Reading Philosophy: a guide.

Introduction.

This document introduces you to the method of reading that we are going to explain to
you, and have you practice throughout the semester.

Follow David Concepción (2004), we will divide the reading process into three parts1:

 Facet One—stage setting. The aim is to work out the thesis being defended in the
paper, and the important steps in the argument offered in defence of the thesis.
 Facet Two—understanding. The aim is to understand each step of the argument
in detail, so that you can explain the author’s defence of the thesis in your own
words.
 Facet Three—evaluating. The aim is to enter the debate by critically engaging
with the author’s argument(s).

1. Facet One.

There are two steps to the first part of the reading process.

1. Pre-read: The aim of a pre-read it to see if you can work out what the paper is
about by looking at the introduction and conclusion, the title, footnotes and
bibliography, etc. At this stage you should also try to work out what kind of text
you are reading (e.g. primary text/secondary text, etc.) to determine what you
should expect to get from the text.
Read the first and last paragraph of the paper (or, if it has a short introduction,
read the whole thing). Also read the ‘Abstract’, if the paper has one.2 You are
looking for the ‘focus’ and ‘thesis’ of the paper. The focus is the subject matter of
the paper—what is it about? The thesis is the particular claim about this subject
matter that the author is defending.
Now have a look at some of the standard machinery of an academic paper—
title, sections (with headings), footnotes and bibliography. Do any of these tell
you any more about the focus and/or the thesis of the paper? Do they give you an
indication of the structure of the argument the author is going to use to defend
her thesis?
2. Fast-read: The aim of a fast read is to gain a basic understanding of the author’s
argument. If you already think you know what thesis is being defended, that will
help a lot—but if not, don’t worry. With a fast read, you read through the paper

1
See Concepción (2004: 360-3) for a bit more detail. The Concepción paper is available on MyAberdeen.
The full reference is David Concepción (2004) “Reading Philosophy with Background Knowledge and
Meta-cognition”, Teaching Philosophy 27: 351-68.
2
An abstract is a short (usually one paragraph) summary of the point of the paper—if there is one, it will
be at the beginning of the paper.
 in one sitting, without stopping. As you read through, you are looking for two
things: (i) the thesis being defended; and (ii) the important steps in the argument
for the thesis.
As you read through, you can look up words you don’t understand using a
dictionary. But don’t get bogged down in this—if the dictionary definition
doesn’t help, just mark the work with a question mark and move on. More
importantly, you should ‘flag’ the steps in the argument as you understand it.
Flagging is a note-taking method (Concepcion discusses it in detail on pages 363-
4). The idea is to mark the text with various tags that indicate where we are in
the argument. This is better than simply underlining, since it gives you some
information as to why you underlined the text.

Once you have completed Facet One, you will have isolated (or produced) a focus
statement, a thesis statement (or statements, if you think there is more than one thesis
being defended), and flagged up the structure of the argument given in favour of the
thesis.

2. Facet Two.

Now you re-read the article carefully, adding to your flagging (and altering it if you think
you got it wrong first time round). The aim of Facet One was to work out the conclusion
and flag up the steps in the argument as best you could. The aim of Facet Two is to
better understand each step in the argument.

Flagging should naturally evolve into note taking. Use notes to expand on the flagging—
reflecting the structure of the argument, writing out a definition of a technical term
from a philosophy dictionary, spelling out exactly what you don’t get about a particular
passage that you have flagged with ‘???’, etc. You can also use the flagging structure to
map out argument using flow-charts, pictures, or whatever your preferred method of
note taking is. Finally, you should draw together the work you have done into a
summary that is detailed enough that you won’t have to re-read the article again to
remind yourself of the author’s argument (you will likely have to re-read parts of the
paper again for other reasons).

Facet Three:

You have extracted the argument from the paper, and you are now going to evaluate it.
Your main tool is the summary you produced at the end of Facet Two. You will have to
go back to parts of the original paper to re-read sections, but the argument as you have
summarised it is the main focus of your study now.

Critically evaluating an argument is the most difficult part of this process, and students
often don’t know where to start or what to say. Concepcion gives a series of suggestions
which I have put into five categories:
1. Clarifying and/or strengthening the argument. If you really don’t understand why
the author thinks her arguments supports her conclusion, you need to consider
whether you have charitably interpreted the argument—i.e. extracted the best
argument you can from the text. If you think you have, then perhaps you need to
do some work on the author’s behalf. If there are gaps in the argument, can you
point them out and fill them by saying ‘the author could say here that...’? If there
is some unclarity or ambiguity, can you add clarity by saying ‘the author could
mean one of two things here—in order for the argument to work, she must
mean...’?
2. There is an ‘internal’ problem with the argument—i.e. the argument is invalid.
3. Objection and response. If you have an objection to the argument, can you think
what the author might say in response? You might find this by re-reading
relevant passages of the paper. Author’s often pre-empt and respond to
objections, but you might have missed this earlier. If not, then is there anything
they could or should say given what they have already committed themselves to
in the argument?
4. Testing your beliefs. Concepcion asks:
Is there a conflict between what [you] believe and what the author says? If so, to avoid being a
hypocrite [you] must ultimately change [your] mind or show that the author’s reasoning fails in
some way. (Concepcion (2004: 362).)
This is what Concepcion thinks is most important about studying philosophy—to
use the material to test what you believe and reflection on what you know about
the world around you. If you disagree with an author, it is likely you can learn
something from that disagreement. But this will only happen if you engage with
the author’s argument as Concepcion suggests. If you do this, you will either
learn what is wrong with the author’s reasoning (and thus learn a new reason in
favour of your belief) or you will end up having to revise your own belief or come
up with some new reasons to support it.
5. Something is bothering me about this argument. What do you really think about
the argument—is it convincing? If so, why? If not, why not? Sometimes you can’t
quite put your finger on what is bothering you about an argument—if this is the
case, just have a go at writing it out.
 Appendix

Suggested Flagging Tags.

Focal: General topic this article will Reply: Reply to an objection

discuss
Rejoin: Rejoinder or response to a reply
Thesis: Specific claim the author hopes to
Con: Conclusion of an argument
prove
Sum: Summary
Dfn: Definition
Spost: A signpost or statement that
Dst: Distinction
explicitly marks an important transition
e.g. Example in the text

Asn: Assertion of fact or an important Self-Monitoring

claim the author will argue is true
??? What? I don’t get it. I must reread this
Discuss: A discussion or explanation of a passage carefully
view, assertion, or problem
=x? This means what exactly?
Rsn: Reason supporting an assertion or
Reader Evaluation
conclusion, a justification of a claim.
Why? Why should someone agree with
Arg: An argument (combination of an
this?
assertion and a reason).
[Underline] This is important
Obj: Objection to an argument or reason