at various points, elucidating possibly obscure references or terminology, or providing cross-references to other parts of the volume. All such footnotes are by the Editor, except where they are preceded by an asterisk (*), in which case they appeared in the original work from which the extract is taken.
Introductory Essay: How to Read a Philosophical Text and How to Write about It
What Is Philosophical Inquiry?
Students toiling away on the treadmill of academic exams and assignments often learn to survive by showing knowledge – by assimilating as many relevant facts as possible and then dutifully reproducing them in tests or essays. But such a method seldom works very well in philosophy, because philosophy is not primarily a factual subject. Of course, just as with any worthwhile subject, you need to study hard and to familiarize yourself with the material. But philosophizing is never just about absorbing material; it is about standing back and reflecting on it. What is more – and this is perhaps unique to philosophy – it is about reflecting on how the results of your reflections affect your overall worldview.
That may sound rather grand, or even pretentious. But part of what makes philosophy different from other disciplines is that it looks past the particular to the universal. For example, instead of asking ‘how does this particular chemical produce this reaction?’, it raises abstract questions such as ‘what is it to produce or cause a change in the first place?’ Or instead of asking ‘why did this particular historical or literary figure choose to act in this way?’, it asks ‘what do we really mean when we say that an action was freely chosen?’ And not content with asking these abstract and general questions, philosophers often go on to raise even more universal ones, for example about whether all of reality is subject to causal principles, and if so whether this leaves any room for genuine human choice. As will be clear from very many of the writings included in this anthology, philosophy is very different from the specialized academic disciplines, in so far as it characteristically takes up a synoptic perspective: it aims for the ‘big picture’ that keeps in view how the different parts of our understanding fit together or clash. Philosophical inquiry often zeroes in on very precise and carefully defined puzzles, but at its best it never loses sight of the grand fundamental questions about the ultimate nature of reality and our human place within it.
Inquiring into such abstract general questions may come more easily to some than to others, but all of us to some degree have an inbuilt propensity for philosophical reflection. If we always remained totally immersed in our particular pursuits and never took time to stand back and reflect on their wider significance, we would merely be clever animals. To be human is to have an enduring desire to try to make sense of it all, to fit our lives into a wide scheme of understanding. In much of our lives, to be sure, we may just be too busy with the urgent demands of survival and making our way in the world. But sooner or later the uniquely human urge to philosophize will make itself felt.
In the texts that follow, you will find many different styles of philosophizing and many distinct philosophical outlooks. But in all of them you will find that questing spirit of philosophical inquiry which seeks to look beyond the particular involvements of human existence towards more universal and abstract patterns of understanding. There are no easy rules of thumb for how to read the texts or to write about them, though it is hoped that some of the suggestions that follow may be helpful.
Exegesis and Criticism
The two indispensable components of a good philosophy essay, particularly if we are talking about an essay on one of the great canonical writers included in this volume, are exegesis and criticism. Exegesis involves expounding or setting out what you take to be the main elements of the position taken up in the text you are studying. These are some of the questions it may be worth asking yourself. What is the author trying to show? Can you paraphrase or summarize it as clearly as possible, leaving out any irrelevant flourishes and concentrating on what is of central importance? Can you explain any unusual or technical terminology? Do you understand what is at stake – why the issues discussed are supposed to be important? It’s no bad thing here to imagine yourself trying to explain to a class or a discussion group, in the simplest possible terms, (a) what you think is being said in the text, and (b) why you find it interesting. If you can’t summarize the author’s position reasonably clearly, you probably need to read it again, if necessary with the aid of the introduction provided, or some of the other recommended commentaries. And if you can’t explain why you find it interesting, your essay will probably end up having a ‘flat’ or ‘routine’ flavour to it. There’s no substitute for getting involved.
This brings us to the second indispensable element in a good philosophy essay, namely criticism. In producing a philosophy essay (and this applies to philosophical writing or discussion at any level), one is not merely aiming to report on the material, or summarize the findings (important though it is that these things are done clearly and accurately). As the Socratic method showed many centuries ago, philosophical inquiry is always to some extent a dialogue – a dialogue in which you are one of the partners. There is no substitute for entering into the argument, reflecting on how you stand in relation to the claims advanced, and exactly why you find some of them persuasive or where you think they go wrong. In doing this, you will be not just reporting on other people’s philosophizing, but will be philosophizing yourself. This is the true excitement of philosophy, and the key to success in reading a philosophical text and writing about it.
But criticism is not just a matter of saying ‘Oh no, I don’t agree with that!’ For example, it’s not an effective criticism of a philosophical position to say ‘This author is obviously a believer, but I am an atheist so I disagree with him’, or ‘this author is obviously an materialist but I disagree with her because I believe there are immaterial entities.’ You are welcome to disagree, but you must give reasoned grounds for your disagreement, and those grounds must be based on detailed scrutiny of the writer’s arguments. The same applies if you end up supporting a given writer. Good criticism in philosophy can include providing supporting arguments as well as offering objections (and indeed one of the most effective ways of proceeding can be to construct a possible objection to a given position, and then go on to offer a possible reply on the author’s behalf). But however you proceed, you always need to offer reasons for your position, keeping the original text in view, and making sure that your reasons bear directly on the position taken up by the author under discussion.
Assessing the Argument
The two components of a philosophy essay just referred to, exegesis and criticism, allow you to demonstrate two important skills. Exegesis requires you to show scholarship – the skill of carefully, conscientiously, and accurately expounding the key points in a text. Criticism requires something rather different, the ability to reflect on the text, engage with it, and develop your own carefully reasoned response to it. But what exactly is it that we are expounding and criticizing? To answer ‘the text’ does not get us very far. A historian’s text may be a manuscript or other documentary record, which is examined for accuracy and authenticity. A literary critic’s text may be a novel or a poem, which is examined for style, or imagery, or compositional technique. But what a philosopher is for the most part doing in scrutinizing a philosophical text is assessing the argument.
The term ‘argument’ in this context does not of course have the meaning it often has elsewhere, namely that of a dispute or disagreement (though there are plenty of philosophical disagreements); it refers instead to a process of reasoning. As so often in philosophy, the idea goes back to Plato, who put what has become a famous phrase into the mouth of Socrates: ‘wherever the argument, like a wind, tends, there we must go.’1 Being blown about by the wind may seem a random or haphazard process. But Plato’s point in saying that we ‘must’ go in a certain direction is not
