Philosophy Writing Guide

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Composing the Paper

Examples of Thesis Statements from Professional Papers

1. From M.B. Foster, "The Christian Doctrine of Creation and the Rise of Modern Science," Mind n.s. vol. 43, issue 172 (Oct. 1934): 446-468, page 448:

The general question arises: What is the source of the un-Greek elements which were imported into philosophy by the post-Reformation philosophers, and which constitute the modernity of modern philosophy? And the particular question - which is merely part of the general question repeated: What is the source of those un-Greek elements in the modern theory of nature by which the peculiar character of the modern science of nature was to be determined? The answer to the first question is: The Christian revelation, and the answer to the second: The Christian doctrine of creation. The main object of this article is limited to establishing the answer to the particular question, but I will preface the attempt by a few remarks upon the general one.

Notes: This is the fourth paragraph of Foster's article; the first three gave some introductory background material. The article is devoted to arguing that the answer Foster has proposed to his main question is correct. That is, he is not beginning from the assumption that his answer is correct; he is introducing this answer as a thesis that he will argue to establish.

2. From Frank M. Kirkland, "The Problem of the Color Line: Normative or Empirical, Evolving or Non-Evolving," Philosophia Africana vol. 7, no.1 (March 2004): 57-82, page 60:

So if Du Bois's remark is to serve as a leitmotif correctly and suitably, it must be recognized, I believe, for the normative weight it carries as well. I shall argue that the normative weight of Du Bois's remark gives import to the legacy of racial enslavement on African Americans' relation to modern experience. In that remark, Du Bois seeks to articulate the legacy and the self-conscious attachment of African Americans to it as a historical condition of modern experience, and that they serve as a historically authoritative presupposition of that experience - not as an indicator of historical phenomena or events within that experience. The remark - "The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line" - is then not simply empirically descriptive, but normatively prescriptive of the twentieth century, working as a historically enabling condition of it. This will involve showing briefly how and why the color line is connected to modern experience as well as showing how and why the color line as a social construction trumps all other social constructions.

Notes: The italics are in the original. The thesis is stated in its most general form in the second sentence, then clarified through the rest of the paragraph (and the following paragraph, which has not been included here). Again, the thesis is not presented as a presupposition, but rather stated as a claim to be explained and supported.