ガイドライン1:哲学論文の読み方1 |
James Pryor
(http://www.jimpryor.net/teaching/guidelines/reading.html)
James Pryorの「哲学論文の読み方、書き方ガイドライン」拾い読み。
哲学クラスの受講生むけに書かれたもの。例によって抜書き&部分訳。
*Pryorはニューヨーク大学教授。これを書いた時はハーバード大学所属。以下の「紹介」は本人の同意をえています。
最初は「読み方」
論文の結論を見つけ、全体の構成を把握せよ
Skim the Article to Find its Conclusion and Get a Sense of its Structure
まず全体を一読すること
著者の主な結論を把握すること
とくに最初と最後に注目
メインテーゼがわかったら、自分の言葉でそれを言い直してみること
A good way to begin when you're trying to read a difficult article is to first skim the article to identify what the author's main conclusion is. Pay special attention to the opening and closing paragraphs, since authors will often tell you there what they intend to be arguing for. When you do figure out what the author's main conclusion is, try to restate it in your own words. This will help you to be sure that you really understand what the author is arguing for.
最初に一読するとき、論文の構造をつかまえるべし
When you're skimming the article, try also to get a general sense of what's going on in each part of the discussion. What is the structure of the article? Sometimes authors will tell you, early in the paper, what their argument will look like. This makes your job easier.
論文は単純な構成をもつとは限らない
The articles we read won't always have a straightforward structure. They won't always be of the form:
This is the conclusion I want you to accept. Here is my argument for that conclusion...
途中の命題に対する補助的論証もある
Philosophers often provide auxiliary arguments, arguments for important premises they appeal to in support of their main conclusion. For instance, the author's discussion may have the form:
The conclusion I want you to accept is A. My argument for this conclusion is as follows: B and C are true, and if B and C are true, then A must also be true. It is generally accepted that B is true. However, it is controversial whether C is true. I think you ought to accept C for the following reasons...
Here the author's main argument is for the conclusion A, and in the process of arguing for A he advances an auxiliary argument in support of C. Try to identify these auxiliary arguments, and the claims they're intended to support; and try to avoid mistaking one of these auxiliary arguments for the author's main argument.
他の仕方でも論文は複雑でありうる:思考実験あり、他の哲学者の見解の反駁あり、・・
Articles can be complex in other ways, too. Not everything the author says will be a positive conclusion or a premise in support of his conclusion. Sometimes he'll be supporting his view with a thought-experiment. Sometimes he'll be arguing for a distinction which his positive view relies on. Sometimes he'll be arguing that another philosopher's views or arguments ought to be rejected. Sometimes he'll be defending a view against somebody else's objections.
「なぜなら」、「だから」、「以上を前提とすると」、「したがって」、「しかしながら」等の語に注意
Keep an eye out for words like these when you're reading:
because, since, given this argument
thus, therefore, hence, it follows that, consequently
nevertheless, however, but
in the first case, on the other hand
These are signposts 手がかり、道しるべ which help you keep track of the structure of the discussion. For example, one philosophy article might run as follows:
Philosopher X advanced the following argument against dualism...
The dualist has two responses to X's argument. First...
However, this response runs into problems, because...
A better response for the dualist says...
X might be tempted to counter as follows... However...
and so on.
「最初に」、「しかしながら」、「よりよい応答は」などの語は議論の方向をみきわめるのに役立つので注目すべし
The words "first" and "however" and "a better response" make it easy to see where the discussion is going. You'll also want to put signposts like these in your own philosophical writing.
Here's another example:
The skeptic says that we can't tell whether we're seeing things as they really are, or whether we're brains in vats being force-fed false experiences, like the inhabitants of The Matrix.
Y raised the following objection to the skeptic... Hence, Y concludes, we have no reason to think our situation is as bad as the skeptic makes it out to be.
This is an attractive response to the skeptic, but I don't think it can really work, for the following reason...
Y might respond to this problem in one of two ways. The first way is... However, this response fails because...
The second way Y might respond is... However, this response also fails because...
So in the end I think Y's objection to the skeptic can not be sustained. Of course, I'm not myself a skeptic. I agree with Y that the skeptic's conclusion is false. But I think we'll have to look harder to see where the flaw in the skeptic's reasoning really is.
In this article, the author spends most of his time defending the skeptic against Y's objections, and considering possible responses that Y might give. The author's main conclusion is that Y's objection to the skeptic does not work. (Notice: the main conclusion isn't that skepticism is true.)
*以下判明すると思うが、懇切丁寧(under construction)。