In session number two of the thinkPhilosophy Podcast I talk about *Keeping A Philosophical Notebook Or Log* to go along with your philosophy reading practice. Below is a summary of what I covered in this session, beginning with a discussion of what kind of notebook to use, followed by a discussion of what to take notes on:
The Physical Notebook
I don't recommend that you type your philosophical notes into a computer (as a word document, for example) or online as a blog, or some such. Your philosophy notebook should be an object that you can physically write in. This is because the act of writing down your ideas, pen to paper, builds a strong connection to the ideas that you will be entertaining. Writing on a screen simply does not feel the same! Using a physical notebook also allows you to do is to get a sense for the spatiality of the text, enhancing your recall and building a "photographic memory."
The notebook you choose should not be anything too special or expensive because you don't want to be afraid to cross out things, tear out pages, or write down "stupid" things (which we all do!), etc. Try a common composition notebook, legal pad, or (if you are taking notes on the go) a small "fat" notebook such as the one that is made by Mead. What will make your notebook special is that it will be the place where you will get to record your own, personal journey through philosophy.
Once you fill up a notebook, you will get to sit down with a highlighter and read over where you've been, highlighting the most important and interesting ideas that you encountered. This will help to reinforce your memory and to remember what you were thinking at the beginning of the process - my favorite part of keeping a philosophical notebook!
Finally, be sure to number the pages of your notebook (like at the very top) so that you can refer back to them in subsequent notebooks, and also because numbering helps you to remember where you made notes about a certain idea.
On What To Take Notes
First off, don't worry too much about "getting it right." When you first begin, you will be bringing your own ideas to the text and your first job is establish a dialogue with the text. Later on, as you build up a sense of the history of philosophy, you'll be better able to understand what a particular philosopher is up to in relation to other philosophers and the history of ideas.
Here is an acronym to help you to remember what to include in your notes:
C. I. A. where "C" is for Content, "I" is for Intention, and "A" is for Assumptions.
Content: Identify the big ideas and technical terms that the philosopher is using or building up. Sometimes a philosopher will straight-up give you a definition, and this is something that you should definitely jot down (along with a reference, like a page number, where you found it).
Terms that are being compared and contrasted are also key entry points into a philosophical text. For example, in a discussion about courage, courage may be contrasted to brashness, where an act that appears courageous is actually brashness - like running into a building on fire not to rescue a person, but some prized possession (like a teddy bear).
You may begin to pick up on inconsistencies with what the philosopher says, or different ways that concepts are being defined or used. Generally speaking, anywhere in the text that you find yourself being puzzled, this is a great place to make a note; the text will begin to open up for you at precisely these points because these inconsistencies usually point to the author's intended and unintended core assumptions.
Intention: There is a distinction in rhetoric between what an author says and what the author is doing with what they are saying (a "says/does" analysis). Every once in a while step back from the text and ask yourself: What does the philosopher hope to accomplish by making this distinction, contrast, or point? Often being able to answer this relies on knowing a little bit about the context for the philosopher's work, which you can get at by reading a good general introduction to the philosopher. But you will also build up your knowledge of how philosophers and ideas are related as you read more philosophy, so this type of contextual work will organically emerge through your reading practice.
(For an example of this, listen to the upcoming podcast on Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, where i will point out what she is doing where she begins her work by clearing the ground of common conceptions of woman.)
Assumptions: Where reading for Content narrows our focus on what is being said, and reading for a philosopher's Intention widens our focus to the context for their work, reading for Assumptions entails going deeper into the text. I find it is more difficult to explain without an example, but I think it is fair to say that getting at the assumptions does require reading a text more than once. Once you have a sense of the "architecture" of the text and the main ideas at play, you'll begin to approach that particular philosopher's assumptions.
At the end of this podcast session, I realized that I will need to do a separate podcast sessions and run through some examples of philosopher's assumptions, so look out for this future session on more advanced reading philosophy techniques.
► Listen on DSound
► Listen from source (IPFS)