What is the writing of a thesis in philosophy

Somparn Promta

This morning, I sit at my table, having a cup of coffee and reading a thesis of some student. It is a thesis of philosophy. Like other philosophy thesis, it is highly boring. But I have to finish it because I am one among the persons to say whether or not the author of the thesis should be permitted to have a title ‘Dr.’ before his name.

Writing a philosophy thesis is never clear what it is. And it might be possible that it will be unclear for the next millions of years. But that is not the point. Man has been created to fight against so many things that we do not know what they are and how to win them. Man is the fighting creature. Writing a thesis in any discipline including philosophy could be deemed as nothing but the fighting against something which is not necessarily clear what it is.

I used to write a philosophy thesis when I was a student. The experience as said never guarantees that I am the person who knows what is the writing of the philosophy thesis. The law of induction, as used in science, can never be used in philosophy. I myself always feel that the new book in philosophy that I am starting to write is a new one and I cannot use my past experience in writing my previous books with it. It could be possible that some of my past books is very excellent in the view of so many readers. But this has nothing to do with my new book. I have to fight against the new and unknown difficulties over and over.

It seems that the best advice for the students who try to write a philosophy thesis is that no one knows how to write it. It is useless to buy a book which says how to write a good thesis and read it before writing a thesis. The only thing that a student can do is to sit down at the table and think and write down what appears in their stream of consciousness. It could be possible that they sit in the total silence and there is nothing appearing in their empty consciousness. No one can help them. They have to fight against that suffering alone.

But I believe that human life has been created in such a way that after we have passed the serious fighting against something enough there will appear the mysterious sound that speaks to us individually. Go ahead or stop and choose the new thing. This is life. This is life. This is life.

15 November, 2019