Piñeros Glasscock - A Recipe for Reading Philosophy

인터넷에서 철학 글 읽는 법을 찾았습니다 (출처: https://juanpineros0.wixsite.com/action/teaching). 몇 개는 철학하면서 배우고 실행하고 있던 건데, 제가 놓치고 있었던 부분들이 몇 개가 있었네요. 조금 더 일찍 찾았으면 더 얻는 게 많았을 것 같다는 생각을 합니다.

Workshop 1: A Recipe for Reading Philosophy Papers

May 29, 2019

Reading philosophy is extremely rewarding: in the best cases, you encounter novel ideas that challenge your own, and make you think deeper about your own assumptions. Reading philosophy is also very hard! Although (many) philosophers aim at clear writing, they also use subtle distinctions, engage with hard topics, and use and introduce novel and technical terminology.

I will provide help throughout the course by producing handouts, answering questions, and introducing you to tools that can make this material clearer. But this work will be futile unless you approach the texts as you read them at home critically and with care. This guide aims to help you approach these texts in a way that you will get the most out of them.

I thought it helpful to write this in the form of a step-by-step recipe. As with food recipes, you might come to find that you’ll want to alter things to fit to your own needs and likes. But hopefully having this guideline will give you a framework on which to make those modifications.

  1. Your aims: When you follow a food recipe the aim is clear: cook the food. But what of reading philosophy papers? There are actually several aims, each dependent on the others, as follows:

  2. Understand the central thesis: Authors are going to be arguing for several claims, but usually there will be a central conclusion that all the claims support. This is the central thesis, and your first main goal is to understand it.

  3. Understand the central argument: The central thesis will be supported by a number of central premises. Your next goal is to understand it.

  4. Understand the sub-arguments: In turn, each central premise will be further supported by further premises, distinctions, illustrations, thought experiments, etc. You should aim to see how all of these contribute to the author’s central argument.

  5. Critically assess the piece: Finally, but most importantly, once you understand the argument you are in a position to assess it. Is the argument good? Are the premises true? Do they actually support the author’s claims? Do you agree with it (why or why not?) Etc.

Stage 1: Gather preliminary clues

You can usually get a lot of information about a paper from the title, abstract (if there is one), and introduction. Sometimes these will contain statements of the central thesis (often clearly identified as such (e.g. “I will argue that …”; ‘The central aim of this paper is…”, etc.). Once you find the central thesis it will be a lot easier to understand the rest of the paper.

Stage 2: Let the introduction guide you

Often, the introduction will not only contain the thesis, but also a summary of the key claims of the argument (often even in the order in which the author argues for those claims). After you are done with the introduction, take a pause and gather your preliminary thoughts about the author’s argument: do you think it will be successful? What do you think will be the main obstacles to overcome.

Stage 3: Do a first, quick reading

Now I recommend just doing a quick first reading of the piece. Note down places that you don’t understand, underlie key claims, and stop as needed. But don’t stop reading (e.g. to consult a dictionary). This can easily loose you the thread of the argument, and often the terms will not be crucial or can be made sense of in context.

Stage 4: Write a quick summary of the paper for yourself

After the first reading, write down a summary of the central argument of the paper, in about a paragraph’s length. This will enable you to see if you understood the central claims, but often you will find that you don’t know exactly how the author got there, or what exactly he means by a key claim. That’s what the second reading is for!

Stage 5: The second reading

This reading should be slower. You should have a sense of how the argument will go, but now you want to really understand it, and how the whole paper fits together. Stop as long as you need to until you get a certain claim. Some advice for this slower reading:

  • Write lots of marginalia: Use the margins! If a claim seems false, write an ‘X’ beside it, and try to think of how you might argue against it.
  • If a claim seems fuzzy, take time to write it in your own words, or go back (or forth) to try to get help to understand it.
  • If it is still fuzzy, consider checking outside resources. Do a google search for a key claim, or look for it in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  • If you strongly disagree with the argument in a section, pause to gather your thoughts, for as long as needed. Write down what you would say to the author to convince them that they are wrong.
  • If you agree with the author, think throughout the paper what someone who objects might say to them.

Stage 6: Final review and critical assessment

You have finished the paper, and now you feel like you have a good understanding of it. Go back to your initial summary and correct any mistakes (if there were any). Supplement with any further material that seems important.

At this point, also write the questions and comments you have. For instance, if you think an important question wasn’t answered, write it down, and explore it in writing. If you have an objection, write it down, and explore it in writing. Etc. What you write can become the basis for class contributions, and potentially an essay!

©Juan S. Piñeros Glasscock

(comments welcomed! Please email them at juanpineros88@gmail.com)

복붙한 게 조금 걸리긴 하지만, open resource인만큼 괜찮지 않을까 싶습니다.

10개의 좋아요

제가 보기엔 철학사에도 어느 정도 적용이 가능할 것 같습니다. 특히 2차 문헌을 읽을 때, Stage 1-5 를 적용하기 좋을 것 같아요 (예전에 Melamed - Spinoza's Metaphysics로 그렇게 했던 걸로 기억합니다. 멜라메드가 각 챕터 서론에 주장을 비교적 상세하게 적어놔서 서론만 갖고 멜라메드의 주장을 재구성한 후에 제 주장과 멜라메드의 주장을 비교하면서 읽었던 기억이 있네요. 그땐 그게 맞는 방법인지 모르고 했는데, 지나고 나서 생각해보니 그때 스피노자 실력이 많이 늘었던 것 같습니다.). 원전의 경우에는 Stage 1-2를 하기 어렵겠지만, 3-5는 충분히 적용 가능할 것 같습니다.

3개의 좋아요