Question My English teacher has said that it is important to read an author first, before reading her critics, so that one can form an opinion unpolluted by the arguments of others. Is philosophy like this as well? Should I read Wittgenstein before I read books and articles about Wittgenstein? Should I avoid books which try to summarize the great works of philosophy, in case theirs is a biased interpretation? Philosophy is pretty hard, and I think that few people can be expected to attack _The critique of pure reason_ alone; for the philosophy undergraduate, what should be the role of "secondary" sources?

Accepted:
February 5, 2007

Comments

With respect to beginning to study the history of philosophy, Ithink that it is almost always more interesting and rewarding to engagewith primary philosophical texts without consulting commentaries andother secondary sources: direct intellectual contact with the mostpoweful philosophers and philospohical arguments is a profoundlypowerful experience.You are right of course, that this is a difficult experience to secure, but the effort is almost always worth it. Patience is important. Reading even the most abstruse philosophical texts becomes much esaierwith practice; my general advice is to stick with the primary textswith a good degree of patience and confdence that you will becomecapable of more and more sophisticated engagement over time.

Iknow that it is tempting to "turn to" secondary source when youconfront a difficult and frustrating text. If you are a student whowill be learning along with classmates and can gain additional insightfrom a professor, I urge you to resist this temptation -- instead, usethose other people as resources to support your learning and engagementwith the primary texts. For those reading entirely on their own, itmight sometimes be useful to consult sparingly in the secondaryliterature as a means of academic support, but even those who willnever take a philosophy class should use this assistance as sparinglyas possible.

To be sure, there are many marvelous commentaries and secondarysources, and many which have indpendent philosophical interest. As yourstudies advance it makes sense to consult those texts when you wish tostudy a particular topic or argument in depth. I would only do this,however, after you have read fairly widely on your own among thephilosophcal canon.

Outside the history of philosophy, the the distinction betweenprimary and secondary texts is much less clear, so the "read the authorfirst and her critics later" strategy probably doesn't make much sensethere. Indeed, one should not push the distinction too hard evenwithin the history of philosophers: although I think it is useful toread the canonical authors "on their own," keep in mind that many ofthose canonical texts included criticism of past philosophers and asyou read those authors you will probably begin placing their individualtexts and arguments in an historical context.