“Pity the Poor Reader”
“Pity the poor reader” is one of philosopher Penelope Maddy‘s writing maxims. Maddy is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Irvine, and is interviewed about her writing by Nathan Ballantyne (Arizona State) at his site, The Workbench. What does she mean by it? She says: In philosophy especially, I figure the reader is nearly always gasping for breath, in danger of being swept out to sea, so the writer should do everything in their power to help. Keep things as simple and explicit, as direct and straightforward as you can. Don’t hedge or obfuscate. Don’t use jargon unless you define it. (Philosophical words—realism, analyticity, empiricism, etc.—are used in so many different ways that it’s not safe to call on one without saying explicitly what you mean by it.) Give concrete examples. Down to earth examples are always best, I think… I sometimes said to my students, I don’t care what happens on Mars (Twin Earth, etc.), tell me what happens here! Later in the interview she shares a variant of this advice, picked up during her time in grad school at Princeton, which she has passed on to others: At the time, [Thomas Nagel] lived in New York City and commuted down to Princeton by train. Rumor had it that he read his students’ short papers during the train ride, with all the noise and distractions that would involve. So the grad student scuttlebutt was that we needed to write our papers clearly and directly enough to come through to someone in that challenging environment. I used to share that advice with my students: Write for Nagel on the Train. The interview contains further interesting details about Maddy’s writing, along with more bits of writing advice. You can read the whole interview here. Discussion welcome, as are writing suggestions.
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"content": "“Pity the Poor Reader”\n\n“Pity the poor reader” is one of philosopher Penelope Maddy‘s writing maxims. Maddy is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Irvine, and is interviewed about her writing by Nathan Ballantyne (Arizona State) at his site, The Workbench. What does she mean by it? She says: In philosophy especially, I figure the reader is nearly always gasping for breath, in danger of being swept out to sea, so the writer should do everything in their power to help. Keep things as simple and explicit, as direct and straightforward as you can. Don’t hedge or obfuscate. Don’t use jargon unless you define it. (Philosophical words—realism, analyticity, empiricism, etc.—are used in so many different ways that it’s not safe to call on one without saying explicitly what you mean by it.) Give concrete examples. Down to earth examples are always best, I think… I sometimes said to my students, I don’t care what happens on Mars (Twin Earth, etc.), tell me what happens here! Later in the interview she shares a variant of this advice, picked up during her time in grad school at Princeton, which she has passed on to others: At the time, [Thomas Nagel] lived in New York City and commuted down to Princeton by train. Rumor had it that he read his students’ short papers during the train ride, with all the noise and distractions that would involve. So the grad student scuttlebutt was that we needed to write our papers clearly and directly enough to come through to someone in that challenging environment. I used to share that advice with my students: Write for Nagel on the Train. The interview contains further interesting details about Maddy’s writing, along with more bits of writing advice. You can read the whole interview here. Discussion welcome, as are writing suggestions.\nThe post https://dailynous.com/2025/08/25/pity-the-poor-reader/\n.\n\nhttps://dailynous.com/2025/08/25/pity-the-poor-reader/",
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