In a recent piece for The Guardian Jonathan Wolff mentions that in Philosophy we teach students to give the game away rather than have any element of surprise. Plotting is out. He doesn't seem to be advocating more plotting, just pointing out why academic writing can be so boring. But perhaps the absence of plotting is a serious mistake. Think of Descartes' Meditations - the first classic text that most Philosophy students study. Does Descartes give the game away in the first paragraph? No. He takes us through the three waves of doubt then pulls his rabbit out of the hat with the cogito argument...and even then it's not obvious (though clearly not satisfactory) that he's going to rely on God not being a deceiver to re-build his understanding of the world...Kierkegaard doesn't begin Either/Or by spelling out the point of his pseudonymous authors with their evincing of different ways of living...
Actually, as a graduate student, I remember Hugh (a.k.a. D.H.) Mellor (my PhD supervisor at the time) talking about the value of plotting and building up to a denouement...but perhaps he is unusual amongst analytic philosophers in recognising the importance of this sort of issue.
...on the other hand, plotting smacks of politics, of trying to win an argument (rather than find the truth:)
Posted by: Enigman | September 07, 2007 at 02:49 PM