If you enjoy thinking rationally about nonempirical questions – if you enjoy doing philosophy – then chances are good that sooner or later you’ll want to read some of it. And after reading some material that’s written for students – textbooks or web sites, for instance – you’ll probably want to look at philosophy that’s written for other philosophers. Maybe you’ll pick up some classic writing by Plato, or Descartes, or Russell, for example, or maybe you’ll look at some contemporary writing in a philosophical journal. Before you do that, however, let’s talk a little about how to read philosophy, because some philosophical writing can be very hard to understand, and if you’re warned about that at the outset, and have some strategies to use when faced with a really tough writing, it won’t be quite so frustrating.
I like to think about reading
philosophy like cleaning a very dirty window. At first, before you read the
material, the window is so filthy that you can’t see through it at all. Reading
the material once is like going over the window with one washing. It gives you
a fuzzy overview of the general landscape outside. Each subsequent reading is a
like another washing of the window, presenting the landscape with increasing
clarity, until eventually you can see everything pretty well.
The important point to
remember is that we
should always be prepared to read difficult writings (or parts of them) multiple times. On each reading, however, there are some general
things for you to bear in mind.
§
We should be patient,
both with the author and with ourselves, if we don’t understand a reading as
well as we’d like to.
Not understanding a reading, or part of it, is absolutely
fine. Everybody, even professional philosophers find some pieces of
philosophy hard to follow, so if you’re confused by a certain writing, that
doesn’t mean that anything’s wrong with you. It doesn’t mean that there’s
anything wrong with the author, either. The author is probably presenting
some very precise and complex ideas and is doing his or her best to share these
ideas with you.
Often, what was unclear on our first reading of the
article will be much clearer the second time through, even when that’s
days, weeks, or months later and even when we haven’t consciously thought about
the material in the meantime.
And we should be prepared to take our time! Some
writing is denser than others and it’s not uncommon for a professional philosopher
to read very slowly.
§
We should do our best to
understand the words.
We should look up words that we don’t understand, and
if we are familiar with a word, we should remember that the author may
be defining her terms in particular ways, instead of relying on their everyday
meanings; consequently, we should be on the lookout for indications that
special meanings are being applied. We should also remember that the writer may
employ or introduce specialized terminology.
§
We should do our best to
understand the sentences.
We can break down complex
sentences into their parts. Sentences are always composed out of “chunks” of
ideas. Short sentences have little chunks; long sentences have bigger chunks.
Sometimes long sentences are hard to understand because it’s difficult to see
where one chunk ends and the other begins. Reading the sentence out loud can
help you to hear these chunks as separate units and understand how they fit
together.
We should remind ourselves
of the referents of any pronouns in the sentence. For example, in the sentence
“The original conclusion isn’t weakened by these new observations,” we should
be sure we know what “the original conclusion,” is and what “these new
observations” are.
We should try to rephrase
confusing sentences. Sometimes a sentence is puzzling because it was written in
a style different from what we’re accustomed to. It helps to rephrase these
sentences to express the ideas in a way that’s more natural to us.
If a sentence is a general
claim or principle, we should find specific examples for it. If our examples
don’t fit what’s written later on, we can go back and change our example until
we find one that works.
§
We should remember that
the author may present multiple, interrelated, positions and arguments, and
adopt a different attitude toward each.
If there are multiple arguments in a reading, it helps
to understand how the arguments are related to each other. Arguments are
frequently in what we might call an “oppositional relationship.” There may be a
position or argument, for example, another argument which serves as an
objection to that position or argument (criticizing a premise or an inference),
yet another argument which serves as an objection to that objection, and
so on.
It helps to understand what attitude the author adopts
toward the various arguments. She might be advancing a position or argument as
her own. She might be examining a position or argument. She might be
criticizing a position or argument as one counter to her own position or
argument, either as a pre-existing position or argument or else as a possible
objection to her position or argument.
§
We should apply the
principle of charity.
Given the basic intelligence and honesty of most
people, and the substantial screening process involved in getting one’s work
published, the probability that the author is saying something obviously stupid
or incorrect is very low. This isn’t to say that what’s published is always
correct, of course, just that we should try, wherever possible, to avoid
attributing serious mistakes to the author.
§
We should be honest with
ourselves.
We should not
try to fool ourselves into thinking that we understand something that we know,
on some level, we don’t understand. Not understanding a reading, or part of it,
is absolutely fine. For one thing, intelligence isn’t
understanding everything; intelligence is being able to distinguish
between what we do understand and what we don’t understand. For another thing, our questions and confusions
might contain the germ of a genuine insight, so we should treat them as very
valuable resources!
Bearing this general advice
in mind, let’s take a closer look at what you should do during each of your
multiple readings of a text.
Just read through the writing. If it’s your
own copy, you might want to mark particularly interesting or important bits
with pencil. Just try to get a sense of what the author is saying and decide
whether or not the piece is interesting or important enough to read again.
Go through the reading again, either marking the text,
preferably in pencil, or taking notes.
Take special care to
mark in the text or include in your notes:
1) Organizational cues
This includes summaries of what will be or has
been done, section headings, transitions, and subject-changes.
2) Background material
This is anything that will help you to
understand the arguments, including guiding questions, definitions of
specialized terminology, description of positions, and important distinctions.
3) Argumentative
material
This includes answers to the guiding questions,
important ideas, obvious inferences, obvious arguments, objections to ideas or
arguments, and objections to the objections.
4) Your own responses
Focus
especially on the following reactions:
§
Confusion -
Are there passages, positions, or arguments that you don’t understand or find
confusing?
§
Recognition
- Are you reminded of anything, another question, idea, argument, passage, or
reading, for example?
§
Curiosity -
Are there questions, ideas, arguments, or passages that you find particularly
intriguing? Do any questions occur to you?
§
Disagreement
- Do you have objections to any positions or arguments? Do you think that you might
have objections to some positions or arguments, because you feel “funny” about
them?
§
Agreement – Do you find yourself in strong agreement with
any positions?
You should ignore:
1) Repetitions of ideas and arguments
2) Clarification of ideas and arguments,
including examples
3) Explanations
for why the author or others believe or do something
4) Tangents
This includes side issues and refuted or minor
positions and arguments. It can be hard, and task relative, to decide what is
and what is not a tangent. In general, if your understanding would not be compromised
if you forgot a passage, you can consider that passage a tangent.
Go over what you’ve marked in
the text and polish your markings, or review the notes you’ve taken and polish
your notes.
Pay special attention to:
1) Organizational cues you’ve noted
This
includes summaries of what will be or has been done, section headings,
transitions, and subject-changes.
Do
you want to add or eliminate any of this material?
2) Background material
you’ve noted
This is anything that will help you to
understand the arguments, including guiding questions, definitions of
specialized terminology, description of positions, and important distinctions.
Do
you want to add or eliminate any of this material?
3) Argumentative material you’ve noted
This includes answers to the guiding questions,
important ideas, obvious inferences, obvious arguments, objections to ideas or
arguments, and objections to the objections.
Are there multiple arguments?
If
so, how are the arguments related to each other?
How does each argument go?
For particularly interesting ideas, you might want
to determine whether the author is giving us reason to believe the claim or
simply taking it for granted. If the author is giving us reason to believe it,
does he give us good reason? If the author is taking the claim for granted, should
she be?
4) Your own responses
This includes:
§
Confusion -
Are there passages, positions, or arguments that you don’t understand or find
confusing?
§
Recognition
- Are you reminded of anything, another question, idea, argument, passage, or
reading, for example?
§
Curiosity -
Are there questions, ideas, arguments, or passages that you find particularly
intriguing? Do any questions occur to you?
§
Disagreement
- Do you have objections to any positions or arguments? Do you think that you might
have objections to some positions or arguments, because you feel “funny” about
them?
§
Agreement – Do you find yourself in strong agreement with
any positions?
Do
you want to add or eliminate any of this material?
Fourth
Reading
Take a serious look at your
responses. Try to resolve or develop them.
§
Confusion - Are there passages,
positions, or arguments that you don’t understand or find confusing? Can you
articulate what you fail to understand or find confusing? Is there a germ of an
insight there? Specifically, is there something amiss with the confusing
position or argument? If so, what’s amiss? How might the position or argument
be improved? What might be a better position or argument?
§
Recognition - Are you reminded of
anything, another question, idea, argument, passage, or reading, for example? How
does the reading compare to what you’re reminded of? What are the similarities
and differences? Which do you prefer, and why?
§
Curiosity -
Are there questions, ideas, arguments, or passages that you find particularly
intriguing? Do they withstand scrutiny? Do any questions occur to you? Can you clearly articulate them? What do you
think is the best answer to one of these questions? Why is that the best
answer?
§
Disagreement
- Do you have objections to any positions or arguments? Do you think that you might
have objections to some positions or arguments, because you feel “funny” about
them? Try to articulate these objections. Do they withstand scrutiny? If so,
what’s wrong with the position or argument? How might the position or argument
be improved? What might be a better position or argument?
§
Agreement – Do you find yourself in strong agreement with
any positions? Do they withstand
scrutiny? If you accept one of these positions or arguments, what implications
might it have? What problems might it help solve?
That’s
a lot of advice to see all at once, I know, and you don’t need to adhere to it slavishly,
but it can serve as a guide to help you tackle some of the readings that you
might encounter. Let’s practice!