McTaggart’s The Nature of Existence

There are two tasks in reading any argument. First, figure out the structure of the argument — that is, which reasons support which conclusions (which perhaps are reasons used to support further reasons, etc). Second, evaluate the argument, deciding which basic premises are true (or likely to be true) and which inferences are strong. The first task is tough enough with McTaggart’s argument, so we’ll focus there.

1. To begin, what is the overarching conclusion of the paper? It will be easy to get lost in many of the details of the paper, but take the broadest perspective about what’s going on in the reading and use 4-7 sentences to outline the structure of the argument using standard form. The point is to see the overall structure of the paper so we can at least see how the big pieces fit together.

Standard form is where you put one sentence per line, drawing a line between the reasons and the conclusion inferred from those reasons. For example, standard form for a simple argument from evil is:

1. If God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good, He would minimize suffering as much as possible.

2. There is much suffering that is unnecessary.

3. Therefore, no all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good God exists.