📙 The Philosophy Skills Book

A novice to philosophical inquiry must first acquire the ability to recognize and to raise philosophical questions.

When we say philosophers raise open-ended questions concerning fundamental matters, we mean that they seek basic and underlying principles of reality and life that are not simply obtained by empirical observation.

The initial step to thinking like a philosopher, then, is learning to see that a philosophical question is lurking about in a common event or activity.

When reading philosophical texts, especially primary sources, there are a number of reasons why the texts may appear impenetrable. The abstract nature of philosophical ideas, the natural ambiguity of certain words, novel or idiosyncratic uses of terms, problems of translation, poor expression on the part of the author, an historical gap between writer and reader are among these reasons. Often, you must spend a lot of time and energy to simply understand what the philosopher is saying in the reading before you can judge the merit of the ideas in play.

SQ3R stands for: Survey, Question, Read, Recall, Review.

Survey: In the first step of this reading strategy, you survey the reading assignment in an effort to get the ‘big picture’, that is, get a sense of the main ideas that will be covered in the text.

Question: Before reading the assignment, give yourself a purpose by raising a number of questions about the reading assignment.

Read: When reading the assignment, take an active approach. Try not to worry about the resale value of your text (assuming, of course, that you are not borrowing one from the library) and actively mark it up by underlining main ideas, circling unknown words, placing question marks near confusing passages and bracketing passages that do not seem essential to the main points.

Recall: Write a summary, in your own words, of the main ideas.

Review: Before class, review your summary, the text and your annotations.

thinking is viewed by the pragmatists as a problem-solving activity.

pragmatists tell us that a statement is true if, when we act upon it, we actually encounter the consequences which the statement implies, anticipates, or predicts.

One of our fundamental beliefs is that philosophy is not simply an intellectual exercise, but a life-transforming activity. As such, we view philosophical discussion with others as an integral part of philosophy.

Philosophers are fond of using counterfactual situations (also called ‘thought experiments’), which are hypothetical or imaginary scenarios often beginning with the question ‘What if?’ Despite the fact that such scenarios may seem completely unrealistic or bizarre, they often help improve our philosophical thinking by isolating philosophical issues by making something that is abstract concrete or by revealing our intuitions and assumptions.

In reading philosophy, one of your main goals is to evaluate the merit of the philosophical claims that you encounter. More to the point, the critical aspect of philosophical activity relies on the ability to find and evaluate such claims.

In contrast to clarity and consistency, the determination of whether a claim is compelling is not a onetime judgement, but an ongoing assessment at the heart of the philosophical practice.

As we use the term, an enthymeme is an argument in which one of the claims is not explicitly stated.

In other words, to have a deep and rich appreciation for an argument, you must do your best to understand what the author was arguing and why she was doing so. So before reading a primary text in philosophy, it helps to do some background research by seeking answers to such questions as: • What were the historical circumstances in which the text was written? • What goals might the author have had in writing this text? • What are some of the author’s central philosophical views and how do they relate to each other? • Who might have been the author’s intended audience? • Is the text a response to other philosophical texts and, if so, which ones?

Brainstorming questions 1. What do I already know about this topic? 2. What is my opinion on this topic? 3. What led me to hold this opinion? 4. What arguments can be used to justify my opinion? 5. What arguments can be used to criticize my opinion? 6. Am I familiar with any philosophical ideas relevant to this topic? 7. What relevant facts do I need to find? 8. What do most people think about this topic?

Good writing requires good thinking. So, unless you take the time to understand the issues and reflect upon them in a thoughtful, logical and rigorous manner, your philosophical writing will necessarily suffer.

Accurate paraphrasing of a text is essential if you have been tasked with evaluating a philosophical position since you ought to present an accurate interpretation before criticizing it. Otherwise, you may be guilty of an error in reasoning known as the straw man fallacy.

Expressing an effective, interesting and insightful evaluation of a philosopher’s position in essay form is one of the cornerstones of being able to do philosophy.

attempts to fascinate the reader often result in confusing sentences, awkward writing and false claims.