Dear Aspirant,

I hope you have been doing well.

I am glad to see a number of new faces here. If this is your first Kaleidoscope mail, Welcome Onboard!!

In today's post, I will share my thoughts about approaching the Philosophical essays in the UPSC exam.

As you read, I want you to pause and actually ask yourself if you find what I say relevant to your experience.

Four Components to Enrich Your Philosophical Essay

In recent years, one trend that has been sustained in the UPSC mains exam is the philosophical questions in the essay paper. While most aspirants prepare for thematic essay topics such as Education, S&T, Democracy, Environment etc they struggle with philosophical essays because:

1. There is no fixed set of topics for them.

2. They are unaware of how to approach these essays.

3. The standard Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental (PESTLE) framework may not be suitable.

In this scenario, what is the alternative way to approach philosophical essays? Let us look at four simple components that can enrich your essays.

#1: Leverage Your Ethics knowledge

There is a huge overlap in the syllabus of GS-4 and the topics that can be asked for philosophical essays. For example the concepts of:

• Deontology Vs Teleology

• John Rawl's theory of Justice

• Ideas of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle

can be quoted to either support or disagree with a perspective. Adding these concepts brings a lot of rigour to your arguments.

#2: Make Your Own Collection of Quotes

Quotes can create that 'Aha' moment in your essay.

But that does not happen if you write the quotes that everyone else uses. If the topic is about Environment, invariably candidates mention Gandhi's quote

In the initial stages, it is fine. But for philosophical essays, search for quotes by Stoics like Seneca, Socrates or even Indian saints and philosophers like Vivekananda, Ramana Maharshi etc.

Here is a collection of quotes shared by Anudeep Durishetty.

#3: Use Anecdotes to Catch the Attention of the Reader

Every time I come across an interesting anecdote, I make a separate note of it. I also try to use these in the essays I practice. This helps me to recall them in the actual exam.

Recently you might have heard about the below anecdote.

This could have been used in the essay topic - "Philosophy of wantlessness is Utopian, while materialism is a chimaera." (UPSC 2021)

#4: Bring in the Counter Argument

In many of the essays that I have corrected, fellow aspirants tend to miss out on the counter-argument.

In simple words, the counter-argument is an alternate perspective to the topic given. This might take some practice to articulate in the exam. I believe that those who add this to their philosophical essays show their ability to think in different dimensions.

In the essay, "Hand that rocks the cradle rules the world", I had given a counter-argument that in some situations, the hand that rocks the cradle, can lead to failures.

Thus a philosophical essay is a combination of these four components. In the next philosophical essay that you read or write, check for yourself the presence or absence of these components.

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I hope this article helped you to get an understanding of enriching your philosophical essays. I am sure that some of you might have a lot more interesting ideas to approach these essays.

I would love to hear your approach.

Wishing you all the best for the rest of the week!

See you next week.

Regards,

Satya