My Study Process

[sdi]

A friend of mine is interested in studying philosophy more deeply, and asked me the other day about what my process is when I'm studying a work. I gave him an answer along the lines below, but I thought I'd write it up in case anybody else is interested.

Now, I'm a computer programmer, and we computer programmers take everything in steps:

1. Select a work to read. Sometimes a work is selected for you, but usually one gets to select something themselves. If it's a multi-part work, try to commit to regularly doing the whole thing in parts. If the parts are really small, try to group them into coherent sections: the idea here is to bite off work in digestible units. If you find that you hate a work halfway through it—too bad; that's life, stick it out until the end. Usually you'll get something out of it anyway.

2. Set a time limit on reading it. Try to be reasonable when considering whether you're the kind of person who needs the bridle or the whip! If you set a goal too aggressively, you'll hurt yourself; if you set a goal too conservatively, you'll dawdle. When I was reading the Enneads, I tried to commit to an average of one essay a week. This was a little aggressive, but was actually a fairly good time limit for me; but what if you pick your time limit badly? Stick with it for this essay, but revise it on the next.

   Personally, I like to only formally commit myself to a single work at a time: right now I'm studying the Elements of Theology, and before that I did the Enneads, and before that I did On the Gods and the World; but of course I'm promiscuous and like to read lots of things at once. I don't like to alternate between different works, say Plotinus this week and Plato the next; rather, I will instead formally commit to Plotinus but leave myself enough time in each segment to read other things, too.

3. Read the work! I don't have any particular strategy here: sometimes a work is short and easy and I just read it all in a single pass, while other times I'm need to really take it paragraph-by-paragraph, and still others I'll read it quickly the first time and then again with more care. The goal is to try and understand what the author is saying and why; and different authors, different works, different motivations driving the author, different historical contexts all seem to require their own handling to understand. It's important to try and understand the author, though: try to suspend judgement on whether the work is good or bad or whatever until after you understand it.

4. Write a page-long summary of the work. (I say "page-long," but to be honest, I'm usually writing on a computer. Figure about three paragraphs for an "average-sized" work, and if something needs more or less, go ahead and recalibrate.) It's been said that you don't understand something unless you can teach it, so attempt to summarize the most salient points of the work. If you don't understand it well enough to do so, read it again—and again if necessary! When I was working through Plotinus, only the shortest and simplest essays could I get in a single pass; usually it took me two or three reads. (The hardest ones took five!) This is why you set yourself a time limit; sometimes a work is just beyond you, and if you bump into the time limit, just call it, do your best, and make a mental note to revisit the work some other time. (And don't feel too bad about doing so! I'm in very poor health and a lot of times my brain is simply too fogged over to engage as deeply as I'd like in the material. But Providence is just, and I'm inclined to think that if one makes an honest effort, one will be blessed by it.)

5. Write commentary on everything that stood out to you about the work. Did something surprise you? Did something upset you? In trying to reconcile the work with things you already know, does everything fit or were there things that seemed incongruous? How can you apply the work to your life?

   I like to write my commentary in a very free-form way. As you've all seen by now, I also like to publish my summaries and commentaries: I write them for myself, but I publish them in the hopes that somebody finds the notes helpful. Naturally, I edit my commentary down when I do so to those that aren't private—but, of course, much (most?) of my notes try to grapple with what the material means to me and how it fits with my experiences, and I think it is especially important to think about one's relationship to a work.

6. Repeat from step 1. This is, intentionally, an infinite loop. You'll have plenty of time to rest when you're dead; for now, work.