Where does a philosophical text start?
The beginning is not the beginning. Philosophical works do not simply start with the first page.
We have to find the initial move.
Prefaces, Introductions, first chapters: each of these parts may contain what we consider the beginning
of a philosophical text. Some authors start right with the first sentence of the preface, others begin later on with
their philosophical affirmations.
How do we distinguish “ordinary“ language from those philosophical statements? We do not need any general delimitation of
the philosophical field, one distinctive tract seems to be quite obvious. Philosophical texts consider general questions,
and should not start with fortuitous affirmations. Take the “Famous blue raincoat“ by Leonard Cohen:
“Its four in the morning, the end of December. New York is cold but I love where I am living“. Each element here has
its meaning, but everything could be different: three in the morning instead of four, Chicago …
This song maybe literature, but it is not philosophy.
We do not consider any relation to persons, time, place, and occasion the beginning.
These informations usually are confined to the prefaces, the kind of written statement
Genette calls Paratext. In philosophical works, however, the distinction between text
and Paratext may be put into question, too. Nothing remains as it used to be when the philosopher starts his work.