With essay deadlines looming for many of our students, Matt Parker relives some of the angst involved in writing philosophy. You’re not alone

Parker, Matt

Parker, Matthew W.

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6/12/2017 What is it like to write philosophy? | Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Methodhttp://www.lse.ac.uk/philosophy/blog/2016/04/14/what­is­it­like­to­write­philosophy/ 1/3What is it like to write philosophy?With essay deadlines looming for many of our students, MattParker (https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=5AnCU0AAAAAJ) relives some of the angst involved in writingphilosophy. You’re not alone.What is it like to write philosophy? Well, it’s probably di韌�erent for di韌�erent people, but Ithink for a lot of people it’s often like this:You know what you’re going to say. You’ve solved a small problem with a simple answerundergirded by a nice technical point. You just need to write it up very brie韓�y. This isgoing to be a one-pager for Analysis (http://analysis.oxfordjournals.org/).Then, in the middle of the second paragraph of page 17, you stop cold. Oh wait. Oh crap.This is a big problem. This could undermine the whole thing. Wait, this means my thesisis actually false! At least, assuming X and Y, about which I’m not a hundred percent sure.Ok, so I need to ퟋ�nd out if X and Y are true. How do I ퟋ�nd out? B wrote the seminal paperon X. What’s it called? Hm… C cited it, let’s see… oh yes, that. Ok, here it is. Wait, mylibrary doesn’t have online access. Dammit. Let’s see if there’s another copy out theresomewhere. Ok, here’s a scan that some teacher carelessly posted online for a class. Oh,wait, C is actually just citing another paper by D. Ok, here’s D’s paper, but it’s not reallyabout X at all. Still, there’s something relevant here… ok, this is pretty technical. I’m goingto have to take some time with this.(http://www.lse.ac.uk/philosophy/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/writing-philosophy.jpg)6/12/2017 What is it like to write philosophy? | Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Methodhttp://www.lse.ac.uk/philosophy/blog/2016/04/14/what­is­it­like­to­write­philosophy/ 2/314 April 2016 | Department Blog(http://www.lse.ac.uk/philosophy/blog/category/department-blog/),Featured(http://www.lse.ac.uk/philosophy/blog/category/featured/) | 0A week later, you’re reading D for the third time and you suddenly realise: This meansthat Y doesn’t even matter. It’s just X, and X is false because of Z and W. Duh! So youwrite seven paragraphs explaining the worry, and why Y doesn’t matter, and why X isfalse because of Z and W, and why Z and W are true, or at least who says so, because,seriously, enough. And re-reading this the next day you cut it down quite a bit, and thenthink, well, the experts on X already know this, and others won’t see the worry, so yourelegate it to a footnote and just change one word in the original sentence you werewriting when you ퟋ�rst saw this big problem in your argument. And the next day youdelete the footnote.After two weeks of worrying, reading, thinking, and writing, you have changed one wordin one sentence. If this paper is ever published, no one will ever know, or even wonder,why it is that, on the third paragraph of page 10 (because by then you’ve managed to cuta lot of other stu韌� too) you decided to use “and” instead of “but”. You learned a lot in theprocess of making that choice, but you’ll probably forget most of it because it turned outnot to have much bearing on what you really cared about in the ퟋ�rst place. The principalgain in all this bother is just the very fact that, unbeknownst to anyone else in the wholeworld, that one word, “and” rather than “but”, is the right word. By Matt Parker (https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=5AnCU0AAAAAJ)Matt Parker is a Research Associate at the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science(http://www.lse.ac.uk/CPNSS/home.aspx), a former Tutorial Fellow and Guest Lecturer in theDepartment of Philosophy, Logic, and Scientiퟋ�c Method, and co-creator of the philosophypodcast Thinkative (https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/thinkative-philosophy-podcast/id1079845987).  He writes about the philosophy of mathematics, physics, andcomputation, and occasionally plays harmonica with the Department’s house band, TheCritique of Pure Rhythm (http://www.lse.ac.uk/philosophy/rock-n-roll-band/). Featured image credit: Drew Co韌�man(https://www.韓�ickr.com/photos/drewco韌�man/4815205632) / CC BY 2.0(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/) (cropped from original)6/12/2017 What is it like to write philosophy? | Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Methodhttp://www.lse.ac.uk/philosophy/blog/2016/04/14/what­is­it­like­to­write­philosophy/ 3/3Comments (http://www.lse.ac.uk/philosophy/blog/2016/04/14/what-is-it-like-to-write-philosophy/#respond)Leave A CommentName (required) Email (required) WebsiteComment...POST COMMENT Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

What is it like to write philosophy?

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