On Writing Philosophy: A Manifesto

Polemical and aiming at both the academic and general reader, this short and punchy book - a manifesto, manual of instruction, and inspirational romp through the history of philosophy - argues that what we typically take to be 'philosophy' these days is actually not philosophy in the strong or 'true' sense at all, but a mix of intellectual history, the history of philosophy, philosophical scholarship, and 'academic' philosophy.. In a nutshell, this manifesto's argument runs as follows: True, original philosophy comes with certain indelible, defining features that make for a particular discursive-conceptual, dynamic 'phenotype'. These features are what the author calls: The Idea, The Gesture, The Break, The Cull, The Style, and The Rock.. Drawing on a plethora of examples culled from across the history of philosophy, the author demonstrates how "authentically philosophical" writing (in contrast to its academic-scholarly-historical-philosophical counterpart) works, making a pedagogical-institutional recommendation for the creation of what he envisions as MFT (Master of Fine Thought) programs in the process: programs, that is, which will be geared toward teaching how to create true, original philosophy (along the lines of creative writing programs) , as opposed to, for the most part, how academically to discuss and write about the original philosophies of others.