Alasdair Macintyre and the Academic Layperson: A Short Thread

There's something charming - and very funny - about the fact that Alasdair Macintyre intended "After Virtue" (AV) and "Whose Justice? Whose Rationality?" (WJWR) to be comprehensible to the layperson (according to the intro to the latter book). 1/

I don't mean this as criticism of the man, although I suppose I do of both books. AV was bloody hard work, and WJWR only slightly less so. And I'm not exactly a total layperson when it comes to reading moral philosophy. 2/

Now, Macintyre's commitment to trying to reach a larger audience, and his argument in WJWR that philosophy cannot be just for an elite profession, are both commendable. I've also tried to write for a lay audience since my PhD. Like Macintyre, I have failed dismally. 3/

I have read reviews of my monograph that comment on my accessible (or sometimes peculiar, but I think [hope?] that's what they mean?) style. But I remember reading the 1st para of my book to my Mum & Gran, & both of them laughing and saying they had no idea what I'd just said. 4/

Now, of course, there are tiers of layperson that we might want to reach. Many academics want to speak to specific audiences: professionals, policy-makers, or industrial folk. In my dojo, if my Mum can't understand it, it's not clear enough. Punishment is everyone's business. 5/

Anyhow, back to Macintyre. I think I found his point stuck with me for two reasons. First, because I suspect that he (like me) finds it difficult to imagine a reader with v. little knowledge of the area. Part of how we define knowledge is through taxonomies, systems, schema... 6/

...that are PART OF the traditions of knowledge that create them. That is, HOW to think about knowledge is as much a part of how we construct knowledge as WHAT we construct. And I think lay audiences can struggle with that if the WHAT is framed for them but the HOW isn't. 7/

With that being said, part of my problem with Macintyre is just the passage of time and the evolution of English language. AV was written in 1981; WJWR in 1987. I was born (sorry to everyone about to feel old) in 1988. And the idiom has undoubtedly moved on since then. 8/

Macintyre favours long, flowing sentences, with lots of clauses and lots of words that frankly, aren't needed to make sense of the sentence. This is very much part of the style of the time. It's one reason why Foucault is so hard to read, at least in English... 9/

...Although Macintyre, unlike Foucault, manages to avoid complex jargon and is writing about something that's easier for your average person to grok, I reckon. Both, if it isn't clear, are worth the trouble to read. 10/

But part of the trouble is that standards of language change. Try reading Victorian non-fiction - not even academic non-fiction - and see where I'm going with this. So, are academics doomed to forever chase the moving target of lay comprehension? 11/

Probably, honestly. My work will probably seem stilted and archaic in 40-50 years' time. But that doesn't mean that we can't chase that moving target. WJWR *is* better written for a lay audience than AV. My monograph *is* better written for a lay audience than my thesis. 12/

Part of why I've been thinking about writing so much is that this summer has seemed like an interminable trickle of writing & reviewing academic publications. A lot of my feedback has focused on the quality of writing. But that's not to say that you are a good or bad writer. 13/

Increasingly, I think it's unhelpful to think of yourself as a 'good' or 'bad' writer, although if you can use that to improve, go for it. It seems far more useful to me to ask yourself, "How can I be a better writer?" Macintyre clearly did. I hope I am. Ho hum. 14/ENDS

It has just occurred to me that the point of this thread ("Yes, it's pointless in the grand scheme. Try anyway.") is essentially Camus's, but I didn't make a "One must imagine Sisyphus happy" reference. Sorry folks. I have forgotten the face of my father.