How to Read a Book
by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles van Doren
(Touchstone, New York, 2014)
To achieve all the purposes of reading, the desideratum must be the ability to read different things at different - appropriate - speeds, not everything at the greatest possible speed.
Page x.
The aim being to read better, always better, but sometimes slower, sometimes faster.
Page x.
By “readers” we mean people who are still accustomed, as almost every literate and intelligent person used to be, to gain a large share of their information about and their understanding of the world form the written word.
Page 3.
There is some feeling nowadays that reading is not as necessary as it once was.
Page 3.
Knowledge is not as much a prerequisite to understanding as is commonly supposed. We do not have to know everything about something in order to understand it; 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.
Page 4.
All reading must to some degree be active. Completely passive reading is impossible.
Page 5.
The mistake here is to suppose that receiving communication is like receiving a blow or a legacy or a judgment from the court. On the contrary, the reader or listener is much more like the catcher in a game of baseball.
Page 5.
The art of reading is the skill of catching every sort of communication as well as possible.
Page 5.
Successful communication occurs in any case where what the writer wanted to have received finds its way into the reader’s possession. The writer’s skill and the reader’s skill converge upon a common end.
Page 6.
Reading is a complex activity, just as writing is. It consists of a large number of separate acts, all of which must be performed in a good reading.
Page 6.
The mind passes from understanding less to understanding more. The skilled operations that cause this to happen are the various acts that constitute the art of reading.
Page 8.
There is clearly no difficulty of an intellectual sort about gaining new information in the course of reading if the new fats are of the same sort as those you already know.
Page 9.
This book is about the art of reading for the sake if increased understanding. Fortunately, if you learn to do that, reading for information will usually take care of itself.
Page 10.
Getting more information is learning, and so is coming to understand what you did not understand before.
Page 11.
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.
Page 11.
Enlightenment is achieved only when, in addition to knowing what an author says, you know what he means and why he says it.
Page 11.
Being informed is a prerequisite to being enlightened.
Page 11.
There is no inactive learning, just as there is no inactive reading.
Page 12.
Although the teacher may help his student in many ways, it is the student himself who must do the learning. Knowledge must grow in his mind if learning is to take place.
Page 12.
The reason why many people regard thinking as more closely associated with research and unaided discovery than with being taught is that they suppose reading and listening to be relatively effortless.
Page 13.
Listening is learning from a teacher who is present - a living teacher - while reading is learning from one who is absent.
Page 14.
The goal a reader seeks - be it entertainment, information or understanding - determines the way he reads. The effectiveness with which he reads is determined by the amount of effort and skill he puts into his reading.
Page 16.
Analytical reading is always intensely active. … Reading a book analytically is chewing and digesting it.
Page 19.
When reading syntopically, the reader reads many books, not just one, and places them in relation to one another and to a subject about which they all revolve.
Page 20.
Near-universal literacy was obtained in the United States earlier than anywhere else, and this in turn has heled us to become the highly developed industrial society that we are at the present day.
Page 21.
It is traditional in America to criticize the schools; for more than a century, parents, self-styled experts, and educators themselves have attacked and indicted the educational system. No aspect of schooling has been more severely criticized than reading instruction.
Page 23.
The child who is not yet ready to read is frustrated if attempts are made to teach him, and he may carry over his dislike for the experience into his later school career and even into adult life.
Page 24.
Where does meaning come from? … This discovery of meaning in symbols may be the most astounding intellectual feat that any human being ever performs - and most humans perform it before they are seven years old!
Page 25.
Remedial reading instruction is not instruction in the higher levels of reading it serves only to bring students up to a level of maturity in reading that they should have attained by the time they graduated from elementary school.
Page 28.
A college degree ought to represent general competence in reading such that a graduate could read any kind of material for general readers and be able to undertake independent research on almost any subject.
Page 29.
Unlimited educational opportunity - or, speaking practically, educational opportunity that is limited only by individual desire, ability, and need - is the most valuable service that society can provide for its members.
Page 29.
The levels of reading are cumulative. Thus, elementary reading is contained in inspectional reading, as, indeed, inspectional reading is contained in analytical reading, and analytical reading in syntopical reading.
Page 31.
Study the Table of Contents to obtain a general sense of the book’s structure; use it as you would a road map before taking a trip.
Page 33.
Above all, do not fail to read the last two or three pages, or, if these are an epilogue, the last few pages of the main part of the book. Few authors are able to resist the temptation to sum up what they think is new and important about their work in these pages.
Page 35.
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.
Pay attention to what you can understand and do not be stopped by what you cannot immediately grasp. Go right on reading past the point where you have difficulties in understanding, and you will soon come to things you do understand.
Page 36.
Many people read some things too slowly, and that they ought to read them faster. But many people also read some things too fast, and they ought to read those things more slowly.
Page 39.
With regard to rates of reading, then, the ideal is not merely to be able to read faster, but to be able to read at different speeds - and to know when the different speeds are appropriate.
Page 39.
Films of eye movements, furthermore, show that the eyes of young or untrained readers “fixate” as many as five or six times in the course of each line that is read. (The eye is blind while it moves; it can only see when it stops.) Thus single words or at the most two-word or three-word phrases are being read at a time, in jumps across the line.
Page 40.
The good reader reads actively, with concentration.
Page 41.
The problem of speed reading … is the problem of comprehension.
Page 42.
There is not single right speed at which you should read.
Page 42.
Great speed in reading is a dubious achievement; it is of value only if what you have to read is not really worth reading. A better formula is this: Every book should be read no more slowly than it deserves, and no more quickly than you can read it with satisfaction and comprehension.
Pages 42-43.
There are four main questions you must ask about any book.
1. What is the book ab out 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?
Pages 46-47.
Reading a book on any level beyond the elementary is essentially an effort on your part to ask it questions.
Page 47.
People go to sleep over good books not because they are unwilling to make the effort, but because they do not know how to make it.
Page 48.
The act of purchase is actually only the prelude to possession in the case of a book. 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.
Page 49.
Marking a book is literally an expression of your differences or your agreements with the author. It is the highest respect you can pay him.
Page 49.
The questions answered by inspectional reading are: first, what kind of book is it? second, what is it about as a whole? and third, what is the structural order of the work whereby the author develops his conception or understanding of that general subject matter?
Page 51.
Any art or skill is possessed by those who have formed the habit of operating according to its rules. This is the way the artist or craftsman in any field differs from those who lack his skill.
Page 52.
The art as something that can be taught consists of rules to be followed in operation. The art as something learned and possessed consists of the habit that results from operating according to the rules.
Page 53.
There are no final, unbreakable rules, strictly speaking, for making a painting or sculpture. But there are rules for preparing canvas and mixing paints and applying them, and for molding clay or welding steel. Those rules the painter or sculptor must have followed, or else he could not have made the thing he has made. No matter how original his final production, no matter how little it seems to obey the “rules” of art as they have traditionally been understood, he must be skilled to produce it.
Page 53.
An expository book is one that conveys knowledge primarily, “knowledge” being construed broadly.
Page 60.
One reason why titles and prefaces are ignored by many readers is that they do not think it important to classify the book they are reading.
Page 63.
The clearest titles in the world, the most explicit front matter, will not help you to classify a book unless you have the broad lines of classification already in your mind.
Page 63.
You have to be suspicious in classifying books.
Page 69.
The activity of the student must somehow be responsive to the activity of the instructor. The relation between books and their readers is the same as that between teachers and their students.
Page 74.
Every book without exception that is worth reding at all has a unity and an organization of parts.
Page 75.
The obligation of finding the unity belongs finally to the reader, as much as the obligation of having one belongs to the writer. You can discharge that obligation honestly only by reading the whole book.
Page 80.
Most readers are at a total loss if you ask them to say briefly what the whole book is about. Partly this is owing to the widespread inability to speak concise English sentences.
Page 82.
A book is something different to each reader.
Page 83.
Through readers are different, the book is the same, and there can be an objective check upon the accuracy and fidelity of the statements anyone makes about it.
Page 83.
You cannot comprehend a whole without somehow seeing its parts. But it is also true that unless you grasp the organization of its parts, you cannot know the whole comprehensively.
Page 83.
A good rule always describes the ideal performance.
Page 84.
There is often more plan in a good book than meets the eye at first.
Page 89.
Writing and reading are reciprocal, as are teaching and being taught.
Page 90.
The reader tries to uncover the skeleton that the book conceals. The author starts with the skeleton and tries to cover it up.
Page 90.
Most books - the very great majority - are badly made books in the sense that their authors did not write them according to these rules.
Page 91.
There is a significant difference between books conveying knowledge and poetical works, plays, and novels. The parts of the former can be much more autonomous than the parts of the latter. The person who says of a novel that he has “read enough to get the idea” does not know what he is talking about. He cannot be correct, for it the novel id any good at all, the idea is in the whole and cannot be found shorty of reading the whole.
Page 91.
Knowing a book’s structure does constitute a stage toward reading it analytically.
Page 94.
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.
Page 95.
If the author uses a word in one meaning, and the reader reads it in another, words have passed between them, but they have not come to terms.
Page 96.
Communication is an effort on the part of one person to share something with another person (or with an animal or a machine: his knowledge, his decisions, his sentiments. It succeeds only when it results in a common something, such as an item of information or knowledge that two parties share.
Page 97.
For the communication to be successfully completed, therefore, it is necessary for the two parties to use the same words with the same meanings - in short, to come to terms.
Page 97.
Coming to terms is the ideal toward which writer and reader should strive.
Page 97.
Because language is imperfect as a medium for conveying knowledge, it also functions as an obstacle to communication.
Page 99.
The likelihood of a meeting of minds through language depends on the willingness of both readers and writer to work together.
Page 99.
No author, regardless of his skill in writing, can achieve communication without a reciprocal skill on the part of readers.
Page 99.
You can be sure of one thing. Not all the words an author uses are important.
Page 100.
From your point of view as a reader … the most important words are those that give you trouble.
Page 102.
One clue to an important word is that the author quarrels with other writers about it.
Page 105.
The reader who fails to ponder, or at least to mark, the words he does not understand is headed for disaster.
Page 105.
The book cannot enlighten you if you do not try to understand it.
Page 106.
Most of us are addicted to non-active reading. The outstanding fault of the non-active or undemanding reader is his inattention to words, and his consequent failure to come to terms with the author.
Page 106.
Bad books are less readable than good ones.
Page 109.
The study of grammar and logic, the sciences that underlie these rules, is practical only to the extent you can relate it to practice.
Page 112.
There is a grammatical as well as a logical aspect to the order of thee rules of interpretation. We go from terms to propositions to arguments, by going from words (and phrases) to sentences to collections of sentences (or paragraphs).
Page 115.
Sentences and paragraphs are grammatical unites. They are units of language. Propositions and arguments are logical units, or units of thought and knowledge.
Page 116.
Even a grammatically simple sentence sometimes expresses two or more propositions.
Page 118.
Some knowledge of grammar is indispensable to a reader.
Page 119.
To say that there is only a relatively small number of key sentences in a book does not mean that you need pay no attention to all the rest.
Pages 119-120.
From your point of view as a reader, the sentences important for you are those that require an effort of interpretation because, at first sight, they are not perfectly intelligible.
Page 120.
From the author’s point of view, the important sentences are the ones that express the judgments on which his whole argument rests.
Page 120.
Nothing helps those who will not keep awake while reading.
Page 120.
How essential a part of reading it is to be perplexed and know it. Wonder is the beginning of wisdom in learning from books as well as from nature.
Page 121.
Many persons believe that they know how to read because they read at different speeds. But they pause and go slow over the wrong sentences. They pause over the sentences that interest them rather than the ones that puzzle them. Indeed, this is one of the greatest obstacles to reading a book that is not completely contemporary.
Pages 122-123.
If you cannot do anything at all to exemplify or illustrate the proposition, either imaginatively or by reference to actual experiences, you should suspect that you do not know what is being said.
Page 126.
In recent times, under the influence of newspaper and magazine style, most writers tend to cut their paragraphs to fit quick and easy reading.
Page 127.
One of the most familiar tricks of the orator or propagandist is to leave certain things unsaid, things that are highly relevant to the argument, but that might be challenged if they were made explicit.
Page 129.
Whatever kind of book it is, your obligation as a reader remains the same. If the book contains arguments, you must know what they are, and be able to put them into a nutshell.
Page 129.
The nature of the human mind is such that if it works at all during the process of reading, if it comes to terms with the author and reaches his propositions, it will see his arguments as well.
Page 130.
THE SECOND STAGE OF ANALYTICAL READING, OR RULES FOR
FINDING WHAT A B OOK 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.
Pages 134-135
Reading a book is a kind of conversation.
Page 136.
There is an intellectual etiquette to be observed. Without it, conversation is bickering rather than profitable communication.
Page 137.
A good book deserves an active reading. The activity of reading does not stop with the work of understanding what a book says. It must be completed by the work of criticism, the work of judging. The undemanding reader fails to satisfy this requirement, probably even more than he fails to analyze and interpret.
Page 137.
A person is wrongly thought to be teachable if he is passive and pliable. On the contrary, teachability is an extremely active virtue. No one is really teachable who does not freely exercise his power of independent judgment.
Page 139.
The most teachable reader is … the most critical.
Page 139.
To regard anyone except yourself as responsible for your judgment is to be a slave, not a free man.
Page 140.
The error of supposing that to criticize is always to disagree. That is a popular misconception. To agree is just as much an exercise of critical judgment on your part as to disagree. You can be just as wrong in agreeing as in disagreeing. To agree without understanding is inane. To disagree without understanding is impudent.
Page 141.
Students who plainly do not know what the author is saying seem to have no hesitation in setting themselves up as his judges. They not only disagree with something they do not understand but, what is equally bad, they also soften agree to a position they cannot express intelligibly in their own words. Their discussion, like their reading, is all words. Where understanding is not present, affirmations and denials are equally meaningless and unintelligible.
Pages 142-143.
In reading good books, failure to understand is usually the reader’s fault.
Page 143.
There is no point in winning an argument if you know or suspect you are wrong. Practically, of course, it may get you ahead in the world for a short time. But honesty is the better policy in the slightly longer run.
Page 144.
Most people think that winning the argument is what matters, not learning the truth.
Page 145.
Disagreement is futile agitation unless it is undertaken with the hope that it may lead to the resolution of an issue.
Page 146.
Men are rational animals. Their rationality is the source of their power to agree. Their animality, and the imperfections of their reason that it entails, is the cause of most of the disagreements that occur.
Page 146.
No one who looks upon disagreement as an occasion for teaching another should forget that it is also an occasion for being taught.
Page 147.
What we know, we know subject to correction; we know it because all, or at least the weight, of the evidence supports it, but we are not and cannot be certain that new evidence will not sometime invalidate what we now believe is true.
Page 149.
Knowledge, if you please, consists in those opinions that can be defended, opinions for which there is evidence of one kind or another.
Page 149.
The whole process of interpretation is directed toward a meeting of minds through the medium of language.
Page 151.
You must make your own assumptions explicit. You must know what your prejudices - that is, your prejudgments - are. Otherwise you are not likely to admit that your opponent may be equally entitled to different assumptions. Good controversy should not be a quarrel about assumptions. If an author, for example. Explicitly asks you to take something for granted, the fact that the opposite can also be taken for granted should not prevent you from honoring his request. If your prejudices lie on the opposite side, and if you do not acknowledge them to be prejudices, you cannot give the author’s case a fair hearing.
Page 153.
The ideal should never be expected form human beings. We ourselves, we hasten to admit, are sufficiently conscious of our own defects.
Page 153.
To say that an author is uninformed is to say that he lacks some piece of knowledge that is relevant to the problem he is trying to solve.
Page 154.
To say that an author is misinformed is to say that he asserts what is not the case. … Whatever its cause, it consists in making assertions contrary to fact.
Page 155.
Lack of relevant knowledge makes it impossible to solve certain problems or support certain conclusions. Erroneous suppositions, however, lead to wrong conclusions and untenable solutions.
Page 156.
To say that an author is illogical is to say that he has committed a fallacy in reasoning. In general, fallacies are of two sorts. There is the non sequitur, which means that which is drawn as a conclusion simply des not follow from the reasons offered. And there is the occurrence of inconsistency, which means that two things the author has tried to say are incompatible.
Page 156.
If you have not been able to show that the author is uninformed, misinformed, or illogical on relevant matters, you simply cannot disagree. You must agree.
Page 158.
If you have been convinced, you should admit it.
Page 158.
To say that an author’s analysis is incomplete is to say that he has not solved all the problems he started with, or that the has not made as good a use of his materials as possible, that he did not see all their implications and ramifications, or that he has failed to make distinctions that are relevant to his undertaking.
Page 159.
Men are finite, and so are their works, every last one.
Page 159.
No higher commendation can be given any work of the human mind than to praise it for the measure of truth it has achieved.
Page 163.
In recent years, for the first time in Western history, there is a dwindling concern with this criterion of excellence. Books win the plaudits of the critics and gain widespread popular attention almost to the extent that they flout the truth - the more outrageously they do so, the better.
Page 163.
You cannot read for information intelligently without determining what significance is, or should be, attached to the facts presented.
Page 163.
If communications were not complex, structural outlining would be unnecessary. If language were a perfect medium instead of a relatively opaque one, there would be no need for interpretation. If error and ignorance did not circumscribe truth and knowledge, we should not have to be critical.
Page 164.
The great writers have always been great readers.
Page 164.
To become well-read, in every sense of the world, one must know how to use whatever skill one possesses with discrimination - by reading every book according to its merits.
Page 165.
Common experience is available to all men and women just because they are alive. Special experience must be actively sought and is available only to those who go to the trouble of acquiring it.
Page 167.
Common experience does not have to be shared by everyone in order to be common. Common is not the same as universal.
Page 168.
Common experience is most relevant to the reading of fiction, on the one hand, and to the reading of philosophy, on the other.
Page 168.
Reading related books in relation to one another and in an order that renders the later ones more intelligible is a basic common-sense maxim of extrinsic reading.
Page 170.
The great authors were great readers, and one way to understand them is to read the books they read.
Page 171.
Reading a commentary, particularly one that seems very self-assured, thus tends to limit your understanding of a book.
Page 172.
Whereas it is one of the rules of intrinsic reading that you should read an author’s preface and introduction before reading his book, the rule in this case of extrinsic reading is that you should not read a commentary by someone else until after you have read the book. … If you read them first they are likely to distort your reading of the book.
Page 172.
A good deal of knowledge is required before you can use a reference book well.
Page 173.
There is an art of reading reference books, just as there is an art to reading anything else.
Page 174.
Reference books are only useful when you know which kinds of questions can be answered by them, and which cannot.
Page 174.
The history of reference books is interesting in itself, for it can tell us much about changes in men’s opinions as to what is knowable.
Page 175.
Reference books are useless to people who know nothing. They are not guides to the perplexed.
Page 175.
The Oxford English Dictionary (known familiarly as the OED), begun in 1857, was a new departure, in that it did not try to dictate usage but instead to present an accurate historical record of every type of usage - the worst as well as the best, taken from popular as well as elegant writing.
Page 176.
The dictionary, however constructed, is primarily an educational instrument.
Page 176.
The dictionary is a book about words, not about things.
Page 177.
The man who knew an encyclopedia by heart would be in grave danger of incurring the title idiot savant - “learned fool.”
Page 179.
A table of contents is a topical arrangement of a book, as opposed to an index, which is an alphabetical arrangement.
Page 181.
Facts should never be argued about.
Page 182.
You do not know much if all you know is what the fact is.
Page 182.
Facts are also - again to some extent - culturally determined.
Pages 183-184.
The best protection against propaganda of any sort is the recognition of it for what it is. Only hidden and undetected oratory is really insidious. What reaches the heart without going through the mind is likely to bounce back and put the mind out of business.
Page 194.
The greater part of anybody’s reading time is spent on newspapers and magazines, and on tings that have to be read in connection with one’s job. And so far as books are concerned, most of us read more fiction than nonfiction. Furthermore, of the nonfiction books, the most popular are those that, like newspapers and magazines, deal journalistically with matters of contemporary interest.
Page 198.
People deceive themselves about their ability to read novels intelligently.
Page 199.
People can be good readers of fiction without being good critics.
Page 199.
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.
Page 199.
We experience things through the exercise of our senses and imagination. To know anything we must use our powers of judgment and reasoning, which are intellectual.
Page 200.
We could not live in this world if we were not able, from time to time, to get away from it.
Page 200.
We can learn from the vicarious, or artistically crated, experiences that fiction produces in our imagination. In this sense, poems and stories teach as well as please. But the sense in which science and philosophy teach us is different. Expository works do not provide us with novel experiences. They comment on such experiences as we already have or can get. That is why it seems right to say that expository books teach primarily, while imaginative books teach only derivatively, by creating experiences from which we can learn. In order to learn from such books, we have to do our own thinking about experience; in order to learn from scientists and philosophers, we must first try to understand the thinking they have done.
Page 202.
You have not grasped a story until you are familiar with its characters, until you have lived through its events.
Page 206.
Our critical judgment in the case of expository books concerns their truth, whereas in criticizing belles-lettres, as the word itself suggests, we consider chiefly their beauty. The beauty of any work of art is related to the pleasure it gives us when we know it well.
Page 208.
You should not be anxious if all is not clear from the beginning. Actually, it should not be clear then. A story is like life itself; in life, we do not expect to understand events as they occur, at least with total clarity, but looking back on them, we do understand. So the reader of a story, looking back on it after he has finished it, understands the relation of events and the order of actions.
Page 214.
People who cannot read listen to stories. We even make them up for ourselves. Fiction seems to be a necessity for human beings. Why is that?
One reason why fiction is a human necessity is that it satisfies many unconscious as well as conscious needs.
Page 215.
A long epic poem is apparently the most difficult thing a man can write.
Page 217.
Most plays are not worth reading. This, we think, is because they are incomplete. They were not meant to be read - they were meant to be acted.
Page 220.
The essence of tragedy is time, or rather the lack of it. There is no problem in any Greek tragedy that could not have been solved if there had been enough time, but there is never enough.
Page 221.
The essence of a poem is almost never to be found in its first line, or even in its first stanza. It is to be found only in the whole, and not conclusively in any part.
Page 224.
Almost everyone can read any poem, if he will go to work on it.
Page 228.
A vast knowledge of the context of a poem is no guarantee that the poem itself will be understood.
Page 228.
Because theories of history differ, and because a historian’s theory affects his account of events, it is necessary to read more than one account of the history of an event or period if we want to understand it.
Page 233.
Every narrative history has to be written from some point of view. But to get at the truth, we ought to look at if from more than one viewpoint.
Page 234.
A good poem is true not only in its own time and place, but in all times and places. It has meaning and force for all men.
Page 235.
History is the story of what led up to now.
Page 236.
Read a history not only to learn what really happened at a partial time and place in the past, but also to learn the way men act in all times and places, especially now.
Page 236.
If we are to read history well, it is necessary to know precisely what it is about and what it is not about.
Page 236.
An author cannot be blamed for not doing what he did not try to do.
Page 236.
A good historian must combine the talents of the storyteller and the scientist. He must know what is likely to have happened as well as what some witnesses or writers said actually did happen.
Pages 237-238.
In general, statesmen have been more learned in history than in other disciplines. History suggests the possible, for it describes things that have already been done. If they have been done, perhaps they can be done again - or perhaps they can be avoided.
Page 238.
Unfortunately, leaders have often acted with some knowledge of history but not enough.
Page 238.
Human beings are curious, and especially curious about other human beings.
Page 240.
If it is difficult to know the life of anyone else, it is even more difficult to know one’s own.
Page 241.
Much of what anyone writes on any subjects autobiographical. There is a great deal of Plato in the Republic, of Milton in Paradise Lost, of Goethe in Faust - though we may not be able to put our finger on it exactly. If we are interested in humanity, we will tend, within reasonable limits, to read any book partly with an eye to discovering the character of its author.
Page 241.
You must not argue with a book until you fully understand what it is saying.
Page 242.
We do have an obligation, as human beings and as citizens, to try to understand the world a round us.
Page 243.
Until approximately the end of the nineteenth century, the major scientific books were written for a lay audience. … Intelligent and well-read persons were expected to read scientific books as well as history and philosophy, there were no hard and fast distinctions, no boundaries that could not be crossed.
Page 249.
Most modern scientists do not care what lay readers think, and so they do not even try to reach them.
Page 249.
As a layman, you do not read the classical scientific books to become knowledgeable in their subject matters in a contemporary sense. Instead, you read them to understand the history and philosophy of science. That, indeed, is the layman’s responsibility with regard to science. The major way in which you can discharge it is to become aware of the problems that the great scientists were trying to solve - aware of the problems, and aware, also, of the background of the problems.
Page 251.
The more “objective” a scientific author is, the more he will explicitly ask you to take this or that for granted. Scientific objectivity is not the absence of initial bias. It is attained by frank confession of it.
Page 252.
Science is primarily inductive; that is, its primary arguments are those that establish a general proposition by reference to observable evidence.
Page 252.
The inductive argument is characteristic of science.
Page 253.
Even the best readers continue to read, at least occasionally, at the elementary level: for example, whenever we come upon a word that we do not know and have to look up in the dictionary. If we are puzzled by the syntax of a sentence, we are also working at the elementary level.
Page 255.
The thing to do in a crisis is (usually) to act in a certain way, or to stop acting in a certain way.
Page 262.
Mathematics is one of the major modern mysteries. Perhaps it is the leading one, occupying a place in our society similar to the religious mysteries of another age.
Page 262.
The child is a natural questioner. It is not the number of questions he asks but their character that distinguishes him from the adult. Adults do not lose the curiosity that seems to be a native human trait, but their curiosity deteriorates in quality.
Page 264.
A mind not agitated by good questions cannot appreciate the significance of even the best answers.
Page 264.
One of the most remarkable things about the great philosophical books is that they ask the same sort of profound questions that children ask.
Page 265.
Good and evil, of course, are not the same as right and wrong; the two pairs of terms seem to refer to different classes of things. In particular, even if we feel that whatever is right is good, we probably do not feel that whatever is wrong is evil.
Page 268.
It is never harmful to be critical.
Page 270.
The misinformation or lack of information about scientific matters that mars the work of the classical philosophers is irrelevant. The reason is that it is philosophical questions, not scientific or historical ones, that we are interested in when we read a philosophical work. And … we must emphasize that there is not other way than thinking to answer such questions.
Page 273.
The idea that the truth somehow evolves out of opposition and conflict was a common medieval one. Philosophers in Aquinas’ time accepted as a matter of course that they should be prepared to defend their views in open, public disputes, which were often attended by crowds of students and other interested persons. The civilization of the Middle Ages was essentially oral, partly because books were few and hard to come by. A proposition was not accepted as true unless it could meet the test of open discussion; the philosopher was not a solitary thinker, but instead faced his opponents in the intellectual market place (as Socrates might have said). Thus, the Summa Theologica is imbued with the spirit of debate and discussion.
Page 277.
The great philosophers cannot be charged with having tried to hide their assumptions dishonestly, or with having been unclear in their definitions and postulations. It is precisely the mark of a great philosopher that he makes these things clearer than other writers can.
Page 280.
Whenever you talk generally about anything, you are using abstractions. What you perceive through your senses is always concrete and particular. What you think with your mind is always abstract and general. To understand an “abstract word” is to have the idea it expresses. “Having an idea” is just another way of saying that you understand some general aspect of the things you experience concretely.
Page 283.
Dogmatic theology differs from philosophy in that its first principles are articles of faith adhered to by the communicants of some religion. A work of dogmatic theology always depends upon dogmas and the authority of a church that proclaims them.
Page 284.
The philosopher does not work in laboratories, no research in the field. Hence to understand and test a philosopher’s leading principles you do not need the extrinsic aid of special experience, obtained by methodical investigation. He refers you to your own common sense and daily observation of the world in which you live.
Page 284.
It is good to know where the true mysteries are.
Page 285.
The disagreements of others are relatively unimportant. Your responsibility is only to make up your own mind.
Page 285.
The most distinctive mark of philosophical questions that everyone must answer them for himself. Taking the opinions of others is not solving them, but evading them.
Page 285.
The questions philosophers ask are simply more important than the questions asked by anyone else. Except children.
Page 285.
Dogmatic theology differs from philosophy in that its first principles are articles of faith adhered to by the communicants of some religion. A work of dogmatic theology always depends upon dogmas and the authority of a church that proclaims them.
Page 286.
Faith, for those who have it, is the most certain form of knowledge, jot a tentative opinion.
Page 286.
The problem of reading the Holy Book - if you have faith that it is the Word of God - is the most difficult problem in the whole field of reading. There have been more books written about how to read Scripture than about all other aspects of the art of reading together. The Word of God is obviously the most difficult writing men can read; but it is also, if you believe it is the Word of God, the most important to read. The effort of the faithful has been duly proportionate to the difficulty of the task. It would be true to say that, in the European tradition at least, the Bible is the book in more senses than one. It has been not only the most widely read, but also the most carefully read, book of all.
Page 288.
You cannot understand a book if you refuse to hear what it is saying.
Page 294.
There is hardly a single human action that has not been called - in one way or another - and act of love.
Page 302.
Usually, differences in answers must be ascribed to different conceptions of the question as often as to different views of the subject.
Page 312.
We would probably be presumptuous to expect that the truth could be found in any one set of answers to the questions. Rather, it is to be found, if at all, in the conflict of opposing answers many if not all of which may have persuasive evidence and convincing reasons to support them.
Page 314.
Agreement in most cases accompanies disagreement; that is, on most issues, the opinions or views that present opposite sides of the dispute are shared by several authors.
Page 315.
Absolute objectivity is not humanly possible.
Page 316.
The collection of a number of passages on the same topic, but from different works and different authors, serves to sharpen the reader’s interpretation of each passage read.
Page 323.
Activity is the essence of good reading, and the more active reading is, the better it is.
Page 328.
If you are reading in order to become a better reader, you cannot read just any gook or article. You will not improve as a reader if all you read are books that are well within your capacity.
Page 330.
The books that you will want to practice your reading on, particularly your analytical reading, must also make demands on you. They must seem to you to be beyond your capacity.
Page 330.
A good book does reward you for trying to read it. The best books reward you most of all. … A good book can trach you about the world and about yourself. You learn more than how to read better; you also learn more about life. You become wiser. … are more deeply aware of the great and enduring truths of human life.
Page 331.
By the time most people are thirty years old, their bodies are as good as they will ever be; in fact, many persons’ bodies have begun to deteriorate by that time. But there is no limit to the amount of growth and development that the mind can sustain.
Page 336.
Television, radio, and all the sources of amusement and information that surround us in our daily lives are also artificial props. They can give us the impression that our minds are active, because we are required to react to stimuli from outside. But the power of those external stimuli to keep us going is limited. They are like drugs.
Page 336.
The primary aim is to read well, not widely.
Page 338.
The closer an author is to our own time, the harder it is to exercise a detached judgment about him.
Page 338.
Not only is analytical reading work - it is lonely work. The reader is alone with the book he is reading.
Page 399.