Why do we care about writing well? Should we worry about how to write prose that's true, good and beautiful? Perhaps we need to dismantle our idea of what truth, goodness and beauty mean in the first place. This is one of the ideas at the heart of this open access book - that the common concepts defining the act of writing are overdue a reconsideration.
For 2400 years philosophers have written meditations, aphorisms, handbooks, essays, letters, confessions, stories, plays, diatribes, and dialogues. Setting out a new way of looking at the role of writing in philosophical enquiry, David Arndt explains how writing has always been the act of thinking on paper - a meditative practice integral to the search for wisdom. He describes how different kinds of thought - demonstrative, interpretive, narrative and perspectival - are expressed in different genres of writing, breaking down the highest questions of philosophy in clear and witty terms. This is both a meditation and a practical guide, with the book's final section setting out fifty principles of composition to demonstrate how these theoretical insights can in turn guide the way we actually write. These principles will help readers to become better writers and, in the process, become better thinkers.
The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.