Looking at tables of contents on themes you’re working on can help you organize your own thinking.

For a great example of the organizational prowess of a good TOC, consider Leora Batnitzky’s account (right) of Emmanuel Levinas’ Totality and Infinity TOC (left):

Leora Batnitzky on the structure of Levinas’ TOC (from “Encountering the Modern Subject in Levinas,” Yale French Studies, No. 104, Encounters with Levinas (2004), pp. 6-21) (*outline formatting and boldface is not in the original text but is being added for visual clarity):

“In Section I, “The Same and the Other,” Levinas lays out what will be the argument, to be made in greater detail, in the next three sections.

Section I itself has four parts, which mirror the structure of the book as a whole.

• Part A of Section I, “Metaphysics and Transcendence,” describes the broad arguments that are developed in the next three parts (B-D). In this part, Levinas lays out his general claim: that ethics precedes ontology and that ethics is transcendence.
• The following three parts (B-D) make in short the argument that Levinas will make in the second through fourth sections of the book.
• Part B, “Separation and Discourse,” makes in short the argument of Section II, “Interiority and Economy.”
• Part C, “Truth and Justice,” makes the argument that Section III of the book, “Exteriority and the Face,” will make in greater detail.
• And Part D, “Separation and the Absolute,” introduces the argument that will be made in Section IV, “Beyond the Face.””