Philosophy texts are so complicated

[Special At Specialist]

Does anyone else find philosophical texts really complicated and difficult to read? I'll give you an example. This is from "The Need for Roots" by Simone Weil when she is describing "Order":

"The first of the soul's needs, the one which touches most nearly its eternal destiny, is order: that is to say, a texture of social relationships such that no one is compelled to violate imperative obligations in order to carry out other ones. It is only where this, in fact, occurs that external circumstances have any power to inflict spiritual violence on the soul. For he for whom the threat of death or suffering is the one thing standing in the way of the performance of an obligation, can overcome this disability, and will only suffer in his body. But he who finds that circumstances, in fact, render the various acts necessitated by a series of strict obligations incompatible with one another is, without being able to offer any resistance thereto, made to suffer in his love of good."

I had to read that passage about 10 times to understand it (no joke). How am I expected to read and understand a 300 page book like that?!

[Porridge4lyf]

Well I'm pretty sure Part One: The Needs of the Soul is the only section prescribed for study, so the 300 pages is now 39.

I've found Weil to be the most complicated; everyone says that if you can understand Nietzsche you can understand Weil but she has sent me to my 1am deathbed countless times. I'm studying via distance education too so it makes it all that much more forlorn. Nevertheless, I do have some tips and they have definitely worked for me.

After I finish reading a chunky paragraph or text I like to think about the conclusion that the philosopher has drawn. I'll usually scribble it down and work my way backwards from there in setting out the premises. It may seem like a redundant task if your teacher is just going to go over it in the coming days but it really does help you cement their conclusion in your head. Even just making your own notes about what you think of a philosopher's idea is helpful, or so I've found. Taking one sentence at a time and making dot point summaries of a paragraph helps me to paint a clearer picture of a philosopher's reasoning too.

But don't stress! You're definitely not the only one who finds them tricky and Simone Weil was definitely an arduous read for me.