The student's first acquaintance with philosophy can often be disappointing. The problems discussed, although close to ordinary experience, are treated in an abstract and unfamiliar manner. The discussions of questions involving values seem rather different from the more descriptive factual discussions found in other subjects. Students often go through a period of bewilderment, before they come to appreciate the difference between norms and facts. The trouble, then, with philosophy as a subject is not that there are occasional difficult parts which the student cannot grasp, but that he is unable to find his bearings at first.
Philosophers sometimes say that they teach philosophy by throwing the student in at the deep end.
In other words little concession is made to his unfamiliarity with philosophical concepts and terminology. It is assumed that the puzzlement thus produced will make him more receptive to new modes of thought. The study of philosophy is not helped by the fact that philosophy has traditionally covered a number of topics, e.g. ethics, aesthetics, logic, the history of philosophy, and at one time such subjects as political economy and psychology. These topics may often have little overlap except that they are concerned with normative rather than factual questions. Another difficulty stems from the fact that the teacher's actual conception of philosophy will affect his mode of teaching it.