragraph must win you marks. When youâre editing your work, check through the piece to see if every paragraph is relevant to the marking criteria.
For the British: In the British university system (Iâm including Australia and New Zealand here â Iâve taught at universities in all three countries), youâll usually have a âmarking criteriaâ. Itâs usually a list of between two and six key learning outcomes your teacher needs to use to come up with your score. Sometimes itâs called a:
Check your assignment guidance to see if this is present. If so, use this list of learning outcomes to guide what you write. If your paragraphs are irrelevant to these key points, delete the paragraph .
Paragraphs that donât link to the marking criteria are pointless. They wonât win you marks.
For the Americans: If you donât have a marking criteria / rubric / outcomes list, youâll need to stick closely to the essay question or topic. This goes out to those of you in the North American system. North America (including USA and Canada here) is often less structured and the professor might just give you a topic to base your essay on.
If all youâve got is the essay question / topic, go through each paragraph and make sure each paragraph is relevant to the topic.
For example, if your essay question / topic is on âThe Effects of Climate Change on Polar Bearsâ,
You may think âstay relevantâ is obvious advice, but at least 20% of all essays I mark go off on tangents and waste words.
Stay on topic in Every. Single. Paragraph. If you want to learn more about how to stay on topic, check out our essay planning guide .
One key idea for each paragraph. One key idea for each paragraph. One key idea for each paragraph.
Donât forget!
Too often, a student starts a paragraph talking about one thing and ends it talking about something totally different. Donât be that student.
To ensure youâre focussing on one key idea in your paragraph, make sure you know what that key idea is. It should be mentioned in your topic sentence (see Point 3 ). Every other sentence in the paragraph adds depth to that one key idea.
If youâve got sentences in your paragraph that are not relevant to the key idea in the paragraph, they donât fit. They belong in another paragraph.
Go through all your paragraphs when editing your work and check to see if youâve veered away from your paragraphâs key idea. If so, you might have two or even three key ideas in the one paragraph.
Youâre going to have to get those additional key ideas, rip them out, and give them paragraphs of their own.
If you have more than one key idea in a paragraph you will lose marks. I promise you that.
The paragraphs will be too hard to read, your reader will get bogged down reading rather than scanning, and youâll have lost grades.
If a sentence is too long it gets confusing. When the sentence is confusing, your reader will stop reading your work. They will stop reading the paragraph and move to the next one. Theyâll have given up on your paragraph.
Short, snappy sentences are best.
Shorter sentences are easier to read and they make more sense. Too often, students think they have to use big, long, academic words to get the best marks. Wrong. Aim for clarity in every sentence in the paragraph. Your teacher will thank you for it.
The students who get the best marks write clear, short sentences.
When editing your draft, go through your essay and see if you can shorten your longest five sentences.
(To learn more about how to write the best quality sentences, see our page on Seven ways to Write Amazing Sentences .)
Eighty percent of university teachers hate quotes. Thatâs not an official figure. Itâs my guestimate based on my many interactions in faculty lounges. Twenty percent donât mind them, but chances are your teacher is one of the eight out of ten who hate quotes.
Teachers tend to be turned off by quotes because it makes it look like you donât know how to say something on your own words.
Now that Iâve warned you, hereâs how to use quotes properly:
Ideal Essay Paragraph Structure Example: How To Use Quotes in University-Level Essay Paragraphs 1. Your quote should be less than one sentence long. 2. Your quote should be less than one sentence long. 3. You should never start a sentence with a quote. 4. You should never end a paragraph with a quote. 5 . You should never use more than five quotes per essay. 6. Your quote should never be longer than one line in a paragraph.
The minute your teacher sees that your quote takes up a large chunk of your paragraph, youâll have lost marks.
Your teacher will circle the quote, write a snarky comment in the margin, and not even bother to give you points for the key idea in the paragraph.
Avoid quotes, but if you really want to use them, follow those five rules above.
Iâve also provided additional pages outlining Seven tips on how to use Quotes if you want to delve deeper into how, when and where to use quotes in essays. Be warned: quoting in essays is harder than you thought.
Follow the advice above and you’ll be well on your way to getting top marks at university.
Writing essay paragraphs that are well structured takes time and practice. Don’t be too hard on yourself and keep on trying!
Below is a summary of our 11 key mistakes for structuring essay paragraphs and tips on how to avoid them.
I’ve also provided an easy-to-share infographic below that you can share on your favorite social networking site. Please share it if this article has helped you out!
11 Biggest Essay Paragraph Structure Mistakes youâre probably Making
1. Your paragraphs are too short 2. Your paragraphs are too long 3. Your paragraph alignment is âJustifiedâ 4. Your paragraphs are missing a topic sentence 5 . Your paragraphs are missing an explanation sentence 6. Your paragraphs are missing an example 7. Your paragraphs are missing references 8. Your paragraphs are not relevant to the marking criteria 9. Youâre trying to fit too many ideas into the one paragraph 10. Your sentences are too long 11. Your quotes are too long
Hello there. I noticed that throughout this article on Essay Writing, you keep on saying that the teacher won’t have time to go through the entire essay. Don’t you think this is a bit discouraging that with all the hard work and time put into your writing, to know that the teacher will not read through the entire paper?
Hi Clarence,
Thanks so much for your comment! I love to hear from readers on their thoughts.
Yes, I agree that it’s incredibly disheartening.
But, I also think students would appreciate hearing the truth.
Behind closed doors many / most university teachers are very open about the fact they ‘only have time to skim-read papers’. They regularly bring this up during heated faculty meetings about contract negotiations! I.e. in one university I worked at, we were allocated 45 minutes per 10,000 words – that’s just over 4 minutes per 1,000 word essay, and that’d include writing the feedback, too!
If students know the truth, they can better write their essays in a way that will get across the key points even from a ‘skim-read’.
I hope to write candidly on this website – i.e. some of this info will never be written on university blogs because universities want to hide these unfortunate truths from students.
Thanks so much for stopping by!
Regards, Chris
This is wonderful and helpful, all I say is thank you very much. Because I learned a lot from this site, own by chris thank you Sir.
Thank you. This helped a lot.
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Whoever i am: on the quality of life.
I must interrupt to say that âXâ is what exists inside me. âXââI bathe in that this [ esse isto ]. Itâs unpronounceable. All I do not know is in âXâ ⊠Always independent, but it only happens to whatever has a body. Though immaterial, it needs our body and the body of the thing. âClarice Lispector, Agua Viva
The structure of the question is implicit in all experience. âHans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method
Life is a series of experiences which need innumerable forms. âMeher Baba
3. is a bone, 4. facing the face, 5. who am i, 6. ellipsis, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.
1 | ) Not that Sorokin was against quantification per se, which is unthinkable given that âultimate reality is infinite quantitatively and qualitativelyâ ( ). |
2 | , (accessed on 5 June 2024)). On the self-tracking movement, see ( ). |
3 | ). |
4 | ( ) and Ghislain Deslandes, âLife is Not a Quantity: Philosophical Fragments Concerning Governance by Numbersâ, in ( ). |
5 | ⊠is counting, or more exactly, the counting-off, of some number of things. These things, however different they may be, are taken as uniform when counted as âobjects.â Insofar as these things underlie the counting process they are understood as of the same kind. That word which is pronounced last in counting off or numbering, gives the âcounting-number,â the arithmos of the things involved ⊠In the process of counting, in the actus exercitus (to use scholastic terminology), it is only the multiplicity of the counted things which is the object of attention. Only that can be âcountedâ which is not one, which is before us in a certain number: neither an object of sense nor one âpureâ unit is a number of things or units. The âunitâ as such is no arithmosâ ( ). |
6 | ). âThe ONE is one complete whole and simultaneously a series of ones within the ONEâ ( ). As a metaphysical principle, seriality is present for Aristotle both in the ordering of the categories and in the refuted, âbad tragedyâ view of nature as âa series of episodesâ ( , Metaphysics, 1090b20â1), though his argument for the priority of substance, by entertaining the serial view hypothetically, expresses a certain ambivalence, or play, in the totality of things: âThe subject of our inquiry is substance; for the principles and the causes we are seeking are those of substances. For if the universe [to pan] is of the nature of a whole [holon], substance is its first part; and if it coheres merely by virtue of serial succession [ephexes], on this view also substance is first, and is succeeded by quality, and then by quantityâ ( , Metaphysics, 1069a19â22). Aquinas articulates such whole/serial ambivalence as a question of perspective, in considering the nature of angelic knowledge: âNow it happens that several things may be taken as several or as one; like the parts of a continuous whole. For if each of the parts be considered severally they are many: consequently neither by sense nor by intellect are they grasped by one operation, nor all at once. In another way they are taken as forming one in the whole; and so they are grasped both by sense and intellect all at once and by one operation; as long as the entire continuous whole is consideredâ (Thomas Aquinas ( ), Summa Theologica, Ia.58.2, (accessed on 5 June 2024)). So, for Proclus, seriality is a universal principle manifesting the neither-one-nor-many nature of the One: âA series [seirĂĄ] or order is a unity ⊠but that which is cause of the series as a unity must be prior to them all ⊠Thus there are henads consequent upon the primal One, intelligences consequent on the primal Intelligence, souls consequent on the primal Soul, and a plurality of natures consequent on the universal Natureâ ( ). |
7 | ). On the sorites paradox, see ( ). |
8 | this or that without properly considering that we are dealing with seriality, no less objectively than subjectively. As many forms of relation and non-relation fall within the general idea of seriality, so do thoughts follow upon each other in all sorts of related and unrelated ways, such that the two are always becoming entangled. Whenever we are perceiving a series, however seemingly random or formally defined, there remains an unshakeable sense of its inseparability from the seriality of experience itself, as if the unity or individuality of oneâs own being cannot but mark itself indexically across serially salient points of awareness, and, vice versa, as if our integrity, the unity of oneself, were somehow inseparable from this indicating of unities, one after another. Thus, in the case of the random or coincidental series, say a sequence of stars, there remains, despite the evident dependency upon seeing them as a series, the fact of their seriality being objectively or phenomenally there to notice. And in the case of the most irrefutable, observation-independent series, say, the set of natural numbers, there always remains, despite the awareness of their formal independence from oneâs observing or counting them, the fact that one must imaginatively âfill them inâ, projecting the integers to infinity, in order to grasp the set. The former, a presence of seriality where no regular series is there, pertains to the quantity of quality, in the positive sense of a âsurplusâ magnitude of integrity, the intensive presence of much and of many qualities which make for more seriality than there are series. The latter, an inherent absence of seriality where a regular series is there, in the negative sense of a serialityâs lack of itself or auto-ellipsis, pertains to the quality of quantity, in the sense of a âdeficientâ kind of integrity, the absence of the substantiality proper to its magnitude and number as abstractions which ânever arriveâ or always fail to capture what they measure. Accordingly, we have, on the one hand, the putative âlaw of the seriesâ, the theory put forth by Paul Kammerer, according to which reoccurring forms and events typically labelled as âcoincidencesâ are thought to be expressions of a deeper underlying force of attraction or affinity, âsomething like a transcendental precondition of all forms of regularity and coherenceâ ( ). And on the other hand, we have Wittgensteinâs ârule-following paradoxâ, according to which all signs, however clearly they appear to demonstrate that something follows, are suspiciously in need of oneâs following or deciding them ( ). Whether we are dealing with a haphazard series of points connected âonlyâ by our connecting them or a series of unmistakable signs making âtotalâ sense, there remains the intriguing synthetic phenomenon of seriality, the being-serial of oneself and the thing, as if everything were held together by an endless spark leaping across the omnipresent gap between the two. Correlatively, we may say that between any two elements of a series, between this and that, there is not only nothing, but everything, just as in all perception, âSynaesthetic perception is the rule [la rĂšgle]â ( ). |
9 | ( ) translation modified to express literal sense of the verb. On the being-question, see ( ; ). |
10 | ). |
11 | as suchâbeing that is one with non-beingâthus coincides completely with qualityânon-being that is one with being; there is no sharp difference between them. Dasein, therefore, is not to be thought of as the âsubjectâ that âhasâ qualities but is distinct from them; on the contrary, Dasein is one withâindeed, identical toâquality itself: as Hegel puts it in the Encyclopaedia Logic, âquality is, in general, the determinacy that is immediate, identical with beingâ (EL 146/195 [ § 90 A]). Being is determinate, therefore, insofar as it is qualitative; or, to put it another way, quality is what makes being determinateâ ( ). |
12 | ( ). |
13 | , 124. |
14 | II, d.3, n.251, quoted in ( )). |
15 | ; individuality is not dissolved but established at the highest level; all things as individuals participate immediately in divinity, in a way that transcends the hierarchical levels of beingâ ( ). Cf. âWhen the soul comes out of the ego-shell and enters into the infinite life of God, its limited individuality is replaced by unlimited individuality. The soul knows that it is God-conscious and thus preserves its individuality. The important point is that individuality is not entirely extinguished, but it is retained in the spiritualised formâ ( ). |
16 | , 1001A, in The Complete Works ( ). |
17 | , II.3. Fraser comments: âthe serial entities [i.e., the various grades of soul] do not share any community of essenceâthey are not synonyms. What is common between the prior and the posterior entities is just their position relative to one another in the series; they cannot, therefore, be regarded as equal and co-ordinate species of a common genusâ ( ). For Young, to embrace the âcollective otherness of serialized existenceâ, in which âa person not only experiences others but also himself as an Other, that is, as an anonymous someoneâ, is crucial, as it âallows us to see women as a collective without identifying common attributes that all women have or implying that all women have a common identityâ ( ). While seriality in Sartreâs view seems to constitute a deficient and superficial form of sociality, its own serial relation to group formation reveals the fundamentality of the series as the process of âconstant incarnationsâ governing the arising and dissolution of social forms: âgroups are born of series and often end up by serializing themselves in turn ⊠[what] matters to us is to display the transition from series to groups and from groups to series as constant incarnations of our practical multiplicityâ ( ). Kathleen M. Gough ( ) emphasizes the open, relational, and educational dynamic of seriality: âThinking in a series is always about thinking in multiples. You are never solo, never alone, you are always in relationâ (p. 13). Seriality is thus the more authentically democratic form, that which saves individuality from the pressurized collective ego of the political group: âOnce of the growth of the party becomes a criterion of goodness, it follows inevitably that the party will exert a collective pressure upon peopleâs minds ⊠Political parties are organizations that are publicly and officially designed for the purpose of killing in all souls the sense of truth and justiceâ ( ). Cf. âWhat the State cannot tolerate in any way, however, is that the singularities form a community without affirming an identity, that humans co-belong without any representable condition of belongingâ ( ). |
18 | |
19 | , 30. |
20 | , 697A, in Complete Works, 73. |
21 | , 86. |
22 | ( ). |
23 | ). âIn truth, the very notion of the âaimsâ of public policy is shaped in a deep way by the dictates of quantification. We donât quantify because we are utilitarians. We are utilitarians because we quantifyâ ( ). âThe âin order toâ has become the content of the âfor the sake ofâ; in other words, utility established as meaning generates meaninglessnessâ ( ). âThe weakness of humanismâs claim consists in dogmatically imagining not only that man can hold himself up as his own measure and end (so that man is enough for man), but above all that he can do this because he comprehends what man is, when on the contrary nothing threatens man more than any such alleged comprehension of his humanity. For every de-finition imposes on the human being a finite essence, following from which it always becomes possible to delimit what deserves to remain human from what no longer doesâ (Marion, âMihi magna quaestio factus sumâ, 14). |
24 | ). On individuation and/as stupidity, see ( ; ). |
25 | ). |
26 | ). In other words, mathematics is haunted to infinity by its own indifference toward actual entities: âMathematics, like dialectics, is an organ of the inner higher intelligence; in practice it is an art, like oratory. Nothing is of value to them both except form: content is a matter of indifference. Mathematics may be calculating pennies or guineas, rhetoric defending truth or falsehood, itâs all the same to both of themâ (#605). Henri Bortoft ( ) explains how Goetheâs approach relates to the distinction between primary (quantifiable) and secondary (non-quantifiable) qualities: âGoethe gives attention to the phenomena ⊠so that he begins to experience their belonging together ⊠and thereby to see how they mutually explain each other. Such a holistic explanation is an intrinsic explanation, in contrast to the extrinsic explanation whereby phenomena are explained in terms of something other than themselvesâwhich is conceived to be âbeyondâ or âbehindâ the phenomena, i.e., separate from the phenomena in some way. Extrinsic explanation is the mode of explanation typical of theory-based science. But through attention to the concrete, i.e., to the phenomena as such, we begin to encounter the qualities of the phenomena without any concern for their supposed ontological status as dictated by a theory (i.e., whether they are secondary qualities). Attention to the phenomena brings us into contact with quality, not quantity. The latter is in fact reached by abstracting from the phenomena, which entails standing back from the phenomena to produce a head-orientated science (to use Goetheâs phrase) instead of participating in the phenomena through the sensesâ (p. 214). |
27 | ). He describes the relation between rationalism, materialism, and descent into uniformity as follows: âAs soon as it has lost all effective communication with the supra-individual intellect, reason cannot but tend more and more toward the lowest level, toward the inferior pole of existence, plunging ever more deeply into âmaterialityâ; as this tendency grows, it gradually loses hold of the very idea of truth, and arrives at the point of seeking no goal other than that of making things as easy as possible for its own limited comprehension, and in this it finds an immediate satisfaction in the very fact that its own downward tendency leads it in the direction of the simplification and uniformization of all things; it submits all the more readily and speedily to this tendency because the results of this submission conform to its desires, and its ever more rapid descent cannot fail to lead at last to what has been called the âreign of quantityââ (94â95). |
28 | ) âKula concludes that in the preindustrial world, the qualitative was always dominant over the quantitative. The regime of discretion and negotiation clearly favored local interests over central powers, as was universally recognized. The privileging of judgment over objectivity in measures was only the tip of the iceberg. Every region, sometimes every village, had its own measuresâ ( ). |
29 | ( ). |
30 | , 122. |
31 | |
32 | ). |
33 | , I.171, italics altered. Taurekâs controversial answer to the trolley problem (give all individuals an equal chance at survival by flipping a coin), regardless of its practicality, exposes the truth of this paradox: âI cannot see how or why the mere addition of numbers should change anything ⊠The numbers, in themselves, simply do not count for me. I think they should not count for any of usâ ( ). |
34 | ). |
35 | world in the sense of a single total sum of all things to be an ironic shadow of homo numerans: âthe postulated domain of unified total overall reality corresponds to the idea of unrestricted quantificationâ ( ). The sense of this irony needs clarification. Given that everything as it appears to us is precisely not a totality, but more of an unbounded and open-ended experiential expanse involving endless individualized co-witnesses with no-less-weird inner and outer worlds, our sense of there being a world, a single totality, is absurd. Now irony, as explained by Kierkegaard, represents the negative, self-suspending freedom of a subject absolutely isolated or alienated from objective reality: âIt is not this or that phenomenon but the totality of existence that it contemplates sub specie ironiae [under the aspect of irony]. To this extent we see the correctness of Hegelâs view of irony as infinite absolute negativity ⊠In irony, the subject continually wants to get outside the object, and he achieves this by realizing at every moment that the object has no realityâ ( ). Per Kierkegaardâs pun, irony is a kind of bad eternity, comparable to Hegelâs bad infinity, which never stops counting itself. So, irony contemplates negatively what unrestricted quantification contemplates positively (i.e., everything as a sum), exploding the additive mass of all things into an endlessly revisable space of possibilities: âIn irony, the subject is negatively free ⊠and as such is suspended, because there is nothing that holds him. But this very freedom, this suspension, gives the ironist a certain enthusiasm, because he becomes intoxicated, so to speak, in the infinity of possibilities, and if he needs any consolation for everything that is destroyed, he can have recourse to the enormous reserve fund of possibilityâ ( ). Correlatively, unrestricted quantification, that which adds everything up into the totality of a world, may be grasped as a kind of anti-irony which produces for the subject not negative freedom but positive imprisonment, a pseudo-sense of being securely confined in a countable whole. I say âpseudoâ both because the whole is never really countable and because the aim of adding it all up is also a way of existing or standing outside the count, discounting the presence of the counter, being virtually beyond the totality, such that quantificationâs anti-irony is also itself ironic, a type of negative (or even nihilistic) freedomâthere is a world and I have counted it. Consider, for example, how, even at the physical level, the radically unknown is included in our calculation of a universe composed of 95% dark matter, as if we could actually, from some vantage point, see and tally the totality, the 100% beneath, above, and inside our feet. Of course, neither ironyâs suspension nor quantificationâs fixity suffices the infinite flow of a heartâs desire, which wants both the unlimited play of positive freedom and the absolute safety of negative imprisonment, the âprisonless prisonâ of eternal security, in the sense of the absence of an outside, which music, neither inside nor outside the world, gives an experience of. What we want, then, is a kind of paradisical, neo-medieval irony, in the sense of a humble, unnihilistic, non-isolating self-suspension harmonizable with subjectivity/objectivity, recalling that âmedieval irony stemmed from manâs recognition of his place in creation; it was not at all a challenge to God but rather an acceptance of manâs own inadequacy, bearing out Kenneth Burkeâs point that âhumility is the proper partner of ironyââ ( ). In other words, it would be some decent species of sincere irony, a homely double suspension of self and totality that unveils truth. For neither imposing our image upon nor forever hiding from reality are happy or actual options. |
36 | , dir. Louis van Gasteren (1997), . (accessed on 5 June 2024). |
37 | , dir. Shaunak Sen (2022), which explores interconnectedness in relation to the meaning of breath: âLife itself is kinship. We are all a community of air. One shouldnât differentiate between all that breathesâ. Cf., âThe ordinary man never loses faith. He is as one who climbs up a mountain a certain distance and, experiencing cold and difficulty of breathing, returns to the foot of the mountain. But the scientific mind goes on up the mountain until its heart freezes and diesâ (Meher Baba, Everything and the Nothing, 55â6, my emphasis). We may say that breath is literally symbolic of spirit, a confluence of air and life that always speaks to the openness of beings to each other via a shared embodiment belonging to the extra-materiality of nature, its causal non-closure: âNature goes beyond the universe. It is that which we attempt to know through measurement, but whose complexity always makes it more than we think we know at any timeâ ( ). Correlatively, Allen argues for the need to think breath in political ecology: âAttending to breath brings previously considered immaterialities (elements, lungs, dust, emotions, affects, atmospheres and breath itself) into sharp focus with implications for how environmental subjectivities and politics come into being and how embodiment figures through these encountersâ ( ). Similarly, Gaard argues for the critical importance of âairstoriesâ in the contemporary world: âIn an era of anthropogenic climate change, extinctions, migrations, pandemics, refugees and smog, recuperating, and sharing airstories offers a timely approach toward illuminating the interbeing and intra-action of all vital matter, and the life that is continuous, coexistent, and present in every breathâ ( ). To consider the spiritual and environmental nature of breath promises a path beyond the overheated âglobal civilization greenhouseâ wherein human beings, haunted by the scientistic worldview of humankind as âtowered above on all side by monstrous exteriorities that breathe on it with stellar coldness and extra-human complexityâ, are âdriven to limit themselves to small, malicious arithmetic unitsâ, a way into a more livable, breathable sphere or âimmune-systemically effective spaceâ for âecstatic beings that are operated upon by the outsideâ ( ). |
38 | , 77. |
39 | ). |
40 | ). As Aquinas explains, pleasure perfects operation both as end and as agent, as an as-it-were extra end, a supplementary good added to the good of the action, and as an as-it-were extra agent, an instrumental helper in the actionâs completionââas-it-wereâ because the distinction is essentially logical rather than actual. âPleasure perfects operation in two ways. First, as an end: not indeed according as an end is that on âaccount of which a thing isâ; but according as every good which is added to a thing and completes it, can be called its end. And in this sense the Philosopher says (Ethic. x, 4) that âpleasure perfects operation ⊠as some end added to itâ: that is to say, inasmuch as to this good, which is operation, there is added another good, which is pleasure, denoting the repose of the appetite in a good that is presupposed. Secondly, as agent; not indeed directly, for the Philosopher says (Ethic. x, 4) that âpleasure perfects operation, not as a physician makes a man healthy, but as health does: but it does so indirectly; inasmuch as the agent, through taking pleasure in his action, is more eagerly intent on it, and carries it out with greater care. And in this sense it is said in Ethic. x, 5 that âpleasures increase their appropriate activities, and hinder those that are not appropriateâ (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-1.33.4, (accessed on 5 June 2024)). The question of pleasureâs activity and activityâs pleasure is existential, connected to a deferrable ambivalence at the core of lifeâs movement, or, further, to the present moment as displacement of the ambivalent ordering of life and pleasure: âBut whether we choose life for the sake of pleasure or pleasure for the sake of life is a question we may dismiss for the presentâ (Aristotle, Ethics, 10.4). This is clarified by Coomaraswamy, drawing on Bonaventure, in relation to the beauty of the opportune: âWhat is true of factibilia [things to be made] is true in the same way of agibilia [actions to be done]; a man does not perform a particular good deed for the sake of its beauty, for any good deed will be beautiful in effect, but he does precisely that good deed which the occasion requires, in relation to which occasion some other good deed would be inappropriate (ineptum), and therefore awkward or ugly. In the same way the work of art is always occasional, and if not opportune, is superfluousâ ( ). |
41 | ]â (De Musica, I.2, (accessed on 5 June 2024)). |
42 | âan apodictic denial of the reality of the intelligible realm, the specious and at times dangerous conclusions reached by those who held an exclusively quantitative worldviewâfor example, the proclivity to deracinate the process of intellectual intuition in metaphysics and the results thereby achieved from the ârespectable and relevantâ academic milieu. Quantity, in the Traditional view, is a complement to quality, not an irreconcilable antithesisÍŸ under the right conditions the complexio oppositorum becomes a coincidentia oppositorumâ ( ). |
43 | , 46). |
44 | ). |
45 | , III.55. |
46 | , II.92. |
47 | knowledge, fashioning it as knowledge about an object, as we say, âto gather the facts aboutâ something. This occludes the appreciative dimension of knowing, as hermeneutic appreciation of the thing itself, attending to it with understanding as an inherent reality, a being saturated with its own necessity. As Nietzsche ways, âI want to learn more and more how to see what is necessary in things as what is beautiful in themâthus I will be one of those who make things beautifulâ ( ). Fundamentally, this imperative is about insisting on a science which unites rather than separates subjects. Cf. âIn non-duality there is ⊠knowledge and appreciation of things as they areâ ( ). |
48 | (1984), in which the paradox of acting inside the tomb of histrio-cinematic observation is investigated. Where the real is confounded with a screenic world-picture and oneself a character, there would seem to be no space for movement and no one who can know. |
49 | ). |
50 | ). |
51 | colonial land relationsâ ( ). As Liboiron explains, âthe methodological question is: how do I get to a place where these relations are properly scientific, rather than questions that fall outside of science, the same way ethics sections are tacked on at the end of a science textbook? How do I, as a scientist, make alterlives and good Land relations integral to dominant scientific practice?â (20). |
52 | ). |
53 | ( ). GagnĂ© locates this development at the confluence of war and pandemicâspecifically mustering and memorial practicesâand the emergence of the modern fact, an epistemological unit the peculiar self-effacing emergence of which âwas central to creating, then sustaining, the illusion that numbers are somehow epistemologically different from figurative language, that the former are somehow value-free whereas the excesses of the latter disqualify it from all but the most recreational or idealist knowledge-producing projectsâ ( ). Coupled with the rise of printed news bulletin and the addition of numbers to war monuments after 1500, âthe meaning of numbersâ was carried âbeyond the instrumentality of quantificationâ, becoming, as GagnĂ© states in an apt mercantile metaphor, âcarriers of commemorative freight in extending a cult of memoryâ (794). |
54 | ). |
55 | is sitting in the chair, but in fact it is the body which is sitting in the chair. The belief that the soul is sitting in the chair is due to identification with the physical body. In the same way a man believes that he is thinking, but in fact it is the mind which is thinking. The belief that the soul is thinking is due to identification with the mind. It is the mind which thinks and the body which sits. The soul is neither engaged in thinking nor in any other physical actionsâ ( ). This is equivalent to saying that the spontaneous, uncaused cause of action does not itself act, just the ceaseless present, as the standing now (nunc stans), does not move. Priest writes, âthe soul is an initiator. It causes actions but is not caused to cause those actions. At the unconditioned level it is disclosed both that the soul is the cause of its own actions and that there is always the possibility of not acting, or acting otherwise, which is to say the soul has free willâ ( ). That one does not fully realize and enjoy this spontaneous freedom is due to the mindâs being conditioned by the impressions (sanskaras) of experience: âThe mind is capable of genuine freedom and spontaneity of action only when it is completely free from sanskaric ties and interestsâ ( ). |
56 | , 14. |
57 | ). |
58 | , 189. |
59 | , 94). |
60 | . The mind has a place in practical life, but its role begins after the heart has had its sayâ ( ). Cf., âthe natural sciences are unsuitable for ascertaining moral facts using measuring procedures or mathematical theorizing. This in no way means that there are no moral facts, simply that there is a great deal that cannot be scientifically explored or technologically controlledâ ( ). |
61 | ( ). Levine diagnoses qualophobia as fear of âdisrespect for the authority and objectivity of scienceâ and a ârush to solve the mind-body problemâ, which causes qualophobes âto deny the undeniableâ (125). Similarly, fear of either the face of reality or God may be seen as the simultaneous fear of seeing oneself, fear of seeing others, and fear of the faceless: âEach face, then, that can look upon Thy face beholdeth naught other or differing from itself, because it beholdeth its own true type ⊠In like manner, if a lion were to attribute a face unto Thee, he would think of it as a lionâs; an ox, as an oxâs, and an eagle, as an eagleâs ⊠In all faces is seen the Face of faces, veiled, and in a riddle; howbeit unveiled it is not seen until âŠâ. ( ). |
62 | |
63 | ) of use and exchange; rather, they open to us the original place solely from which the experience of measurable external space becomes possible. They are therefore held and comprehended from the outset in the topos outopos (placeless place, no-place place) in which our experience of being-in-the-world is situated. The question âwhere is the thing?â is inseparable from the question âwhere is the human?ââ ( ). |
64 | , 179. |
65 | , 86. |
66 | ) Cf. âEvery being questions. Just as we question every being, every being questions us. Every questioning is being questioned. In other words, nothing lies beyond questioning. The questioning of questioning is the questioning of all questioning. It is the mother of questioning. It is a generating process, the process of bring forth into the open, and at the same time a process of conserving the bringing forth into the openâ ( ). On mysticism as âa pure science of the question, not irrational experience, but the superrational experience of experience, the conscious being of question itself, the question that one isâ, see ( ). |
67 | ( ). |
68 | ). |
69 | ). As conscience stands above the judgment of others, questioning stands apart from opinion: âPlato shows in an unforgettable way where the difficulty lies in knowing what one does not know. It is the power of opinion against which it is so hard to obtain an admission of ignorance. It is opinion that suppresses questions. Opinion has a curious tendency to propagate itself. It would always like to be the general opinion, just as the word that the Greeks have for opinion, doxa, also means the decision made by the majority in the council assemblyâ ( ). |
70 | ( ), italics altered, quoting, ( ). |
71 | , 2133). |
72 | , 25. |
73 | ). |
74 | , I.57. |
75 | determinateness, is qualityâsomething totally simple, immediate. Determinateness in general is the more universal which, further determined, can be something quantitative as well. On account of this simplicity, there is nothing further to say about quality as suchâ ( ). |
76 | , II.192. |
77 | ). For an attempt to think how digital networks might be better tuned to the nature of learning, see ( ). Given that âsomething is clearly wrong in the technical world that we have built for ourselvesâ and that âour abstractions have increased the gap between the way nature works and the way people thinkâ (39), the authors argue for the possibility of improving digital networks by restoring network theory to âthe micro-foundations of networks in cellular dynamicsâ (40). While they do not consider the place of questioning in life process as such, the argument does hinge on bio-hermeneutic analogies between cell function and learning, specifically the way cells develop via anticipatory self-modelling and how holes or zero totalities operate in biological processes, both of which are definitive of the nature of questioning (47). |
78 | ). |
79 | ). |
80 | , I.169â70. |
81 | , 20, my italics. |
82 | , I.35. |
83 | , I.171. |
84 | ). See also Elisabeth Roudinescoâs critique of identity politics which proposes âa possible world in which everyone can adhere to the principle according to which âI am myself, thatâs all there is to it,â without denying the diversity of human communities or essentializing either universality or difference. âNeither too close nor too far apart,â as Claude LĂ©vi-Strauss was wont to sayâ ( ). The connection between totality and the affective or heart-centric core of thinking (and therefore authentic identity) is articulated by Han in contradistinction to so-called artificial intelligence: âThinking sets out from a totality that precedes concepts, ideas and information. It moves in a âfield of experienceâ before it turns toward the individual objects and facts in that field. Being in its totality, which is the concern of thinking, is disclosed first of all in an affective medium ⊠the world as a totality is pre-reflexively disclosed to humans ⊠Artificial intelligence may compute very quickly, but it lacks spirit ⊠Artificial intelligence is without heart. Heartfelt thinking measures and feels spaces before it works on conceptsâ ( ). |
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Masciandaro, N. Whoever I Am: On the Quality of Life. Religions 2024 , 15 , 735. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15060735
Masciandaro N. Whoever I Am: On the Quality of Life. Religions . 2024; 15(6):735. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15060735
Masciandaro, Nicola. 2024. "Whoever I Am: On the Quality of Life" Religions 15, no. 6: 735. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15060735
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A good introduction paragraph is an essential part of any academic essay . It sets up your argument and tells the reader what to expect.
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The invention of Braille was a major turning point in the history of disability. The writing system of raised dots used by visually impaired people was developed by Louis Braille in nineteenth-century France. In a society that did not value disabled people in general, blindness was particularly stigmatized, and lack of access to reading and writing was a significant barrier to social participation. The idea of tactile reading was not entirely new, but existing methods based on sighted systems were difficult to learn and use. As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness. This essay begins by discussing the situation of blind people in nineteenth-century Europe. It then describes the invention of Braille and the gradual process of its acceptance within blind education. Subsequently, it explores the wide-ranging effects of this invention on blind people’s social and cultural lives.
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Take a look at these examples of weak hooks and learn how to improve them.
The first sentence is a dry fact; the second sentence is more interesting, making a bold claim about exactly why the topic is important.
Avoid using a dictionary definition as your hook, especially if it’s an obvious term that everyone knows. The improved example here is still broad, but it gives us a much clearer sense of what the essay will be about.
Instead of just stating a fact that the reader already knows, the improved hook here tells us about the mainstream interpretation of the book, implying that this essay will offer a different interpretation.
Next, give your reader the context they need to understand your topic and argument. Depending on the subject of your essay, this might include:
The information here should be broad but clearly focused and relevant to your argument. Donât give too much detailâyou can mention points that you will return to later, but save your evidence and interpretation for the main body of the essay.
How much space you need for background depends on your topic and the scope of your essay. In our Braille example, we take a few sentences to introduce the topic and sketch the social context that the essay will address:
Now it’s time to narrow your focus and show exactly what you want to say about the topic. This is your thesis statement âa sentence or two that sums up your overall argument.
This is the most important part of your introduction. AÂ good thesis isn’t just a statement of fact, but a claim that requires evidence and explanation.
The goal is to clearly convey your own position in a debate or your central point about a topic.
Particularly in longer essays, it’s helpful to end the introduction by signposting what will be covered in each part. Keep it concise and give your reader a clear sense of the direction your argument will take.
As you research and write, your argument might change focus or direction as you learn more.
For this reason, itâs often a good idea to wait until later in the writing process before you write the introduction paragraphâit can even be the very last thing you write.
When you’ve finished writing the essay body and conclusion , you should return to the introduction and check that it matches the content of the essay.
It’s especially important to make sure your thesis statement accurately represents what you do in the essay. If your argument has gone in a different direction than planned, tweak your thesis statement to match what you actually say.
To polish your writing, you can use something like a paraphrasing tool .
You can use the checklist below to make sure your introduction does everything it’s supposed to.
My first sentence is engaging and relevant.
I have introduced the topic with necessary background information.
I have defined any important terms.
My thesis statement clearly presents my main point or argument.
Everything in the introduction is relevant to the main body of the essay.
You have a strong introduction - now make sure the rest of your essay is just as good.
This introduction to an argumentative essay sets up the debate about the internet and education, and then clearly states the position the essay will argue for.
The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts is on the rise, and its role in learning is hotly debated. For many teachers who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its critical benefits for students and educatorsâas a uniquely comprehensive and accessible information source; a means of exposure to and engagement with different perspectives; and a highly flexible learning environment.
This introduction to a short expository essay leads into the topic (the invention of the printing press) and states the main point the essay will explain (the effect of this invention on European society).
In many ways, the invention of the printing press marked the end of the Middle Ages. The medieval period in Europe is often remembered as a time of intellectual and political stagnation. Prior to the Renaissance, the average person had very limited access to books and was unlikely to be literate. The invention of the printing press in the 15th century allowed for much less restricted circulation of information in Europe, paving the way for the Reformation.
This introduction to a literary analysis essay , about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein , starts by describing a simplistic popular view of the story, and then states how the author will give a more complex analysis of the text’s literary devices.
Mary Shelleyâs Frankenstein is often read as a crude cautionary tale. Arguably the first science fiction novel, its plot can be read as a warning about the dangers of scientific advancement unrestrained by ethical considerations. In this reading, and in popular culture representations of the character as a “mad scientist”, Victor Frankenstein represents the callous, arrogant ambition of modern science. However, far from providing a stable image of the character, Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to gradually transform our impression of Frankenstein, portraying him in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creatureâs narrative Frankenstein begins to resembleâeven in his own tellingâthe thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as.
If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!
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Your essay introduction should include three main things, in this order:
The length of each part depends on the length and complexity of your essay .
The “hook” is the first sentence of your essay introduction . It should lead the reader into your essay, giving a sense of why it’s interesting.
To write a good hook, avoid overly broad statements or long, dense sentences. Try to start with something clear, concise and catchy that will spark your reader’s curiosity.
A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.
The thesis statement is essential in any academic essay or research paper for two main reasons:
Without a clear thesis statement, an essay can end up rambling and unfocused, leaving your reader unsure of exactly what you want to say.
The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement , a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas.
The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ideas.
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The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement, a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas. The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ...
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Table of contents. Step 1: Hook your reader. Step 2: Give background information. Step 3: Present your thesis statement. Step 4: Map your essay's structure. Step 5: Check and revise. More examples of essay introductions. Other interesting articles. Frequently asked questions about the essay introduction.