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Clarity in Philosophy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 May 2014

Bryan Magee
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Abstract

Some philosophy – Wittgenstein's would be an example – is written in clear sentences, yet most people find it obscure at a first reading. This is because the prime location of clarity in philosophy is not sentences but structures. Only if a reader can relate what he is currently reading to a wider framework does he know where he is. Coherent utterance in all discursive media – not only language but mathematics, for example, or music – possesses two kinds of structure at the same time. In this article these are distinguished, and their radically different relationships with language shown. In the process, the commonest causes of unclarity are also identified.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 89 , Issue 3 , July 2014 , pp. 451 - 462
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2014 

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References

1 See her Philosophy in a New Key. Especially chapter 4.

2 Berlin, Isaiah in Men of Ideas (ed.) Magee, Bryan (BBC Books; 1st Edition, 1978), 20Google Scholar.

3 Noam Chomsky in Men of Ideas (ed. Bryan Magee), 218.

4 Modern British Philosophy (ed.) Magee, Bryan (Oxford University Press, 1986), 29Google Scholar

5 Russell, , Portraits from Memory (Spokesman Books, 1995), 195–196Google Scholar

6 On page 111 of the same book Gilbert Ryle says: ‘The most important thing about a philosopher's arguments is that it should be as easy as possible for other people, and especially for himself, to catch him out if he can be caught out.’