On Philosophical Style

Originally given in 1953 as the Adamson Lecture at Manchester University, this text has become a classic presentation of the thesis that profundity and clarity are not opposed philosophical virtues, but rather required companions. Blanshard begins with the question: why is it that philosophers of perception sometimes confess a failure to comprehend certain of their colleagues? He ends with the assertion "that the problem of style is not a problem of words and sentences merely, but of being the right kind of mind".