clarity
TagThe Rigor of Philosophy & the Complexity of the World (guest post)
“Analytic philosophy gradually substitutes an ersatz conception of formalized ‘rigor’ in the stead of the close examination of applicational complexity.” (more…)
The Philosophy Guild (guest post)
“Most contemporary philosophy writing is just bad writing… How did things go so wrong? It’s tempting to declare that philosophers are simply terrible writers, but I think that’s a mistake…” (more…)
“Biting the Bullet”: A Note on Style from Caspar Hare
In his 2013 book, The Limits of Kindness, Caspar Hare (MIT) includes a brief “stylistic note” that gets across an important lesson for academic writers: don’t overestimate the familiarity of your readers with specialist terminology—even when the intended readers are others in your discipline. (more…)
Philosophical Diamonds
“I don’t know any academic field whose writing regularly indulges in sentence structure as complex as in analytic philosophy.” (more…)
A Case for Clarity
This stark opposition between analytic clarity and continental obscurity must be qualified. Certainly, analytic philosophers tend to see clarity as a virtue. Yet the very concern to be clear can lead to the creation of precise definitions and fine distinctions marked with technical terms. Especially but not only when logical formalization is used, the resulting writ..