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January 10 - January 18, 2022
too many facts are often as much of an obstacle to understanding as too few.
There is a sense in which we moderns are inundated with facts to the detriment of understanding.
To be informed is to know simply that something is the case. To be enlightened is to know, in addition, what it is all about: why it is the case, what its connections are with other facts, in what respects it is the same, in what respects it is different, and so forth.
Enlightenment is achieved only when, in addition to knowing what an author says, you know what he means and why he says it.
There have always been literate ignoramuses who have read too widely and not well.
The art of reading, in short, includes all of the same skills that are involved in the art of unaided discovery: keenness of observation, readily available memory, range of imagination, and, of course, an intellect trained in analysis and reflection.
Elementary Reading.
The second level of reading we will call Inspectional Reading. It is characterized by its special emphasis on time.
book. Inspectional reading is the art of skimming systematically.
The third level of reading we will call Analytical Reading.
The analytical reader must ask many, and organized, questions of what he is reading.
Francis Bacon once remarked that “some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”
The fourth and highest level of reading we will call Syntopical Reading.
comparative reading.
Nevertheless, syntopical reading is probably the most rewarding of all reading activities. The benefits are so great that it is well worth the trouble of learning how to do it.
In tackling a difficult book for the first time, read it through without ever stopping to look up or ponder the things you do not understand right away.
Every book should be read no more slowly than it deserves, and no more quickly than you can read it with satisfaction and comprehension.
Ask questions while you read—questions that you yourself must try to answer in the course of reading.
1. WHAT IS THE BOOK ABOUT AS A WHOLE?
2. WHAT IS BEING SAID IN DETAIL, AND HOW?
3. IS THE BOOK TRUE, IN WHOLE OR PART?
4. WHAT OF IT?
The so what
Full ownership of a book only comes when you have made it a part of yourself, and the best way to make yourself a part of it—which comes to the same thing—is by writing in it.
1. UNDERLINING
2. VERTICAL LINES AT THE MARGIN—to
3. STAR, ASTERISK, OR OTHER DOODAD AT THE MARGIN—to
4. NUMBERS IN THE MARGIN—to
5. NUMBERS OF OTHER PAGES IN THE MARGIN—to
6. CIRCLING OF KEY WORDS OR PHRASES—This
7. WRITING IN THE MARGIN, OR AT THE TOP OR BOTTOM OF THE PAGE—to
RULE 1. YOU MUST KNOW WHAT KIND OF BOOK YOU ARE READING, AND YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS AS EARLY IN THE PROCESS AS POSSIBLE, PREFERABLY BEFORE YOU BEGIN TO READ.
There is so much social science in some contemporary novels, and so much fiction in much of sociology, that it is hard to keep them apart.
Heh heh
To make knowledge practical we must convert it into rules of operation. We must pass from knowing what is the case to knowing what to do about it if we wish to get somewhere.
RULE 2. STATE THE UNITY OF THE WHOLE BOOK IN A SINGLE SENTENCE, OR AT MOST A FEW SENTENCES (A SHORT PARAGRAPH).
RULE 3. SET FORTH THE MAJOR PARTS OF THE BOOK, AND SHOW HOW THESE ARE ORGANIZED INTO A WHOLE, BY BEING ORDERED TO ONE ANOTHER AND TO THE UNITY OF THE WHOLE.
THE FIRST STAGE OF ANALYTICAL READING, OR RULES FOR FINDING WHAT A BOOK IS ABOUT 1. Classify the book according to kind and subject matter. 2. State what the whole book is about with the utmost brevity. 3. Enumerate its major parts in their order and relation, and outline these parts as you have outlined the whole. 4. Define the problem or problems the author is trying to solve.
RULE 5. FIND THE IMPORTANT WORDS AND THROUGH THEM COME TO TERMS WITH THE AUTHOR.
A word in place is a term. It is definitely located by the meaning that you and the author share in using it.
RULE 6. MARK THE MOST IMPORTANT SENTENCES IN A BOOK AND DISCOVER THE PROPOSITIONS THEY CONTAIN.
RULE 7. LOCATE OR CONSTRUCT THE BASIC ARGUMENTS IN THE BOOK BY FINDING THEM IN THE CONNECTION OF SENTENCES.
RULE 7, as follows: FIND IF YOU CAN THE PARAGRAPHS IN A BOOK THAT STATE ITS IMPORTANT ARGUMENTS; BUT IF THE ARGUMENTS ARE NOT THUS EXPRESSED, YOUR TASK IS TO CONSTRUCT THEM, BY TAKING A SENTENCE FROM THIS PARAGRAPH, AND ONE FROM THAT, UNTIL YOU HAVE GATHERED TOGETHER THE SEQUENCE OF SENTENCES THAT STATE THE PROPOSITIONS THAT COMPOSE THE ARGUMENT.
Any good argument can be put into a nutshell.
RULE 8. FIND OUT WHAT THE AUTHOR’S SOLUTIONS ARE.
THE SECOND STAGE OF ANALYTICAL READING, OR RULES FOR FINDING WHAT A BOOK SAYS (INTERPRETING ITS CONTENTS) 5. Come to terms with the author by interpreting his key words. 6. Grasp the author’s leading propositions by dealing with his most important sentences. 7. Know the author’s arguments, by finding them in, or constructing them out of, sequences of sentences. 8. Determine which of his problems the author has solved, and which he has not; and as to the latter, decide which the author knew he had failed to solve.
RULE 9. YOU MUST BE ABLE TO SAY, WITH REASONABLE CERTAINTY, “I UNDERSTAND,” BEFORE YOU CAN SAY ANY ONE OF THE FOLLOWING THINGS: “I AGREE,” OR “I DISAGREE,” OR “I SUSPEND JUDGMENT.”
RULE 10, and it can be expressed thus: WHEN YOU DISAGREE, DO SO REASONABLY, AND NOT DISPUTATIOUSLY OR CONTENTIOUSLY.
RULE 11, therefore, can be stated as follows: RESPECT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE AND MERE PERSONAL OPINION BY GIVING REASONS FOR ANY CRITICAL JUDGMENT YOU MAKE.
Good controversy should not be a quarrel about assumptions.
After he has said, “I understand but I disagree,” he can make the following remarks to the author: (1) “You are uninformed”; (2) “You are misinformed”; (3) “You are illogical—your reasoning is not cogent”; (4) “Your analysis is incomplete.”
