Philosophers with Style...

...in their writing, that is.  A reader comments:

As a TA, I always emphasize the importance of writing clearly. This isn't a matter of who I think is right, or even who I enjoy reading because I find their ideas fruitful or interesting; it's a matter of who writes well. Who would others suggest as good philosophers I should tell students to emulate? (Perhaps "hold up as an ideal" is better than "emulate". I'm not sure anyone should be trying to write like (say) Lewis, but I think it's good to read him with an eye on his style.) I have my own favourites, but it would be interesting to know who others would pick.

Interesting question.  It's easy to say whom students should not emulate:  John McDowell, Christopher Peacocke, Martin Heidegger, the charlatan Jacques Derrida, among others.  Some engaging stylists, like Quine or (very differently) Nietzsche, are not philosophers one would encourage students to emulate either, because they are unlikely to do it well needless to say.  My own picks for philosophers students should strive to emulate:  Jaegwon Kim, Philip Kitcher, Thomas Nagel, H.L.A. Hart, Michael Forster, G.A. Cohen, Raymond Geuss, among others.  Comments are open; non-anonymous comments strongly preferred, as usual.

 

Comments

[Stephen Nayak-Young]

I gather he's not a favorite of yours, but I've always been impressed by Ronald Dworkin's ability to write engagingly and clearly.

[J. Bogart]

Stuart Hampshire.

[Charlie Huenemann]

For style, Bennett. Bennett, Bennett, Bennett.

[George Wrisley]

Though he often frustrates, Hilary Putnam is in many ways a clear writer, and he has, I think, the virtue of being very readable. It is certainly commendable that he operates under a "grand" vision, even if, again, filling in the details can be frustrating.

As a side note, Wittgenstein and Heidegger, two philosophers who are not necessarily clear writers, though for very different reasons, call into question the kind of clarity at issue in the original question under discussion. I can't say much about Heidegger, but if I recall correctly, he tried to give reasons for writing they way he did early in Being and Time: something about the nature of his investigation of Being requiring it. And that is certainly not to say the reasons he gave were good reasons.
Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, on the other hand, is written in very clean, and in a sense, clear prose. However, it is still notoriously difficult to interpret that book. One of the issues discussed by those who work on it are whether the "style" of the book is a part of Wittgenstein's method/way of doing philosophy, or whether it is just an idiosyncrasy of the man. And then the question is: if the style of the Investigations is a kind of means to a philosophical end, and if it is a worthwhile/effective one, then what does that imply about clarity and philosophical writing?

[matt]

I'd not recommend G.A. Cohen as a model for two reasons. First, because he often (more lately than in the past, I think) substitutes jokes for arguments. That's a huge temptation, especially when you're funny, as Cohen is, and is occasionally even appropriate if the target is the right one, but in general should be avoided since the two really are rarely substitutes. Secondly, Cohen is funny but most people are not so there is a big worry that most people could not pull off his style. Again, these remarks apply more to his more recent writings than his earlier ones.

Among philosophers I've found Philip Kitcher, David Miller, Paul Guyer, and Thomas Ricketts to be among the clearest writers, the last two especially when dealing with often unclear subjects or topics. I also like Charles Lamore's style quite a bit though it has a bit more flourish than I recommend most people try for.

[Kalynne Pudner]

I vote Richard Rorty, whose style makes it downright enjoyable to read content with which I heartily disagree.

[Jason Walta]

Martha Nussbaum. I still go back and read her takedown of Judith Butler ("The Professor of Parody") when I need a little rhetorical pick-me-up.

[bradley]

I was told to read, for style, the following: David Lewis, Peter van Inwagen, Alvin Plantinga and Trenton Merricks. I added Kit Fine to the list.

I've found that it's easier, at least for me, to learn style from someone in my discipline; I do metaphysics. When I'm familiar with the ideas being presented, I can better focus on how they're being presented (the writing style) than I could, say, reading papers in ethics.

[Brian]

I should emphasize that I understood the original question to concern which philosophers one would recommend to *students* as models they should aim to emulate. That would, to my mind, raise real problems with several of the folks mentioned, above. I agree with Matt Lister that one wouldn't want students trying to be as funny as G.A. Cohen; as a model, I was really thinking of his important 1978 book on Marx's theory of history, which set a standard for exposition and presentation of a major figure in the German tradition that is, indeed, worthy of emulation.

[Kenneth Henley]

Students can learn to write clearly by imitating Joel Feinberg. Feinberg's style is best evinced in his self-contained essays. For teaching, I find "The Nature and Value of Rights" perfect.

[Derek]

For introductory students, I recommend they try to emulate Descartes from Meditation 1. Obviously I don't want them taking on his prose style (or, really, that of the translator), or the personal meditation form, but I think it illustrates nicely the sort of back-and-forth argumentation that beginning students need to learn.

Jim Pryor also has an excellent introduction to writing philosophy papers here:
http://www.jimpryor.net/teaching/guidelines/writing.html

[Chris]

I suppose it depends on what level the students are at. Assuming they've had one or two years of philosophy already, I'd thoroughly recommend Trenton Merricks. He writes clear, uncluttered, and unpretentious prose.

It seems to me that in metaphysics there's a trend towards punchy, plain-speaking writing these days. Karen Bennett, Phillip Bricker, Hud Hudson, Jonathan Schaffer, and Ted Sider all come to mind, along with many others. Maybe this is because of the influence of Lewis (who I agree is a wonderful stylist, but not someone students -- at least undergraduates -- should be encouraged to emulate).

[Tamler Sommers]

Off the top of my head:

Peter Singer (crystal clarity), Susan Wolf (eloquence), Karl Popper (clarity and enthusiasm without the superficiality that's often attributed to him), T. Nagel (eloquence), Grover Maxwell (fun), Bas van Fraasen and Bob Kane (a good mix of everything), and, though he's not a philosopher, the economist Robert Frank's style is close to flawless in my view. His book Passions within Reason is a model of outstanding writing.

[Charlie]

Frank Jackson, Tim Williamson, David Chalmers.

[H. E. Baber]

Russell, of course.

[Thom Brooks]

Martha Nussbaum, without a doubt.

[LFW]

Nathan Salmon is one of the best writes on philosophy today, I think. His writing is clear and well organized, and he is a great stylist.

[Minh Nguyen]

I like P. F. Strawson (and Russell and especially Descartes). I had a conversation about clear philosophical writing with a philosopher once. He said he liked David Hume and Michael Tye. I am most irritated by people trying to write in the manner of Wittgenstein.

[Ammon Allred]

To the list of stylists of the first order who are inimitable and students should not emulate I would add: Plato (I've had students try).

On the list of stylists of the first order from whom students might improve their own writing, I would include (in addition to Sartre, who has already come up): William James (didn't someone say that he wrote philosophy like a novelist while Henry James wrote novels like a philosopher?), Bertrand Russell and H.G. Gadamer (in Der Spiegel's obituary for Gadamer, they pointed out that one of the most striking features of his writing was the feeling it provoked in his readers that brilliant insights into difficult texts were crystal clear, and almost intuitively obvious --- this is largely a product of his beautiful humanistic style).

A quick note on George Wrisley's question about Heidegger: I don't recall Heidegger saying anything about his style per se, but he often makes the claim that the language in which he thinks is somewhat tortured for necessary reasons (he makes these claims in Being and Time, where his main stylistic sin is his overuse of neologisms --- a sin which follows in the footsteps of a great many German philosophers, and also in his later writing, where he gives up neologisms for idiosyncratic etymological word play ...) Obviously, language has a good deal to do with style, but determining the exact connection would require getting more clear on what Heidegger means by language, which is by no means an easy task.

Although I am a Heidegger scholar, I would never recommend that any philosopher emulate his style. Interestingly, however, it appears that Paul Celan, who is widely recognized as the greatest post-war German language poet did just that. Celan grew up in a German speaking Jewish community along the Romania-Ukraine border and aside from a few years in the late 40s when he lived in Austria, never lived in a country where German was the lingua franca, as it were... James Lyon (who is largely responsible for introducing Celan to an American readership) has argued in a recent book on Heidegger and Celan that Celan seems to have read Heidegger in part to help him get a handle on the German language, in which he never felt entirely at home. So, while it might not yield clarity of style, imitating Heidegger can apparently produce some of the greatest poetry of the 20th century...

One last question, is it really the case that what makes for good undergraduate writing is the same as what makes for good philosophical writing? I would distinguish here between what teachers want out of lower-level undergraduates on the one hand and upper-level undergraduate and graduate students on the other. In the case of lower-level undergraduates, the main thing I am looking for is an extremely clear thesis and constant references and sign posts back to that thesis statement. This is 1) because high schools have largely abdicated the responsibility of teaching students how to write, and 2) when reading 30+ papers per section on the same topic and (let's be honest) with usually the same set of "insights" anything but extremely clear sign posting makes it difficult and cumbersome to evaluate what the student thinks that they are saying and consequently to assign them the grade they deserve. In the case of upper-level undergraduate and graduate students, philosophical models do become important, but then appropriate models will be much more specific to the course's or program's particular sub-discipline.

[D. C. Cramer]

I have found Alvin Plantinga's style to be a model of clarity and to promote positive academic dialogue in an environment where his views are often maligned or ignored. A dose of humility with a touch of wit tend to go a long way in such situations.

John Hick's writing style is also quite enjoyable and engaging, though unforunately his arguments tended to be clearer earlier in his career (Faith and Knowledge) than they are in some of his later works (An Interpretation of Religion).

[Mark Couch]

Just to add to the names mentioned above, nobody has listed John Searle. He makes good reading for undergraduates. He has a very clear style and usually gets to the heart of the issues.

[Chris]

Perhaps I am in the minority, but I quite like McDowell's writing. In fact, I like it more than that of several of the philosophers that have been mentioned in this thread. I wouldn't recommend it as a model for students. But this is due to the difficulty of the subject matter and the occasional subtlety of the views he propounds, not due to anything with the writing qua prose. If one wants to extend the sense of 'style' to include certain aspects of argumentative/philosophical methodology--say the use of metaphor as a means to elicit understanding--then one might have some grounds for complaint. But I, for one, tend to think that, in certain contexts, such methods can be a source of clarity.

[Michael Sevel]

I would second the suggestions of Feinberg, Hart, and Nagel.

Though the question was posed in terms of the style of philosophers, presumably doing "pure" or ahistorical philosophy, something should be said about those doing primarily philosophical scholarship. Some people that come to mind: Myles Burnyeat, John Cooper, Malcolm Schofield, Don Garrett, Paul Guyer. An oldie but goodie is Norman Kemp Smith: I've always thought his work on both Hume and Kant was a model of clarity and organization, though the fact that he wrote in a very different era of the profession may make it inappropriate for pedagogical purposes.

[Sumesh]

Russell was my favourite sometime back.
I like Jerry Fodor these days. I do not know anyone as original as Fodor in matters pertaining to language style.
A Nobel for him for creative use of language? (like Russell!)

[Rob]

For clarity, economy, and elegance: Colin McGinn and Galen Strawson. McGinn's latest, MINDFUCKING: A CRITIQUE OF MENTAL MANIPULATION, humorously and incisively expands upon Frankfurt's ON BULLSHIT, and many fine examples of Strawson's phraseological talent appear in his recent collection REAL MATERIALISM.

[Smith]

Catherine Elgin writes beautifully. It is almost too elegant.

[Mark Murphy]

Peter van Inwagen is a terrific, terrific writer.

[grad student]

Harry Frankfurt.

[Jordan]

I think it's worthwhile to make the point that some others have been hinting at -- that there's an important difference between writing clearly and writing well. Nietzsche, for example, certainly doesn't write in such a way that facilitates immediate understanding; indeed, he often specifically states that his writing is meant to be unclear in certain ways. And yet, I would not hesitate to say that he writes well (and that is a horrid understatement). Kierkegaard is another good example, IMO. This sort of writing, like good literature, stimulates a great deal of thought, though it doesn't necessarily present clearly articulated and argued for theses.

All of this of course is not to say that undergraduates should be taught to write like Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, or that such a task would even be conceivable. Their level is different -- they need to be taught to write clearly, which is an important but much less lofty goal than writing well. To teach them this, I would echo the recommendation of reading Thomas Nagel, and also Bernard Williams, who I am surprised no one has mentioned yet.

[Jose Luis Fernandez]

For the prudent student the question inevitably arises: Whether it is better to write clearly or stylistically? Ideally, one would prefer to be both, but since it is difficult to join them together in a single essay and earn a winning grade, it is much safer to be clear than to be stylistic. That said, I’m astonished that no one has mentioned Bernard Williams, surely one who straddled both promontories like a colossus.

[Brian]

I'm going to dissent on Williams, not the Williams of, say, the critique of utilitarianism, but the later Williams of Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy and later work, which seems to me to be only intermittendly clear, often rather affected, and in general unattractive prose--stylized, yes, but perhaps not a good style.

[Chris Hallquist]

I think Dennett's the one person I'd list who hasn't been mentioned yet. I'll object to John Searle--superficial clarity, but there seems to be widespread difficulty figuring out what his views actually are.

[Matthew]

John Gibbons and Ian Hacking both write very clear and concise stuff. I agree with those who've mentioned Trenton Merricks as well. All three show that you can be clear and unfussy with a dash of stlye.

[Alex]

I definitely think Feinberg and Hart deserve to be on the list.

[Aaron Garrett]

Hume. Descartes. Plato. Montaigne. Moore. Bentham. Berkeley.

[Lisa]

Margaret Wilson's writing is a model of clear thinking. Annette Baier found a way incorporate her own distinctive voice into rich philosophical writing. I also find Simone De Beauvoir quite impressive.

I agree with the suggestions of Ian Hacking and Bernard Williams.

I often warn students not to write like Locke.

[kurt]

Goodman's style in Fact, Fiction and Forecast is certainly worth emulating.

[Andrew]

Here's another vote for Trenton Merricks and van Inwagen. Their prose is snappy--and crystal clear--but nonetheless exhibits a lot of personality, I think.

[Jeff Heikkinen]

I've got to disagree with the Putnam suggestion. My eyes slide right off his text. Now, the Kripke of Naming and Necessity I enjoyed a great deal; in a recent seminar I read The Meaning of "Meaning" and selections from Naming and Necessity in the same week and there was no comparison in terms of which I enjoyed more from a stylistic standpoint.

[Jeff Heikkinen]

Oh, and among the "classic" writers, Hume and most translations I've read of Descartes are way up there, though the blog-like style of the Meditations and Discourse is not something that most students should emulate (if only because they're unlikely to do it well).

[David B]

Only Alvin Plantinga could write about as abstruse a subject as the nature of necessity in such a humorous way way. His dry wit is difficult to emulate, but it's very easy to appreciate and admire. So I'd recommend it to students. Any occasion on which Plantinga is responding to critics is worth reading if only to observe the style.

On top of that he's a darn good philosopher. So the reader gets style with substance (dualism).

[Jonathan Ichikawa]

I don't know that I'd hold these up as a model for introductory undergrads -- their style may be better suited to more advanced ideas -- but I strive to emulate the best elements from David Lewis (clarity, excitement), Timothy Williamson (organization, rigor), and Ernest Sosa (depth, the big picture).

[Justin Capes]

No doubt there are many great writers, many of whom have been named above. I must agree with those who mentioned J. Kim, Al Plantinga, and Trenton Merricks. But I'd have to put at the top of my recomendations Russell and van Inwagen. I think we can all learn a great deal about writing philosophy from reading those two authors.

[Scott Wisdom]

I'm curious what people think of Joel Feinberg's "Doing Philosophy" as guide to writing philosophy well. This short book on how to write philosophy papers is the best I've seen on market. Is this the consensus view? Is it often recommended to students? What style guides do philosophers recommend or consult for themselves (if any)?

There are a couple of points that have emerged in this great thread that seem worthy of further discussion. First, the difference between surface clarity and difficulties in clearly grasping what view an author holds (cited in regards to Searle and Quine). Is it possible to affect the stance of a 'straight shooter' while remaining obscure? If so, then what are the general mechanics? Are there tricks endemic to philosophical discourse? Do philosophers need something more than Gricean maxims?

Second, many have noted that those named as great stylists are not consistently good throughout their works. What are the model works of good stylists and where and why do they falter elsewhere? To take one example, I agree with Brian that B. Williams could be an excellent writer of philosophy, but towards the end of his career much of his prose is stilted, and sometimes mixed with rebarbative untranslated Greek. Donald Davidson could also write beautifully, but as is often said, he would sometimes be so concise as to omit his arguments. Regardless of content problems, Adorno could write splendidly; but he was prone to obscurity and neglecting citations.

As for those exemplars that have yet to be mentioned yet (I think), I'd like to add A.J. Ayer, Brian Barry, Gilbert Harman, John Mackie, Peter Railton and Jeremy Waldron. Oh, and Gilbert Ryle! "The ghost in the machine" is arguably the best philosophical coinage of the 20th century.

Finally, it's also worth noting an absence in the list: John Rawls. There are occasional moments of limpid insight in his corpus, but his prose too often strikes me as staccato, turgid, and almost sententious when it comes to his central theses.

[J Sheptow]

I’ll put in a plug for Spinoza. The Ethics, in particular, is a real page turner; it practically reads itself.

[Jeff McMahan]

Schopenhauer, William James, Bertrand Russell, Thomas Nagel, Derek Parfit, Michael Walzer

[Reid B]

David Ross. I mean Sir David Ross.

[Brian]

One thing I'm concluding from this thread is that style is very much a matter of subjective taste! I do think Peter Railton is a splendid writer, but he was also my dissertation supervisor, so I was reluctant to be the one to mention him. I now feel obligated to read Trenton Merricks (armchair metaphysics is not ordinarily my cup of tea, though I know he is highly regarded by those in the field), given the repeated praise for his style!

[Paul Raymont]

C. D. Broad and D. M. Armstrong; sometimes Fodor. They are 'hit the nail on the head' writers.

Students shouldn't write like Kant and McDowell, but I have to say I love reading these two. They write in a rich, suggestive way that can get one excited about a topic and stimulate thought (in an effort to tie up their loose ends).

As Jordan says (above), writing clearly isn't the same as writing well (in the sense of being a master English stylist). One way to interpret 'writing well' is in terms of abiding by all the picky grammatical and stylistic rules. I'm amazed at how often students who are about to write an essay ask me about picky, stylistic issues, such as whether they may write in the first person. I guess other humanities programs stress this sort of thing (as well as the format of footnotes). It's nice that philosophy generally doesn't.

[Brandon]

I've learned the most about philosophical writing from one of my own teachers, Michael Bishop. Lucid, bold, jokes.