On the Leiter report there is an interesting discussion on what to read in order to learn "the basics of analytical philosophy" (typo corrected in the quote). [I am going to ignore how the question as quoted by Leiter seems to equate "learning the basics of analytical philosophy" as a proxy for "sufficient background in the subject so that [s/he] might read...Quine, Putnam, and Davidson".] The suggestions by Leiter's commentators are thought provoking and (I think) very useful in lots of ways. Even so, I am struck by the fact that text-books seem very high on the recommendation list. I am very ambivalent about the role of textbooks in teaching intro philosophy. (By this I mean introductory survey texts of a field/area, not anthologies.) I have used them in my courses (although I more frequently assign primary sources), and I want to articulate some of my ambivalence.
In particular, I worry that the use of textbooks promote the (in my mind disastrous) idea that philosophy is something akin to (Kuhnian) 'normal science' with 'accepted' results from which 'we' can make 'progress.' Of course, textbooks alone are not responsible for this, but given the shift to, for example, 'objective metrics' (common in the sciences) throughout the discipline to evaluate candidates for hiring and promotion this is not an idle concern. (It also fits the trend toward shortening PhDs, and focused masters, etc.) Philosophy should not be the sum of transferable 'results'.
In Europe, the so-called Bologna process is also promoting standardization of degrees and courses. One interesting consequence is that national accreditation bureaucracies emphasize content (easy to measure) over skills (harder to measure). And so, textbooks make a lot of sense if philosophy is about a shared content. (Of course, some textbooks also teach skills. Logic textbooks come to mind, and logic is the area in philosophy where textbooks may be most justified, and common?)
Philosophical 'classics' (Plato, Aristotle. Descartes, Hume, Frege, Mill, Nietzsche, etc) are an alternative to textbooks. These have peculiar feature that they are both an entry into philosophy as well as the enduring high points. Even the most 'intro' of these (the Meno, Meditations, The Nichomachean Ethics, Genealogy of Morals, etc) may be extremely demanding on any kind of reader let alone a novice student of philosophy. Yet, when guided by a competent teacher, they also teach a whole set of interpretive and reflexive (by which I mean, that in their cultural strangeness they force the student and teacher to confront their own activity as philosophy) skills that textbooks often ignore. (The same can be said of classics of analytic philosophy anthologies--by now some of these address questions that are far removed from our philosophic self-understanding.) I have even taught Spinoza's Ethics as a first semester intro text--much to my surprise, students adored it.
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