Top 3 Skills for Philosophy Students
1: Thinking in Essentials
Philosophy has the advantage of requiring no specialised knowledge of any subject. It is the supreme science and – in a sense – supremely useless. It establishes the principles for the operation of all useful endeavours. Philosophy teaches us to be competent to deal with everything in general but nothing in particular. A philosopher, therefore, is the polar opposite of a specialist, whose knowledge is concentrated and not generalised.
Thinking in essentials is necessary because the only alternative is thinking in concretes – that is, in perceptual-level, disconnected, floating ideas with no link to reality or a subordinating principle. A philosophy student must be able to identify the one in the many – to find the unifying principle among an unlimited range of individual instances by distinguishing essential [from accidental] characteristics.
For example, consider: “Russia”, “Iran” and “North Korea”. The political analyst knows that one is an autocratic regime, the next is run by strict adherence to religion, and the third is a Communist state. They have different concrete beliefs, ideologies, and traditions. But thinking in essentials immediately reveals that these differences are superficial – these states all have the same essence: dictatorship (i.e. “The individual is subordinate to the state.”) Other essentials emerge, depending on the context. Each of these states has a mystic epistemology (they believe in a truth somehow “higher” than the reality we can know through perception and reason). In ethics, each state is altruistic (the individual’s moral right to exist for their own sake is not recognised). Even the allegedly competing systems of utilitarianism and duty-ethics share the same essence: selflessness/ altruism.
2: Argument Construction
Far from being a mere intellectual exercise, argument is the philosopher’s means of arriving at truth. There are two ways to defeat an opposing argument: attack the truth of the premises or reveal an internal contradiction (an illogical deductive inference). Socrates was a master of argument. Without needing to openly advance propositions of his own, he would ask questions in order to have his opponent contradict himself.
The key to argument construction in writing is to openly state a clear contention which can only have one interpretation. Each word of the basic proposition you are advancing should be selected deliberately. This is a crucial difference between philosophy and literature (between non-fiction and fiction writing) – in philosophy, the denotation of a word or phrase counts, and the connotation should be kept to a minimum.
3: Philosophical Writing
Clarity:
Philosophical writing should be clear, simple, and unpretentious. The subject matter you are dealing with is difficult enough – any obfuscation or over-complication of the language used will be interpreted by your marker as an attempt to evade answering the question directly. The truths of philosophy deserve better than to be disguised by unintelligible language.
Consistency:
Outline the perspectives advanced by the main thinkers in the unit on the topic. Advance your own perspective, then defend your perspective against the objections the main thinkers would raise. The best way to avoid accidently contradicting yourself is to think about your argument for five minutes before you write. You may find you need to adjust your claims or argue a different case entirely.
Bonus Skill: Concept Analysis
Our language contains a number of invalid concepts, which distort thinking. The philosopher must be a concept-detective, seeking out and exposing such terms to invalidate the arguments built on them. A few examples include: “extremism”, “public interest”, “evolutionary psychology” and “distributive justice”. Remember that linguistic terms are not metaphysical absolutes or facts of nature. If necessary, explicitly challenge the conceptual validity of any questionable ideas or words in your essay.