Improv

The philosopher Daniel Dennett considers Darwinian natural selection to be “the single best idea anyone has ever had” and wrote a book-length argument called Darwin’s Dangerous Idea to support the opinion. I’ve read the book and, while reading, find myself agreeing with Dennett throughout, but when I read other people’s arguments, I forget how to suspend the details of each set of ideas so as to consider them on their merits, and on my own terms. I am too easily swayed by rhetoric, and I am not good enough at thinking on my own to separate rhetorical quality from specific ideas.

One reason for me to write out how I think about particular subjects is to lay out the process of the way I think. If I do it well, I will find out weak areas and stronger areas, and I should be able to improve the former and reinforce the latter. Unfortunately, my aesthetic preferences tend to encourage rhetorical rather than analytical writing, and I worry about writing persuasive arguments that lack real merit.