Philosophy of Writing - by David Arndt (Hardcover)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

Why write? Why care about writing well?

Most philosophers have seen writing as inferior to speech as a way to move toward truth. Just a few thinkers-including Epictetus, Nietzsche, Arendt, Foucault, Morrison, and Anzaldúa-have said that writing itself can be part of the search for understanding. But how can this be true?

In this pathbreaking work, David Arndt argues that our views of writing have been distorted by common concepts of truth, goodness, and beauty, and that we have to critically rethink these concepts in order to better understand in what senses writing can be beautiful, good, and true. He distinguishes several kinds of thought (demonstrative, interpretive, perspectival, and narrative), and explains how they are articulated in different genres of writing (papers, essays, dialogues, and stories). He ends with fifty principles of composition that guide writing at its best. Philosophy of Writing is both a philosophical meditation on writing and a practical handbook on how to write.

This luminous and illuminating book shows-in prose that is clear, graceful, and occasionally witty-how writing has been practiced as a kind of meditation conducive to the search for wisdom. But it also shows how this practice opens the deepest questions of philosophy, and calls into question the meaning of philosophy itself.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

Review Quotes

"Read this book and you'll never think of freshman composition in the same way again ... A bracing, philosophically rich argument for writing well as a personal journey and a social good." --Kirkus Reviews

""One should use common words to say uncommon things." That line from Schopenhauer precisely describes David Arndt's project in his wonderful new book, Philosophy of Writing, which will teach you how to write and show you why writing matters. Both very clear and very sophisticated, it's a short, deep, and beautiful." --Mark Edmondson, author of Why Write? (Bloomsbury, 2016), and Professor of English at the University of Virginia, USA

"For students, researchers, young writers and educators alike, David Arndt's book offers a compelling vision of what writing can be at its highest level: not just a means of communication, but a path to wisdom, into Mystery beyond Philosophy." --Antonio Cardiello, Researcher at the Nova Institute of Philosophy, New University of Lisbon, Portugal

"Reading this book is like finding an oasis in the desert: nourishing, joyful, and refreshing. Philosophy of Writing is also provocative - David Arndt sees writing as an act of thinking with the power to direct our attention towards higher goals: "The best writing is not primarily aimed at an audience but at truth." With a calming presence so rare in our time I had ceased to believe in it, he reminds us how this essential truth governs the art of using language. The elegant concision of Arndt's quotable prose means that his sentences linger in the mind as fondly as a friend. This luminous and crucial book deserves many readers, from teachers to poets." --is Katie Peterson, Professor of English at UC Davis, CA, USA, and author of Fog and Smoke (2024)

About the Author