A Guide for Explicating a
Philosophical Text Robert Burch ©
Purpose of the exercise: To encourage the student to read actively. In reading actively you
will seek first of all to understand the text on its own terms and in its full
and proper context. (Since this first requirement might plausibly entail
reference to the whole history of philosophy in relation to history itself, you
will have to make hard and careful decisions concerning what the terms, scope
and limits of the philosophically relevant context are, given the level of the
course, the length of the assignment, and the extent of the required readings.)
You will also seek to interpret the text critically with a view to assessing
its truth or falsity. Active reading is a process of critical appropriation,
that is, a process of “making” the text “properly one’s own”
(ap-propriatio) by investigating its meaning and truth, ultimately with
a view to how that accords with or differs from, challenges or confirms, the
constellation of your own fundamental philosophical beliefs and assumptions.
The task at hand: To write an essay discussing the meaning of the assigned passage. To
do this, you will need to form a judgement about what sort of passage it is —
does it state a supposedly self-evident truth? Is it a description? a
definition? Is it an argument, or at least part of an argument (a premise,
conclusion [here look for signal words, e.g., “thus,”
“therefore”], a corollary)? Is it meant at face value, or does it
have an ironic purpose? Is it to be read in strictly philosophical terms, or
does it have an important extra-philosophical sense? Does it challenge the
philosophical/non-philosophical distinction? Accordingly, you will need also to
situate the passage and so to decide for yourself in what respects it may be
central to the thought of the thinker you are reading, or at least to the
outlook of the assigned text. Is it central to a philosophical topic at issue
in the course? Does it establish a truth? Does it pose problems? Does it lead
to hesitations about the philosopher’s whole outlook, as you understand it so
far? The success of your active reading will be judged on the basis of the
accuracy, organization and penetration of the essay that you write. To
facilitate the fulfillment of these desiderata, the following procedures
are offered for your consideration, keeping in mind that there is no sure-fire
recipe for writing a successful explication, since what you write must in each
case be geared to the passage, text, philosopher and issue(s) in question.
General Preliminaries: Read the entire assigned text first! Then, before writing a
word, ask yourself these sorts of questions: (1) What are the guiding questions
to which this text is addressed, and how does this passage relate to them? How
do these questions relate to those questions which you yourself had about the
topic and which you first brought to your reading? (If you had no questions at
all, you might wonder why you were reading in the first place!) (2) Where does
the passage in question fit into the structure of the work as a whole, into the
organization and development of its reasoning, explanations, descriptions,
arguments. How does it stand with respect to the presuppositions and principles
the author seems to bring to the exploration of the topic? In a mechanical way,
you might ask yourself here, for example, in what relation does the passage
stand to the title of the work, to its various division, chapter, section
headings, etc.? At a deeper level, you might ask yourself how the passage affects
the discussion which follows? Does it redirect or focus the discussion in a
particular way? (3) What precisely is the author trying to say in this passage?
Do you understand the technical sense of all the key terms used? What is your
initial assessment of the plausibility of what is being said?
Specific Preliminaries: Often, much of the sense of a text lies hidden in the way that its
reasoning unfolds. Arguments are often imbedded in discourse that has a
multiple purpose and theme, that unfolds dramatically and at different levels
at once, and in which the “logic” of the transitions from one
argument and one topic to the next is not always perfectly transparent. Part of
your task will be to test the soundness of the reasoning that pertains to the
passage, and hence to examine the cogency of the relevant insights, proofs,
arguments, explanations, descriptions, “self-evident” truths, etc.,
and the evidence that is offered or that might be offered for its claims and
presuppositions. To make a start with this task, you might want to consider the
following two-part procedure:
(1) Select the words or phrases which you think
hold the key to the sense of the passage, using the following criteria: a) Is
the word or phrase central simply to understanding in a preliminary way what is
being said in the passage? Though this step may seem vacuous, it is meant to
focus your attention closely on the terms being used, after you have some
initial, vague sense of what is being said; b) Are there words or phrases that
you can identify as important to the author’s whole philosophy; c) Is a word or
phrase being used in a apparently technical sense, different from common
English usage? (If called upon, you should be able to say briefly how each term
in the passage is being used. You might even wish to write out the meaning of
the keys terms and phrases you have chosen, considering any explicit
definitions given by the author and how the terms in question relate to each
other. To check how terms are used, don’t be shy about consulting the index, if
there is one). Keep in mind that it is often the case with philosophers that
their language is contextual and can properly be understood, justified and
criticized only in terms of how meanings are constituted in the actual process
of the philosophical discourse.
(2) Give a single statement of what seems to be
the main point of the passage. (If there are secondary points, state in single
sentences what these are.) Tell by what means the author arrives at the main
point of the passage (e.g., Is it a premise or the conclusion of an argument? a
supposedly self-evident truth? a definition? an explanation? a description?).
In this way, you can also establish what sort of claim the main point amounts
to and then ask yourself what sort of validation would be sufficient to establish
the truth of the claim (here, of course, one’s view might well differ from that
of the author). Decide on the issue of consistency. Does the claim enunciated
by the passage conflict with any other claim the author has made? If you
discover a conflict, double-check your own interpretation to ensure that the
conflict lies in the author’s thought and not in your reading. (In this regard,
you might choose to follow a principle of interpretive charity, namely, to
assume that great philosophers typically don’t make elementary errors in logic
or fall stupidly into blatant inconsistencies. Instead, on this principle one
assumes that where fallacies or inconsistencies cannot be resolved, this may
reveal something important about the fundamental vision that guides the
thinker’s thought, and the paradoxes to which that vision and the manner of
questioning that follows from it give rise. In this regard, to rejoice
straightway in the discovery of a logical non sequitur by which one
presumes to “refute” a thinker is usually the death-knell of a truly
active reading).
Explication: Read through the preliminary materials you have written, noting the
points that you have made which you think hold the most potential for
explaining the full meaning of the passage. After collecting these points
together decide which is best seen as the main idea, i.e., that which
contributes most to revealing the deeper sense of the passage. (It may well be
that what you think reveals the deeper sense of the passage is not what the
author puts forth as the obvious main point!) Build your explicatory essay
around this main idea you have chosen. (Done well, this is an extremely
difficult procedure, since you will have to decide on a focus that inevitably
excludes some things from consideration, yet ideally in such a way as to point
to what remains unsaid in the context of what is being said.) Thus, you will
also have to decide how much of your preliminary notes will be included in the
final essay and what the structure of that essay ought to be. For this purpose it
is usually best to work from a close focus on the passage itself to the broader
context and issues rather than vice versa. In the end, you should try to
come to some overall conclusion or assessment of the passage being considered.
However, the conclusion or assessment should emerge from your explication and
from the way in which you have appropriated the passage in question. (Be wary
of simply tacking positive or negative pronouncements on to the end of your
paper in order to make it look more “philosophical” i.e., judgmental.
These usually aren’t worth much.)
(N.B. The preceding instructions are
offered as a rough guide to assist you in the task of writing your explication.
They are to be taken neither as a set of strict procedures to be followed
mechanically, nor as an hard and fast structure for your finished essay.
Indeed, part of the task of writing the explication will be for you to
determine for yourself in each case what is the most appropriate line of
interpretation and presentation.)