WRIT1000 Assessment One: Project Proposal for 12345678

Field of interest

Philosophy of Science

A question, claim, or statement you would like to explore:

I would like to review John Stuart Mill’s A System of Logic (1843) and argue that his

principles of inductive reasoning were central to his burgeoning support of women’s

liberation. I hope to suggest that Mill was not a feminist because of his political commitment

to liberalism, but instead developed an entirely rational approach to feminism based on his

principles of enumerative induction.

A citation from an equivalent article/report/paper within your field of interest

Jennifer Ring, “Mill’s The Subjection of Women: The Methodological Limits of Liberal

Feminism,” The Review of Politics 47, no. 1 (January 1985): 27–44.

A description of what you hope your final piece of academic writing will be

I have chosen to write about the philosophy of science because I loved reading Thomas

Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and thought that attempting something similar

would be very rewarding. I read Kuhn’s book as part of my science degree, and I realised that

writing about science is more interesting to me than writing science itself. Science writing

tends to be jargon-filled and very narrow in its focus, and it also relies on a deep

understanding of mathematics that is beyond me. But Kuhn showed me that the philosophy of

science is a compelling field of study, and I want to use this assessment as a chance to try

something similar.

I have chosen Mill because I read The Subjection of Women (1869) and was impressed by

Mill’s logical argument for legal and social equality for men and women. While it is tempting

to think about Mill as a radical feminist, or to equate Mill’s liberalism with contemporary

liberalism, I believe that Mill’s beliefs were predominately logic-based, rather than political

or emotional. I think this is worth pursuing for a number of reasons. First, Mill is widely

considered to be the father of political liberalism, and much of what we see today in the guise

of liberalism—neoliberalism, libertarianism—is fundamentally different from the cool

rationality of Mill and his ilk. I am interested in going back to the roots of his rational

arguments in A System of Logic in order to find the ways that Mill laid the groundwork for

his political liberality.

[And so on and on]

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