However you approach it, do not neglect the structure. You should be able to fully articulate it to yourself and to your reader. Once you have a rough initial essay structure and a plan for further reading, make sure to attend an Essay Tutorial and get advice from your lecturer. Opportunities for this kind of feedback are provided in all courses. The paragraph is the chief building block of extended writing.
Journalism favours short paragraphs that convey information in a descending order.
This allows the reader to glean as much as they want to know before moving on. But such writing general regards itself as simply reporting undisputed facts. This kind of expository writing is not the right model for a philosophical essay. In academic writing, it is often helpful to identify a topic sentence or central idea that unifies the paragraph. This sentence need not come first.