Philosophy Editing and Proofreading Services

A paper spends nine pages demolishing a position. The position is stated in two sentences, in the paper's own vocabulary, without a quotation, and in a form its holder would not accept. Everything that follows is valid, and none of it touches the argument it was written against.

We edit what philosophers write — journal articles and monograph chapters, argumentative essays and critical replies, work in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and mind, history of philosophy, applied and practical ethics, interdisciplinary papers written for other fields, and theses, book proposals and grant applications. Our editors work on how the opposing argument is set out before it is attacked.

The reconstruction of an opponent's argument is where philosophical writing succeeds or wastes itself, and its failure is a position summarised rather than reconstructed. An objection is only worth reading if it applies to the argument as its holder actually makes it. We work through these so the target argument is set out as numbered premises with the conclusion it is said to support, since a position stated in prose can be attacked without either party knowing which step is in dispute; so the strongest available version is reconstructed rather than the most convenient, because an objection to a weak formulation persuades only those who already agree; so the opponent's own words are quoted where the interpretation is contested and the interpretation defended; so the objection is located at a specific premise or inference rather than delivered at the position as a whole, given that "this is unconvincing" is a report of the author's state of mind; so what the opponent could say in reply is stated and answered, as the reader will think of it; so the paper's own commitments are made explicit, since an argument that relies on an unstated assumption is vulnerable at exactly that point; and so the scope of what has been shown is stated at the end. Papers written this way get replies rather than silence.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including unpublished papers and work under review. We are editors rather than philosophers, and we offer no view on the soundness, validity or merits of any argument. What we can do is make the reconstruction do its job.