Dylan and philosophy: special section from Philosophy & Social Criticism

Philosophy and the Habits of Critical Thinking

Is it hard to do philosophy?

It’s murder, absolutely. I compare it … if you really want to know how to do it, you get up in the morning, there’s a large brick wall and you run your head against that brick wall. And you keep doing that every day until eventually you make a hole in the wall. That’s what it feels like. But metaphorically the wall has ceased to exist, right? Using the metaphor that you’re always… Unfortunately I keep banging the wall. And then once I get one wall battered into shape then I’ve got to work on another one. Now the way it actually works out is that you’re constantly fighting with a whole lot of apparently contradictory ideas, and yet they all seem appealing and you have to find some way to resolve them.