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TIPS FOR PHILOSOPHICAL RESEARCH & READING

Prepared by Noelle Leslie dela Cruz, Ph.D. Philosophy Department, De La Salle University

Key points

The writing-thinking-reading cycle Knowing what to look for The four levels of reading Analytical reading

The writing-thinking-reading cycle


Reading
Testing, supporting, and contextualizing your ideas

Developing and reconstructing your ideas

Thinkin g

Writin g

Putting your preliminary ideas on paper

The writing-thinking-reading cycle


Doing research keeps you from writing, and starting to write is typically the hardest thing to do; delaying the start seems most attractive to people. Further, research can inhibit your writing. If you fill your head or your note cards with what other people say, you may find that there seems to be no room for thinking of what you want to say. Put simply, first write down what you think about the topic; write as much as you can without relying upon what other people have thought. Doing this will force you to think about the topic.A.P. Martinich, Philosophical Writing: An Introduction

Knowing what to look for


Questions to consider in research:

Some examples of topics:

What is your general topic? Why is it important or significant? What is the historical context of it? What are the main problems and subproblems that arise under the topic? What have previous philosophers thought about the topic?

Gender and the ontology of poetic thought Love and the selfother relation in Sartre and Beauvoir Feminist critiques and reconstructions of philosophy

The four levels of reading


Syntopical reading Analytical reading Inspectional reading Elementary reading
Comparative reading leading to an analysis of the subject that may not be in any of the books Thorough, complete, or good reading for the sake of understanding Skimming or pre-reading systematically (What is the book about? What is its structure? What are its parts?) initial reading; Basic or beginning literacy

Analytical reading, from How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler


I. The First Stage: Rules for Finding What a Book is About 1. Classify the book according to kind and subject matter. 2. State what the whole book is about with the utmost brevity. 3. Enumerate its major parts in their order and relation, and outline these parts as you have outlined the whole. 4. Define the problem or problems the author has tried to solve.

Analytical reading, from How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler


II. The Second Stage: Rules for Interpreting a Books Content 5. Come to terms with the author by interpreting his key words. 6. Grasp the authors leading propositions by dealing with his most important sentences. 7. Know the authors arguments, by finding them in, or constructing them out of, sequences of sentences. 8. Determine which of his problems the author has solved, and which he was not; and of the latter, decide which the author knew he had failed to solve.

Analytical reading, from How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler


III. The Third Stage: Rules for Criticizing a Book as a Communication of Knowledge A. General Maxims of Intellectual Etiquette 9. Do not begin criticism until you have completed your outline and your interpretation of the book. 10. Do not disagree disputatiously or contentiously. 11. Demonstrate that you recognize the difference between knowledge and mere personal opinion by presenting good reasons for any critical judgment you make.

Analytical reading, from How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler


B. Special Criteria for Points of Criticism 12. Show wherein the author is uninformed. 13. Show wherein the author is misinformed. 14. Show wherein the author is illogical. 15. Show wherein the authors analysis or account is incomplete. Note: Of these last four, the first three are criteria for disagreement. Failing in all of these, you must agree, at least in part, although you may suspend judgment on the whole, in the light of the last point.

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