How to Read a Book - Mortimer J. Adler & Charles Van Doren (2 of 2)
Did I mention that it's a very long practical guide? And it's very wordy - the advice on reading lyric poetry boils down to read a poem many times, but reading lyric poems still gets an entire chapter.
I only took notes on the parts that interest me so, for instance, there's nothing about reading autobiographies, biographies, or digests.
Part III Approaches to Different Kinds of Reading Matter
In any art or field of practice, rules have a disappointing way of being too general. The more general, of course, the fewer, and that is an advantage. The more general, too, the more intelligible-it is easier to understand rules in and by themselves. But it is also true that the more general the rules, the more remote they are from the intricacies of the actual situation in which you try to follow them.
Expository books can be divided into practical (concerned with the problems of action) and theoretical (concerned with something to be known). Examples of theoretical books: history, science, mathematics, philosophy.
I. How to Read Practical Books
A. The Two Kinds of Practical Books
A practical book "can never solve the practical problems with which it is concerned." It requires that the reader must put into action its rules. There are two primary types: books like cookbooks that present rules and books concerned with the principles that generate rules. "In judging a practical book, everything turns on the ends or goals." Uses Marx's Communist Manifesto as an example.
B. The Role of Persuasion
Every practical book contains some device for persuasion like oratory or propaganda because the author wishes to convince you to put his/her ideas into practice.
C. What Does Agreement Entail in the Case of a Practical Book?
The requirement to find out an author's problems becomes the dominant question about a practical book because you're determining what the author wants you to do. Main consideration: Does the author's objectives-the ends he seeks and the means he proposes to reach those goals-accord with the reader's conception of what is right to seek and the best way to seek it? Agreement with a practical book implies that you plan to act upon its suggestions.
II. How to Read Imaginative Literature
A critical reading of anything depends upon the fullness of one's apprehension. Those who cannot say what they like about a novel probably have not read it below its most obvious surface. However, there is more to the paradox than that. Imaginative literature primarily pleases rather than teaches. It is much easier to be pleased than taught, but much harder to know why one is pleased. Beauty is harder to analyze than truth.
A. How Not to Read Imaginative Literature
1. Don't try to resist the effect that a work has on you. Imaginative literature attempts to communicate an experience itself.
2. Don't look for terms, propositions, and arguments. The imaginative writer uses devices like metaphors and the ambiguities of words to gain richness and force.
3. Don't criticize fiction by the standards of truth and consistency that properly apply to communication of knowledge.
B. General Rules for Reading Imaginative Literature
1. Classify the work according to its kind.
2. The unity of a work is its plot.
3. The structure of a narrative is its temporal scheme.
4. The elements of fiction are its episodes and incidents, its characters and their thoughts, speeches, feelings, and actions. Become at home in this fictional world. The unraveling of the plot is similar to the arguments.
5. Don't criticize until you fully appreciate what the author has tried to make you experience.
III. Suggestions for Reading Stories, Plays, and Poems
Imaginative writings can lead to action, but they do not have to. They belong in the realm of fine art.
A work of art is "fine" not because it is "refined" or "finished," but because it is an end (finis, Latin, means end) to itself.
A. How to Read Stories
1. Read quickly with total immersion.
2. Let the characters into your mind and hearts.
3. Suspend your disbelief about the events.
4. Do not disapprove of anything a character does before you understand why he does it-if then.
B. A Note About Epics
Their difficulty seems to lie in the elevation of their treatment of their subject matter. They demand great amounts of time, imagination, and involvement from a reader.
C. How to Read Plays
The reader has to imagine staging a play in order to fully appreciate it.
D. A Note About Tragedy
The essence of tragedy is the lack of time. Fallible tragic heroes have to make decisions and choices in a limited amount of time and are left to deal with the consequences.
E. How to Read Lyric Poetry
1. Read it through without stopping.
2. Read it out loud.
3. Read repeatedly. A lyric poem could be a life-long study.
IV. How to Read History
History = narrative accounts of a period or events in the past
A. The Elusiveness of Historical Facts
Witnesses may be dead or they may be exaggerating, assuming, estimating, etc. Even certain facts are disputable; for example, when the Civil War started.
B. Theories of History
A historian finds or imposes a general pattern on events or s/he supposes that s/he knows why people acted as they did. Or s/he might take the position that people do not have a purpose or the purpose is undiscoverable.
C. The Universal in History
1. If you can, read more than one history of an event or period.
2. Read a history not only to learn what happened but also to learn why people act the way they do in order to understand the present.
D. Questions to Ask of a Historical Book
1. Every history has a particular and limited subject.
2. Discover which part the historian considers most fundamental.
3. Criticize the history based on whether the historian combines the talents of the storyteller and scientist, knows what is likely to have happened, and demonstrates that he knows what did happen.
4. What of it? History shows what people have done. If they've been done, perhaps they can be done again or avoided.
V. How to Read Science and Mathematics
A. Understanding the Scientific Enterprise
Laypeople read the classical scientific books to understand the history and philosophy of science. To follow the strands of scientific development, to trace the ways in which facts, assumptions, principles, and proofs are interrelated, is to engage in the activity of the human reason where it has probably operated with the most success. That is enough by itself, perhaps, to justify the historical study of science. In addition, such study will serve to dispel, in some measure, the apparent unintelligibility of science. Most important of all, it is an activity of the mind that is essential to education, the central aim of which has always been recognized, from Socrates' day down to our own, as the freeing of the mind through the discipline of wonder.
B. Suggestions for Reading Classical Scientific Books
Scientific bias is attained by the frank confession of initial bias. A scientific book is the report of findings or conclusions in some field of research, whether carried on by lab experiments or observation in nature.
Suggests Whitehead's Introduction to Mathematics, Lincoln Barnett's The Universe and Dr. Einstein and Barry Commoner's The Closing Circle
VI. How to Read Philosophy
But we do want you to recognize that one of the most remarkable things about the great philosophical books is that they ask the same sort of profound questions that children ask. The ability to retain the child's view of the world, with at the same time a mature understanding of what it means to retain it, is extremely rare-and a person who has these qualities is likely to be able to contribute something really important to our thinking.
A. The Questions Philosophers Ask
1. Theoretical or speculative - Being/existing or becoming/changing
2. Practical/normative - Have to do with what ought to be done or sough, good/evil, right/wrong
3. Metaphysical: A work of speculative or theoretical philosophy mainly concerned with questions about being or existence
4. Philosophy of nature: Concerned with the nature and kinds of changes, their conditions and causes
5. Epistemology: Theory of knowledge, primarily concerned with questions about what is involved in our knowing anything, with the causes, extent, and limits of human knowledge
B. Modern Philosophy and the Great Tradition
1. First-order questions: Questions about what is and happens in the world or about what men ought to do or seek
2. Second-order questions: Questions about first-order knowledge, questions about the content of our thinking when we try to answer first-order questions, questions about the ways in which we express such thoughts in language
C. On Philosophical Styles
1. The Dialogue: Best practitioner Plato used a conversational style that is also heuristic, that is it allows and leads the reader to discover things for himself
2. Treatise or Essay: philosophical view developed through straightforward exposition rather than through the conflict of positions and opinions; examples: Aristotle, Kant
3. Meeting of Objections: St. Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica poses a question, refutes a wrong answer, introduces his own answer, replies to arguments for each wrong answer; neatness and order; common medieval idea that truth somehow evolves out of opposition and conflict
4. Systemization: Attempt to organize philosophy itself in a way akin to the organization of mathematics, lends itself to communication failures; examples: Descartes and Spinoza
5. Aphoristic Style: reader gets the impression that more is being said than is actually said, for he does much of the work of thinking&mdashmaking connections between statements and constructing arguments himself; Example: Thus Spake Zarathustra by Nietzsche
D. Hints for Reading Philosophy
1. Most important thing to discover in reading any philosophical work is the question or questions that it tries to answer
2. Does the philosopher adhere to his controlling principles or is he inconsistent?
3. Major effort of the reader must be to understand the terms and propositions. Basic terms are abstract.
In other words, the method according to which you should read a philosophical book is very similar to the method according to which it is written. A philosopher, faced with a problem, can do nothing but think about it. A reader, faced with a philosophical book, can do nothing but read it-which means, as we know, thinking about it. There are no other aids except the mind itself.
I only took notes on the parts that interest me so, for instance, there's nothing about reading autobiographies, biographies, or digests.
Part III Approaches to Different Kinds of Reading Matter
In any art or field of practice, rules have a disappointing way of being too general. The more general, of course, the fewer, and that is an advantage. The more general, too, the more intelligible-it is easier to understand rules in and by themselves. But it is also true that the more general the rules, the more remote they are from the intricacies of the actual situation in which you try to follow them.
Expository books can be divided into practical (concerned with the problems of action) and theoretical (concerned with something to be known). Examples of theoretical books: history, science, mathematics, philosophy.
I. How to Read Practical Books
A. The Two Kinds of Practical Books
A practical book "can never solve the practical problems with which it is concerned." It requires that the reader must put into action its rules. There are two primary types: books like cookbooks that present rules and books concerned with the principles that generate rules. "In judging a practical book, everything turns on the ends or goals." Uses Marx's Communist Manifesto as an example.
B. The Role of Persuasion
Every practical book contains some device for persuasion like oratory or propaganda because the author wishes to convince you to put his/her ideas into practice.
C. What Does Agreement Entail in the Case of a Practical Book?
The requirement to find out an author's problems becomes the dominant question about a practical book because you're determining what the author wants you to do. Main consideration: Does the author's objectives-the ends he seeks and the means he proposes to reach those goals-accord with the reader's conception of what is right to seek and the best way to seek it? Agreement with a practical book implies that you plan to act upon its suggestions.
II. How to Read Imaginative Literature
A critical reading of anything depends upon the fullness of one's apprehension. Those who cannot say what they like about a novel probably have not read it below its most obvious surface. However, there is more to the paradox than that. Imaginative literature primarily pleases rather than teaches. It is much easier to be pleased than taught, but much harder to know why one is pleased. Beauty is harder to analyze than truth.
A. How Not to Read Imaginative Literature
1. Don't try to resist the effect that a work has on you. Imaginative literature attempts to communicate an experience itself.
2. Don't look for terms, propositions, and arguments. The imaginative writer uses devices like metaphors and the ambiguities of words to gain richness and force.
3. Don't criticize fiction by the standards of truth and consistency that properly apply to communication of knowledge.
B. General Rules for Reading Imaginative Literature
1. Classify the work according to its kind.
2. The unity of a work is its plot.
3. The structure of a narrative is its temporal scheme.
4. The elements of fiction are its episodes and incidents, its characters and their thoughts, speeches, feelings, and actions. Become at home in this fictional world. The unraveling of the plot is similar to the arguments.
5. Don't criticize until you fully appreciate what the author has tried to make you experience.
III. Suggestions for Reading Stories, Plays, and Poems
Imaginative writings can lead to action, but they do not have to. They belong in the realm of fine art.
A work of art is "fine" not because it is "refined" or "finished," but because it is an end (finis, Latin, means end) to itself.
A. How to Read Stories
1. Read quickly with total immersion.
2. Let the characters into your mind and hearts.
3. Suspend your disbelief about the events.
4. Do not disapprove of anything a character does before you understand why he does it-if then.
B. A Note About Epics
Their difficulty seems to lie in the elevation of their treatment of their subject matter. They demand great amounts of time, imagination, and involvement from a reader.
C. How to Read Plays
The reader has to imagine staging a play in order to fully appreciate it.
D. A Note About Tragedy
The essence of tragedy is the lack of time. Fallible tragic heroes have to make decisions and choices in a limited amount of time and are left to deal with the consequences.
E. How to Read Lyric Poetry
1. Read it through without stopping.
2. Read it out loud.
3. Read repeatedly. A lyric poem could be a life-long study.
IV. How to Read History
History = narrative accounts of a period or events in the past
A. The Elusiveness of Historical Facts
Witnesses may be dead or they may be exaggerating, assuming, estimating, etc. Even certain facts are disputable; for example, when the Civil War started.
B. Theories of History
A historian finds or imposes a general pattern on events or s/he supposes that s/he knows why people acted as they did. Or s/he might take the position that people do not have a purpose or the purpose is undiscoverable.
C. The Universal in History
1. If you can, read more than one history of an event or period.
2. Read a history not only to learn what happened but also to learn why people act the way they do in order to understand the present.
D. Questions to Ask of a Historical Book
1. Every history has a particular and limited subject.
2. Discover which part the historian considers most fundamental.
3. Criticize the history based on whether the historian combines the talents of the storyteller and scientist, knows what is likely to have happened, and demonstrates that he knows what did happen.
4. What of it? History shows what people have done. If they've been done, perhaps they can be done again or avoided.
V. How to Read Science and Mathematics
A. Understanding the Scientific Enterprise
Laypeople read the classical scientific books to understand the history and philosophy of science. To follow the strands of scientific development, to trace the ways in which facts, assumptions, principles, and proofs are interrelated, is to engage in the activity of the human reason where it has probably operated with the most success. That is enough by itself, perhaps, to justify the historical study of science. In addition, such study will serve to dispel, in some measure, the apparent unintelligibility of science. Most important of all, it is an activity of the mind that is essential to education, the central aim of which has always been recognized, from Socrates' day down to our own, as the freeing of the mind through the discipline of wonder.
B. Suggestions for Reading Classical Scientific Books
Scientific bias is attained by the frank confession of initial bias. A scientific book is the report of findings or conclusions in some field of research, whether carried on by lab experiments or observation in nature.
Suggests Whitehead's Introduction to Mathematics, Lincoln Barnett's The Universe and Dr. Einstein and Barry Commoner's The Closing Circle
VI. How to Read Philosophy
But we do want you to recognize that one of the most remarkable things about the great philosophical books is that they ask the same sort of profound questions that children ask. The ability to retain the child's view of the world, with at the same time a mature understanding of what it means to retain it, is extremely rare-and a person who has these qualities is likely to be able to contribute something really important to our thinking.
A. The Questions Philosophers Ask
1. Theoretical or speculative - Being/existing or becoming/changing
2. Practical/normative - Have to do with what ought to be done or sough, good/evil, right/wrong
3. Metaphysical: A work of speculative or theoretical philosophy mainly concerned with questions about being or existence
4. Philosophy of nature: Concerned with the nature and kinds of changes, their conditions and causes
5. Epistemology: Theory of knowledge, primarily concerned with questions about what is involved in our knowing anything, with the causes, extent, and limits of human knowledge
B. Modern Philosophy and the Great Tradition
1. First-order questions: Questions about what is and happens in the world or about what men ought to do or seek
2. Second-order questions: Questions about first-order knowledge, questions about the content of our thinking when we try to answer first-order questions, questions about the ways in which we express such thoughts in language
C. On Philosophical Styles
1. The Dialogue: Best practitioner Plato used a conversational style that is also heuristic, that is it allows and leads the reader to discover things for himself
2. Treatise or Essay: philosophical view developed through straightforward exposition rather than through the conflict of positions and opinions; examples: Aristotle, Kant
3. Meeting of Objections: St. Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica poses a question, refutes a wrong answer, introduces his own answer, replies to arguments for each wrong answer; neatness and order; common medieval idea that truth somehow evolves out of opposition and conflict
4. Systemization: Attempt to organize philosophy itself in a way akin to the organization of mathematics, lends itself to communication failures; examples: Descartes and Spinoza
5. Aphoristic Style: reader gets the impression that more is being said than is actually said, for he does much of the work of thinking&mdashmaking connections between statements and constructing arguments himself; Example: Thus Spake Zarathustra by Nietzsche
D. Hints for Reading Philosophy
1. Most important thing to discover in reading any philosophical work is the question or questions that it tries to answer
2. Does the philosopher adhere to his controlling principles or is he inconsistent?
3. Major effort of the reader must be to understand the terms and propositions. Basic terms are abstract.
In other words, the method according to which you should read a philosophical book is very similar to the method according to which it is written. A philosopher, faced with a problem, can do nothing but think about it. A reader, faced with a philosophical book, can do nothing but read it-which means, as we know, thinking about it. There are no other aids except the mind itself.