Obviously I have much less information about your situation than you, but it seems to me that you’re not in the right here, and you should be less adversarial.
E.g.:
Yesterday, a teacher was explaining the composition of a literary essay, and she claimed that an essay writer isn’t required to provide justification for their claims. I asked, “Then why should I believe anything the essay says?” and she replied, “You’re free to decide whether you believe it or not,” and I was just too exhausted from last week to explain that’s not how beliefs should work.
But an essay writer isn’t required to provide justification for their claims. For example, your first sentence is a claim that you have started studying creative writing full time. Have you justified this to me (either in some unattainable absolute sense, or even just beyond reasonable doubt)? No. Should you? Also no.
When you run into an absurd claim like “An essay writer isn’t required to provide justifications for their claims,” you should think seriously about how it might be true. I think you’re only going to be satisfied by understanding communication on a more detailed level than your professors do, but you should do that, not just reject what they say.
Back to the object level: Why should I believe you when you claim that you’ve started studying creative writing? I do believe you, of course—but practically speaking, why do I do that? Try to figure out an answer that generalizes by being based on the practicalities of how humans communicate and infer things about the world. And then apply that answer back to what sort of evidence an essay writer needs to provide to their audience to do their job well.
I also think you’re trying to use arguments in ways that won’t work. Robert Nozick makes some clever comments about arguments in best part of his book Philosophical Explanations (the introduction), something like: The goal of most philosophers seems to be to find arguments so compelling, that if a person were to disagree with the conclusion after reading the argument, their head would explode.
Longer quote:
The terminology of philosophical art is coercive: arguments are powerful and best when they are knockdown, arguments force you to a conclusion, if you believe the premises you have to or must believe the conclusion, some arguments do not carry much punch, and so forth. A philosophical argument is an attempt to get someone to believe something, whether he wants to believe it or not. A successful philosophical argument, a strong argument, forces someone to a belief.
Though philosophy is carried on as a coercive activity, the penalty philosophers wield is, after all, rather weak. If the other person is willing to bear the label of “irrational” or “having the worse arguments,” he can skip away happily maintaining his previous belief. He will be trailed, of course, by the philosopher furiously hurling philosophical imprecations: “What do you mean, you’re willing to be irrational? You shouldn’t be irrational because...” And although the philosopher is embarrassed by his inability to complete this sentence in a noncircular fashion—he can only produce reasons for accepting reasons—still, he is unwilling to let his adversary go.
Wouldn’t it be better if philosophical arguments left the person no possible answer at all, reducing him to impotent silence? Even then, he might sit there silently, smiling, Buddhalike. Perhaps philosophers need arguments so powerful they set up reverberations in the brain: if the person refuses to accept the conclusion, he dies. How’s that for a powerful argument. Yet, as with other physical threats (“your money or your life”), he can choose defiance. A “perfect” philosophical argument would leave no choice.
But the point of that chapter is that such arguments don’t exist. They’re an oversimplification of how arguments work. A fiction. Much like an essay, an argument with a professor is an exercise in communication, not in structuring a coercive argument.
So if nothing else, I think taking a more learning-oriented approach towards your professors might make you more likely to be able to convince them of things :)
Obviously I have much less information about your situation than you, but it seems to me that you’re not in the right here, and you should be less adversarial.
E.g.:
But an essay writer isn’t required to provide justification for their claims. For example, your first sentence is a claim that you have started studying creative writing full time. Have you justified this to me (either in some unattainable absolute sense, or even just beyond reasonable doubt)? No. Should you? Also no.
When you run into an absurd claim like “An essay writer isn’t required to provide justifications for their claims,” you should think seriously about how it might be true. I think you’re only going to be satisfied by understanding communication on a more detailed level than your professors do, but you should do that, not just reject what they say.
Back to the object level: Why should I believe you when you claim that you’ve started studying creative writing? I do believe you, of course—but practically speaking, why do I do that? Try to figure out an answer that generalizes by being based on the practicalities of how humans communicate and infer things about the world. And then apply that answer back to what sort of evidence an essay writer needs to provide to their audience to do their job well.
I also think you’re trying to use arguments in ways that won’t work. Robert Nozick makes some clever comments about arguments in best part of his book Philosophical Explanations (the introduction), something like: The goal of most philosophers seems to be to find arguments so compelling, that if a person were to disagree with the conclusion after reading the argument, their head would explode.
Longer quote:
But the point of that chapter is that such arguments don’t exist. They’re an oversimplification of how arguments work. A fiction. Much like an essay, an argument with a professor is an exercise in communication, not in structuring a coercive argument.
So if nothing else, I think taking a more learning-oriented approach towards your professors might make you more likely to be able to convince them of things :)