Philosophy and Writing
Philosophy and Writing
There is a strong correlation between good philosophy and good writing. Good philosophers write good prose. These are separate abilities, but they are correlated—connected, we might say. I don’t know of a good philosopher who writes ineptly. And if the writing is good, good philosophy is apt to follow. Russell is perhaps the prime example: arguably the best philosopher of the twentieth century and inarguably the best writer (Nobel prize and all). I could also cite Strawson, Quine, Nagel, Lewis, Davidson. I mean sheer writerly ability, not necessarily clarity—putting great sentences together. Style, elegance, wit, creativity, euphony—like, poetic. Clever constructions, wide vocabulary, memorable phrases. Not Nabokovian, but getting there. You know what I’m talking about; you know it when you see it (it’s hard to define). Hume is a great prose stylist, though old-fashioned now. Kant gets a bad rap for obscurity, but he is a perfectly good writer. Wittgenstein is also good, in both the Tractatus and the Investigations. Moore is not so great: repetitive, dull. Descartes is excellent and Locke highly competent in his careful way. Berkeley is sublime. There are just no top-quality philosophers who write badly—how could there be? You couldn’t be a first-rate philosopher and write like an American undergraduate. Writerly skill and philosophical nous go together, like love and marriage. The prose is the form of the thought; the thought is only as good as the prose. And I mean philosophical prose not just any kind—logical, lucid, careful, polished. The reason for this is that both call on the same basic abilities: organization, ingenuity, cleverness, originality, resourcefulness, genius, mechanics, skill, beauty. Philosophical skill developspari passu with writerly skill. The two skills are inseparable.
It isn’t the same in all subjects, though no doubt there is some correlation. A physicist is likely to be good at mathematics and calculation, though his verbal skill might not be well developed. A laboratory scientist will be expert at devising experiments, but may not be a great communicator. A psychologist could be insightful without being a master stylist (Freud and William James are the shining exceptions). But philosophy is all about words—manipulating them. Manipulating ideas is manipulating words. Kripke was a master speaker and lecturer, though not a scintillating writer (but clear and amusing). Dummett could write reams of forcefully composed prose, though he wasn’t easy reading. They both could combine words into shimmering monuments of philosophical thought. The intellect was mirrored in the writing. There is not just one kind of good philosophical writing, and you can be good in some ways and less good in others. The very best all-round philosophical writer will be the best philosopher, other things being equal. This may be a matter of debate, since good writing is the result of various factors, some more important than others. I like clarity, wit, and surprise; others may prefer sober, dry, and predictable (they feel more secure this way). But the connection to philosophical ability is surely clear: the prose is the most reliable indicator of philosophical intelligence. If you can’t understand a word he is saying and his prose is a pain to read, he is not going to be much of a philosopher. Indeed, he may be a complete philosophical fake—covering up his mediocrity in supposedly impressive jargon-ridden verbiage (you know the type). A bluffer, a phony, an impostor.
By this measure who is the best philosopher to have graced this unphilosophical planet? Who is the best writer of philosophical prose? Who has the best reputation as a writer? Who can do it all in the writing department? For that person will be the best philosopher. If his writing is unimprovable, he will be the best philosopher of all time—the best at doing philosophy ever. Interesting question, is it not? I think Plato is up there, closely followed by Hume, with Russell standing out among moderns—these guys could all write up a storm. But who is the best? Hmmm.
The style of J Searle was not very good I think (I like it because it is easy to read for a bad english speaker).
But he was a great philosopher, no?
I think his style is the exact measure of his philosophical talent: he writes and thinks very well, but not superbly.
One contender is the Romanian philosopher Andrei Pleșu, with his treatise “On Angels”. Here is an excerpt:
https://www.wiko-berlin.de/fileadmin/Jahrbuchberichte/1991/1991_92_Plesu_Andrei_Aufsatz_Jahrbuchbericht.pdf
Nor have I heard of him and I doubt I would find much of interest in a book on angels.
One candidate is Emil Cioran. This book, in particular, rises to Nabokovian heights:
https://www.scribd.com/doc/234396138/E-M-Cioran-All-Gall-Is-Divided
I have never heard of him.
@Alex. I read a few aphorisms from “All Gall Is Divided”. Quite the funniest thing I’ve read all week.
What do you think about Spinoza?
The style of « ethics » is terrible isn’t it?
I didn’t think Spinoza was a bad writer when I read him years ago, though dated, difficult, and idiosyncratic.
In addition to the ones you mention, I would add J L Austin. When this question arises people usually mention Frege’s Foundations of Arithmetic, and I would agree with that. Translation doesn’t seem to be the problem it is in the case of poetry, so on that basis, I would add Ernst Cassirer (although some of his translators have their quirks). Also Hermann Weyl as a mathematician and physicist whose Philosophy of Mathematics and Natural Science is beautifully written. Dummett’s best writing is in Origins of Analytical Philosophy and The Logical Basis of Metaphysics. I like Putnam, because I like long complex sentences, but he might not be everyone’s cup of tea. Definitely I would not advise trying to speed-read Putnam; sometimes you have to stop and analyse the structure of a sentence, but it always comes out perfectly grammatical and comprehensible as an expression of a unified complex thought, which you can sit back, look out the window and savour. What is it about the philosophical task that evokes the artistic impulses? When it’s not a question of solving an immediate practical problem, but reflecting on significance? Certain other areas of nonfiction writing encourage and reward the artistic response, history, for example, especially the history of ideas. The evolution of fundamental ideas. What are the themes of significance that the arts address?
I view philosophy as a branch of applied logic. Logic, like mathematics, does not care about the tone or style of the premisses. Perhaps we get points for a simple and elegant argument rather than a complex and convoluted proof. But style shouldn’t really come into it.
I blame the Renaissance. The scholastic Latin was barbarous, although generally clear and logical. The Renaissance abolished that and required every philosopher to write like Cicero. Not necesdary.
That may be true, but it doesn’t entail that writing ability doesn’t matter. Some people are better at writing about logic than others. It takes considerable skill to write well about logic. It took centuries to get good at it. Also, in communicating logic to novices it matters that you can deploy apt metaphors and visual models. Pinker’s book A Sense of Style is good on this.
I didn’t mean writing *about* logic, I meant using it. I agree that some uses are better than others. See Ockham’s disproof of monism below. He is a master at using vivid metaphors to communicate a logico-philosophical point.
“Likewise, if there were another such thing, whenever a donkey moved locally here below [on earth], every celestial body would be changed, and would receive something anew in itself, because otherwise it would be more distant from the donkey than now, and if distance were another thing , it would truly lose one thing and receive another anew.”
So, it’s possible to present logical reasoning in better or worse ways and “style” helps.
As an American undergraduate I feel called out ;( . Unfortunately this result is the product of public schools who do not teach poetry nor philosophy and instead give boring short passages (yes… short passages not books) and then proceed to force us to write a basic argumentative essay without substance. The strategy for success is to bullshit. Approach a topic from a non-standard angle likely with false premises and perfectly apt quotes from the stupid assigned passage. I agree with your preference: that it is preferable to write with wit, surprise, and clarity. What’s the secret?
No doubt you are right judging from I had to read in my teaching days. The secret is to read a lot of good prose and absorb it. I suggest some Oscar Wilde, Nabokov, and P.G. Wodehouse. Or you could just read me.
By ‘good prose’ do you mean style or wit or a good turn of phrase or imagery or metaphor? Which do you see as more crucial for a decent or brilliant philosopher? And one measure of literary acumen is whether these literary philosophers could live by the pen of prose and not solely by the sword of logic.
All of the above and more (see Pinker’s A Sense of Style). Sentence structure is extremely important, as is punctuation. I don’t agree that logic isn’t part of good writing. Strawson is a good example.
No mention of John Dewey’s prose skills?
I don’t count him as a serious philosopher.
I’ve never actually read anything by Dewey (I’ve read Cassirer’s critique of Dewey, which is quite interesting), but, just out of curiosity, why do you say you don’t count [Dewey] as a serious philosopher?
Simply because he is not part of the canon and is not taken seriously by other philosophers. He doesn’t compare to his great contemporaries.