How to Read Philosophy Without Giving Up

Why philosophy is hard to read, and why that is normal

Most of what you read for pleasure carries you along: a story moves forward, an article tells you what happened. Philosophy does not. A philosophical text is an argument, and an argument only works if every step holds, so the author spends pages on distinctions that seem fussy until you see what they rule out. Read it at novel speed and you reach the end of a chapter with a vague sense of the topic and no idea what was claimed. That is not a lack of ability. It is the wrong speed for the material.

Three more things add to the difficulty. Philosophers use ordinary words in technical senses — “substance” in Descartes, “a priori” in Kant, “virtue” in Aristotle — and the everyday meaning will mislead you. They write in conversation with other thinkers, often without naming them. And they state views they reject, sometimes persuasively, before taking them apart. Descartes's First Meditation builds a case for doubting nearly everything, and the rest of the book climbs back out. Readers who stop early come away with close to the opposite of his view.

Choose a first text, an edition and a goal

Where you start matters more in philosophy than almost anywhere else. Short primary texts written for a general reader are the gentlest way in: Plato's Apology, Descartes's Meditations on First Philosophy, Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding or Mill's On Liberty. Each makes one main case you can hold in your head. Starting with Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is how many people decide philosophy is not for them. For a worked example of a good first text, see our guide to Descartes's Meditations.

Pick an edition with an introduction, notes and the standard reference numbers in the margin. Plato is cited by Stephanus numbers (the allegory of the cave begins at Republic 514a), Aristotle by Bekker numbers, and Kant's first Critique by the page numbers of its 1781 and 1787 editions, labeled A and B. These numbers appear in every serious translation, so they let you find any passage a teacher or commentary mentions. Then set a goal you can check, such as “I can state this section's thesis and its two main reasons,” rather than “understand Descartes.”

How to read philosophy in three passes

One slow read rarely works, and neither do five fast ones. Passes with different jobs do. Use this sequence for any chapter, essay or dialogue of up to about thirty pages, with a pencil in hand; if you want a consistent marking system, how to annotate a book sets one out.

1. 1Survey, in ten to fifteen minutes. Read the opening and closing paragraphs, any headings and the first sentence of each paragraph. Write one sentence saying what you think the author is trying to establish. You may be wrong.
2. 2Read slowly for structure. Mark the main claim each time it appears, number the reasons offered for it, and flag every objection the author raises. Put a question mark beside anything unclear and keep going.
3. 3Return to the question marks. Many resolve once you have seen where the argument goes. For the rest, reread the paragraph before, which often holds the missing premise.
4. 4Reconstruct. Close the book, write the argument as numbered premises leading to a conclusion, then check your list against the text.
5. 5Evaluate. Only now ask whether you agree, which premise you would reject, and why.

Map the argument: signal words, premises and the conclusion

Philosophers signal the structure of an argument with ordinary connecting words. After “therefore,” a conclusion is coming; after “since,” a reason is. “One might object” introduces a view the author will answer, not one they hold. Circle these words on your slow read and the skeleton of the argument starts to show.

Once you have the pieces, put them in standard form. Descartes's dream argument, reconstructed: (1) In dreams I have had experiences just like waking ones. (2) There is no sure sign by which I can tell, from the inside, that I am awake rather than dreaming. (3) So I cannot be certain, from my senses alone, that I am awake now. (4) So my senses cannot give me certain knowledge of the world around me. Written this way, it shows exactly where to push: is premise two true?

Read charitably first, then argue back

The principle of charity is a rule philosophers apply to each other: before you criticize an argument, interpret it in its strongest reasonable form. If a premise looks obviously false, assume first that you have misread it and look for a meaning a careful thinker could have intended. Often you will find one, and the argument gets more interesting. If you cannot after an honest attempt, you have earned your objection.

When you argue back, aim at a specific place. An argument fails in only a few ways: a premise is false, a key term shifts meaning between steps, or the conclusion does not follow even if the premises are true. An argument is valid when its conclusion follows from its premises, and sound when it is also built on true premises. “I don't buy it” is a reaction; “premise two assumes dreams feel exactly like waking life” is an objection.

Keep track of whose voice you are reading, too. In Plato's dialogues other characters state real positions with force, and Plato does not always settle the matter. Thrasymachus's claim in Book I of the Republic that justice is the advantage of the stronger, restated by Glaucon and Adeimantus in Book II, drives the rest of the work; our guide to reading the Republic follows that thread.

What to do when a passage will not make sense

Every reader of philosophy hits passages that stay opaque after three reads. Being stuck is part of the work; staying stuck on one sentence for an hour is not. Try these in order:

Commentaries, lecture notes and encyclopedia entries help, but use them after you have formed your own reading, not instead of it. Read the commentary first and you will find what the commentator found and nothing else. The close reading method works on a hard paragraph of philosophy as well as on a poem.

• Reread the paragraph before. A difficult sentence usually depends on a definition or premise set up just earlier.
• Ask what the passage is answering. Find the question or objection it responds to; the answer often clicks once you see the question.
• Rewrite the sentence in plain words, one clause at a time, replacing “this” and “it” with what they refer to.
• Look up technical terms in your edition's notes or glossary, or a reputable philosophy encyclopedia, rather than a general dictionary.
• Explain it out loud. Trying to tell someone what a passage says exposes the exact step you cannot yet explain.

A realistic pace, and how to keep going

Expect a few pages an hour on a dense text, sometimes less. Plan sessions of forty-five minutes to an hour with a specific target, such as one meditation or one section of a dialogue, rather than a page count. Stop at a natural break and write two or three sentences on where the argument stands, so you can pick up tomorrow without rereading everything.

Keep a running argument log: one page per text, listing the main conclusion, each supporting step with its section reference, and the objections you want to raise. By the end of the book that page is your study guide and the start of any essay. The honest measure of progress is whether you can explain the argument from memory to someone who has not read it. If you cannot, you know exactly what to reread.