I've been trying to get into philosophy, particularly epistemology, critical thinking, and the evaluation of arguments. But the more I try to study philosophy through traditional primary and secondary sources, the more frustrated I become with the whole process.
My biggest problem is the way philosophical ideas are communicated.
I recently read David Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Well, I tried to. I found the language unnecessarily difficult to follow, and even the editor's introduction was frustrating to read. I kept encountering complicated expressions, lengthy sentences, unfamiliar terminology, and paragraphs that seemed to take forever to communicate what could have been expressed much more clearly in a few sentences.
On several occasions, I had to get passages translated into plain, contemporary English just to understand what the author was trying to say. And when I did, I sometimes discovered that an entire paragraph could be explained in two straightforward sentences.
That genuinely frustrates me.
I understand that Hume lived in the eighteenth century, that language changes over time, and that some philosophical problems are inherently difficult. I'm not expecting every philosophical question to have a simple answer. But I struggle to understand why the process of communicating an idea has to be so unnecessarily difficult in the first place.
If you're trying to communicate an argument to another person, surely clarity should be a priority? Why should I have to spend so much time decoding the language before I can even begin evaluating the argument itself?
And this brings me to my bigger problem.
People often tell beginners to read primary philosophical texts because doing so supposedly develops critical thinking. But I genuinely question this advice.
How exactly am I supposed to critically evaluate an argument that I haven't properly understood? If I'm spending most of my mental energy trying to decipher the author's language, I'm not necessarily thinking critically about the argument. I'm trying to work out what the argument even is.
Those are two different activities.
I don't deny that reading difficult texts can develop certain skills, such as close reading, patience, and interpreting historical writing. But are those skills really prerequisites for becoming good at philosophical reasoning? Do I genuinely need to struggle through Hume's original prose before I can understand empiricism, examine his arguments about causation, or evaluate his scepticism?
I don't see why I would.
This is what led me to reconsider how I study philosophy.
When I studied subjects like biology, I wouldn't begin by reading the original scientific publications of every major scientist. I'd use a textbook that organises the subject into a coherent curriculum, introduces concepts in a sensible order, explains the relationships between them, and gradually builds my understanding.
Why shouldn't I approach philosophy in the same way?
A good contemporary epistemology textbook can introduce the nature of knowledge, justification, scepticism, rationalism, empiricism, foundationalism, coherentism, and contemporary theories of justification in a systematic way. It can explain the arguments supporting each position, present objections, compare competing theories, and help me understand how the debates connect.
That seems far more efficient than jumping between primary texts and scholarly commentaries, especially when I don't yet have the background knowledge to understand what I'm reading.
What I'm looking for is a structured, curriculum-based approach to philosophy. I want to understand the subject as a whole before getting lost in the details of individual philosophers.
I'd rather learn the conceptual framework first and then examine Hume, Kant, or whoever else becomes relevant to a particular debate.
I'm not arguing that primary texts have no value. Obviously, reading the original work allows you to examine the philosopher's reasoning directly rather than relying entirely on somebody else's interpretation.
But I question whether reading primary texts should be the default starting point for beginners.
A contemporary textbook can explain Hume's position, reconstruct his arguments in plain English, compare different interpretations, and discuss whether his conclusions follow from his premises. Once I understand those things, I can decide whether reading the original text would add anything useful to my understanding.
The same applies to secondary literature. Some scholarly commentaries are excellent, but others seem to make relatively straightforward ideas harder to understand by introducing excessive terminology, unnecessary qualifications, and complicated explanations.
Of course, some of this complexity might be necessary to preserve important distinctions. I'm not suggesting that every difficult passage can be reduced without losing something meaningful. My concern is that academic complexity sometimes seems to become an obstacle rather than a tool for understanding.
And I'm particularly reluctant to spend money on multiple books when a well-written contemporary textbook could give me a more coherent foundation.
Why spend hours struggling through an older text when I could use that time to understand the underlying argument, examine its objections, and apply it to other problems?