The Essayist's Notebook

One of the recurring misunderstandings of Essayism is that it should be read as a philosophy. There is some truth in this. Essayism undoubtedly contains propositions about attention, inquiry, writing and understanding. Yet its principal concern is not the defence of a doctrine but the description of a practice.

Essayism is best understood as a methodology. It proposes a way of proceeding when confronted by uncertainty, tension, complexity or an unfinished question. Its concern is less with arriving at predetermined answers than with cultivating the conditions under which perception, connection, necessity and movement become possible.

For this reason, Essayism may be employed by those who hold very different philosophical positions. The civic essayist, the philosophical essayist and the literary essayist may pursue different ends, yet each may engage in a similar choreography of thought supported by writing. What unites them is not agreement about conclusions but participation in a common method of inquiry.

To describe Essayism as a methodology is therefore not to deny its philosophical implications. Rather, it is to place emphasis where it belongs: not upon a system of thought, but upon a practice of essaying.

David Marshall Montory

Note: An attempt to describe the cognitive processes of what it means to essay and an example of the practice of essaying may both be found on essayism.org