Topic Summary:
Discuss the article, “How I Write a Lot,” here
Goal:
Learn more about writing
CF Relevance:
Writing is important to philosphy
Edit: Here’s the link to the article:
The following paragraph is from the section Write More First Drafts:
First sentence:
If you use writing as a way to think out loud, it’s like literally thinking. If you can think about things more to solve more problems or learn then you can do that more when you write.
When the quote says this:
To me writing to think gives you more reasons to write. You can wanna write more often cuz of that. I like being able to analyze stuff I read cuz I know I won’t understand everything a text says. If I break it down a bit then I can think about a text another way. Imagine how many ways there are to think about something and you utilize that in your writing? You’ll figure a lot of problems out
It usually helps you improve the quality of your thinking too. When you just keep your thinking in your head it’s easier to not notice things and skip over steps. When you have to put it out, either in spoken or written word you may notice you were lacking an argument. I find I more often think up criticism of my thinking after I’ve had it written down.
1 Like
Writing helps you improve the quality of your thinking. I wonder what “quality” means. That’s how good it is? Like, writing helps you think about things better, so when you think about things with or without writing you can have an easier time. Idk
I wonder how many steps I skipped. I think I notice tht sometimes. I also notice when I want to write something down so I don’t have to think so many things at once. I dont know if thats related to skipping steps
I don’t know if I noticed tht I was lacking an argument. I think when I do an essay I find out something I wrote down wasn’t as good as I thought.
Yeah, I think I find criticisms sometimes. I dont remember when. I think when I edit my stuff I find errors in my writing. Maybe there’s errors in thinking too? I think finding errors is maybe different from criticizing?
I think I find errors in my thinking when Im not sure about something I write. I use “I think” to show that im unsure about what im saying. I think thats a criticism cuz Im saying a sentence fails at the goal of being proper knowledge
Yes. Primarily by letting you find and fix errors in your thinking. It can also help generate new ideas, by for example making you think of a question and that gives you a new idea. After having written you can update your thinking and it’s now (maybe) better.
The next time you’ll use the ideas you improved by writing you’ll probably be able to use it to have an easier time, but the first time when you’re writing might be difficult because it’s pushing you to think harder.
So the result from the writing is that you might have an easier time in the future. But the process of writing it self might not be so easy.
Try to look out for when you have a conclusion you want to write about and you find out you don’t know how to connect to it from your premises. You might start writing “when X then Y happens because …” and you found out you don’t know about arguments to write after “because”. Yet initially you did think that Y follows when X is the case. So you might realize you have to question your idea.
While writing this I realized it seems a bit justificationist. Because it seems like I’m saying you need a positive argument after the “because” part. Actually, when you need an argument is when you need to address a criticism. But there is a certain category of ideas which seem implausible and you need to figure out what the criticisms of it are that you need to refute. I think a common one is just “well, how do we get from premise A to conclusion B, there is no clear path?”. In that situation you might just need a chain of explanations that makes the connection clear.
Don’t you ever find yourself writing something and then halfway through find out it’s wrong or that there is some extra thing you have to address in order to be able to say it? I do, and that usually means I stop writing and then sit there and think for a bit before I continue writing.
They are essentially the same. But you could distinguish them by saying an (actual) error is true while a criticism can be false. So an error would something that is actually wrong in reality about an idea, while a criticism would be an idea that purports to point out an error, however the criticism is only an idea which might have an error (it is actually and truly erroneous).
I’ve been reading Popper on the three worlds (physical, subjective and objective). Using his terminology I think the way I defined “error” and “criticism” would mean “error” belongs the objective world while “criticism” belongs to the subjective world. Though I’m quite unsure and find Popper a bit confusing on this topic and I think remember @Elliot saying he doesn’t agree with Popper about his three worlds. Yet Elliot does recommend the essay Epistemology Without a Knowing Subject, which is about the three worlds, so I assume Elliot thinks there is some truth to it.
Now it might or might not be useful to define this way. I think though in colloquial speech they are mostly synonymous. If @Elliot uses them this way, then I haven’t noticed it at least. I guess he doesn’t.
Imma respond to @ActiveMind by each sentence.
First sentence/question:
Yeah, usually halfway thru I found out i made a spelling mistake, said something pretty wrong or something im unsure of. Sometimes, I just write out the thought anyways cuz tht tells me I made an error tht maybe I can come back to later and fix. I could investigate it right then and there too. I for sure sometimes tho write stuff tht sounded wrong and I rewrite it.
I think I also write stuff that I think I need an extra thing to say. Like, with sentences, I think i don’t give enough context so I feel like I have to add an extra thing to say.
Sometimes I do stop writing too and I think to myself a bit about what im trying to get or do. Sometimes I write more cuz writing helps me think. I can probably figure stuff out if i write. I think it depends wat helps
In general, you should have a positive “because …” explanation. That’s not (or at least doesn’t have to be) justificationist. In general (but not always), lacking an explanation is a criticism of an idea. In most problem situations or contexts, most ideas should have some sort of explanation covering some basic issues like what problem the idea is trying to solve and how/why it solves it, how it works, etc. You (usually) need a positive account of what the idea is/does/etc before exposing it to most other types of criticism.
When you say
in the beginning, thats the main way to do something or the main source. Imma look tht up rq…In Merriam Webster, primarily meant ‘mainly’ like ‘for the most part.’
I think what you’re saying is if you use writing as a way to think out loud, it helps you improve the quality of your thinking. How?? @ActiveMind says primarily by:
For the most part, writing helps your thinking by letting you find and fix errors in your thinking. That makes sense that your errors get fix if you write more to think. That literally boosts the quality of your thinking. You’re doing more stuff correctly. It’s higher quality stuff.
There’s a next time where you might use the ideas you wrote about. You improved on those ideas. I kinda know what “use” means but I wonder what it actually means. Like, you use the ideas to solve a problem or ask a question.
The next time you do use the ideas @ActiveMind says youll be able to use the ideas to have an easier time. I think easier time could be with solving problems or learning something new.
I see there’s “but” indicating a contrast i think. It’s between the easier time you’ll have when you improve and the hard time youre going to have when youre writing. Youre writing to think about the ideas i think