You might not think writing style matters in philosophy. But Kwame Anthony Appiah – a professor of philosophy who’s also a literary scholar – argues that style is crucial for understanding almost all the great philosophers. He shows how a single strange sentence from the American philosopher Quine unsettles our familiar sense of the world. In contrast, French philosopher Montaigne’s humble style underpins his open-minded thinking. Anthony guides us through the rewards of reading philosophy as a kind of literature.
Bonus clip
Kwame Anthony Appiah on the delightful flexibility of Asante Twi proverbs.
Works mentioned
– W. V. Quine, Word and Object
– Michel de Montaigne, Essays
– Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason
Further reading
Kwame Anthony Appiah at the New York Times – The Case for Contamination
Kwame Anthony Appiah at NPR – Cosmopolitanism: Finding a Moral Middle Ground
Adam Gopnik at The New Yorker – Montaigne on Trial
Jim Holt at the New York Times – Is Philosophy Literature?
Friedrich Nietzsche at Brain Pickings – Ten Rules for Writers
Erica Trabold at Lit Hub – How to find Michel de Montaigne’s estate, or get hopelessly lost trying