BUT HOW DO I PARTICIPATE? A SAMPLING OF WAYS TO CONTRIBUTE TO A PHILOSOPHICAL CONVERSATION OLIVIA BAILEY Before you begin to participate in an activity, it's reasonable to want to know what it involves. So: philosophical conversation. What is it? That's a surprisingly difficult question. We could try to define it in terms of institutional settings: a philosophical conversation is what happens in the philosophy classroom or in office hours. But that won't do. For one thing, those tedious discussions in which we cover things like exam scheduling aren't philosophical. And for another, you almost certainly had many philosophical conversations before you ever enrolled in a philosophy course. Trying to define philosophical conversation in terms of subject matter is equally frustrating. The subject matter of philosophy is highly diverse. We can't just say that philosophical discussions are concerned with the "big" or "deep" questions. "What are holes?" is a certified philosophical question (you can read all about it here if you like), but in the grand scheme of things it's a medium-sized question at best. In moments of frustration, we might be tempted by the thought that a philosophical conversation is just one that is concerned with an "unanswerable" question. However, that seems both overly inclusive (I bet you can think of an unanswerable question that isn't a good candidate for the label "philosophical") and unduly pessimistic. A more promising proposal is that what makes a conversation philosophical is not (or at least, not just) settings or subject matter, but also what methods the participants are using. At the very broadest level, we could safely say that philosophical conversation is conversation where we proceed by developing and exchanging reasoned arguments for claims. But isn't that characterization so abstract as to be practically useless? When I first started participating in philosophical conversations, I knew that giving arguments had something to do with it, but I still wasn't sure exactly what kinds of things might count as a useful conversational contribution. Skill in philosophical conversation can only be acquired through practice. You can't learn how to participate well in philosophical conversations without actually participating, any more than you can become a skilled violinist without once setting bow to strings. And I'm still developing my own skills in philosophical conversation. But I can give you a head start with this list of ways to contribute to a philosophical conversation. Try these moves. I think you will find that experimenting with them helps you to come to grips with what philosophical conversation actually is. And if you think of new moves to add to the list, please let me know. 20 (+1) WAYS TO CONTRIBUTE TO A PHILOSOPHICAL CONVERSATION 1. Restate (someone else's) claim. When faced with a philosophical claim, it can be helpful for your own understanding, and for the understanding of everyone involved in the discussion, to try and restate that claim in your own words. Importantly, restating is not the same thing as what we might call "thesaurisizing," where we mechanically