Authoring a PhD

Johanne Wolfgang von Goethe
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An artist who is self-taught is taught by a very
ignorant person indeed.
John Constable
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Steering a middle way between being a non-independent
voice and overclaiming is a difficult course. One foundation is to
recognize that any new work rests on an accumulation of previ-
ous and current literature, as the epigraph from Sertillanges at
the start of this section makes clear. A useful device to bear in
mind here is the ‘value added’ concept, which also links back to
Nozick’s issue of how you ‘solve’ or progress an intellectual prob-
lem (see pp. 23–4 above). A business ‘adds value’ when it pulls
in resources at price X and then recombines or processes them
to create an output which can be sold on for a higher price Y.
The difference between X and Y is the ‘value added’. Focusing
on your own ‘value added’ means keeping a critical eye on the
extent to which you have transformed or enhanced or differ-
entiated the starting materials of your analysis. Then tailor your
claiming behaviour to fit closely with that. It also means retain-
ing a strong relational pattern of argument in which you appro-
priately acknowledge the extent to which you draw on the
existing literature. But you can perhaps ensure that you seem
on top of rather than overly dependent on previous work by
treating these debates in a more organized way, as a competi-
tion between clearly labelled schools of thought, each of which
has merits or insights but also limitations.
A new theory, even when it appears most unitary
and all-embracing, deals with some immediate 
element of novelty or paradox within the 
framework of far vaster, unanalysed, unarticulated
reserves of knowledge, experience, faith and 
presupposition … We neither can, nor need,
rebuild the house of the mind very rapidly.
Robert Oppenheimer
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The nature of academic debates is such that complete closure
of many controversies is unlikely. More than four centuries ago
Blaise Pascal remarked about the incomplete establishment 
and yet persistence of religious belief: ‘We have an incapacity of
proof, insurmountable by all dogmatism. We have an idea of
truth, invincible to all scepticism.’
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Something of the same 
condition is the best that can be hoped for of any academic
viewpoint in contemporary debates. Participants often share a
common vision of what disciplinary advance consists in, but
disagree strongly on which contending position best meets
these criteria. No one ‘line’ will ever sweep the field or be with-
out its critics and dissenters. The normal ‘resting state’ of most
academic disciplines is that there is a ‘conventional wisdom’ in
J. K. Galbraith’s sense of a mainstreamed, seen-as-unproblematic
viewpoint.
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This position usually controls the intellectual 
commanding heights, the councils of professional bodies and
the editorial control of the (most) prestigious journals. How-
ever, there will also usually be one or more ‘insurgent’ critical
views – new or previously minority positions that are attracting
support. Often there are also one or more ‘legacy’ views critical
of the orthodoxy as well. These are older positions now dis-
placed in large part by the conventional wisdom but still
staging rearguard actions or successful guerrilla attacks. The
maintenance of continual academic debate means that you need
to think through carefully the position that you expect to adopt.
Bear in mind the likelihood that intellectual viewpoints will sig-
nificantly change over the course of the three or four years it
takes you to finish your doctorate. There may well be extensive
jockeying for position or even a change of mainstream approach
in your discipline during this period.
Once you have a good sense of where your interests lie, and
can relate your question effectively to the research literature,
the hard part is to sit down and try to contribute, that is to 
push ahead knowledge in some particular area or endeavour. 
A potent reason why we all tend to overextend literature reviews
is that doing so postpones this psychologically taxing moment
when we have to think through ideas for ourselves. Facing a
blank sheet of paper and attempting to jot down new thoughts
or make interesting connections can often seem threatening. 
In a university environment surrounded by the massed ranks of
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learning in the library, and by so many other people seemingly
adept at the task, not all the influences to which you are
exposed are necessarily supportive ones. For instance, being in
an institution with a strong historical tradition of advanced
study in your discipline can be encouraging for creative thought
in some circumstances, as you seek to emulate previous genera-
tions of doctoral students. But such an apparently favourable
context can also be intimidating and disabling in other ways, for
instance suggesting that many of ‘your own’ ideas have already
been devised by others.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact
they do so.