READING

How to Read a Book

Mortimer J. Adler

ISBN 9780671212094

The art of reading is about seeking understanding. Modern media gives us pre-made "opinion-packages" that we can either adopt or reject, and never actually gain a deeper understanding of the subject at hand.

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CURATOR'S NOTES · DAVID BICKLEY

Added to the Library May 13, 2026

Generated Notes

Preface

When read too fast, or too slowly, we understand nothing. \- Pascal

Part One: The Dimensions of Reading

The Activity and Art of Reading

These opinion-packages are downloaded and replayed anytime the opporunity comes up in social situations, but this is all signaling. Who is in who's tribe? None have likely taken the time to dissect and truly understand the meat of whatever subject it may be.

Active Reading 4

The reader, or listener, is not passive... they are more like a catcher in baseball.

The Art of Reading is the skill of catching every sort of written communication as well as possible.

That sounds wonderful. To have no meaning or intention slip past my comprehension...

Reading is a complex activity, requiring many different, separate acts, each of which must be performed in a good reading.

The Goals of Reading: Reading for Information and Reading for Understanding 7

We can roughly define what we mean by the Art of Reading as follows: the process whereby a mind, with nothing to operate on but the symbols of the readable matter, and with no help from outside, elevates itself by the power of its ow operations. 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.

The mind, on its own power. Not with outside help, not with other opinions, on its own. That said, it can't learn from books that don't challenge understanding. We can only learn from our "betters." We must know who they are, and how to learn from them.

If we learn to read for understanding, reading for information will take care of itself.

The content of this book does not deal with reading for entertainment. This is about reading for understanding. Anyone who can read, can read for entertainment. There are no rules, and it requires the least amount of effort.

The book's focus then, is the art of reading good books when understanding is the aim we have in view.

Reading as Learning: The Difference Between Learning by Instruction and - Learning by Discovery 11

To be informed is to know simply that something is the case. To be enlightned is to know, in addition, what it is all about: why is it the case, what its connections are with other facts, in what respects it is the same, it what respects it is different, and so forth. This distinction is familiar in terms of the difference between being able to remember something and being able to explain it. If you remember what an author says, you have learned something from him. If what he says is true, you may have even learned something about the world. But whether it is a fact about the book, or a fact about the world that you have learned, you have gained nothing but information if you have exercised only your memory. You have not been enlightened. 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 Greeks had a name for such a mixture of learning and folly which might be applied to the bookish but poorly read of all ages. They are all *sophomores.*

To be widely-read and to be well-read are not the same thing.

Although the teacher can help the student in many ways, it is the student himself who must do the learning.

**Learning by Instruction** - we can also call it "aided discovery," is the process of being taught. This can be from reading books, or listening to and learning from discourse.

**Learning by Discovery** - is the process of reading nature or the world as instruction

Many people assume that though a poet must use his imagination when writing a poem, they do not have to use their imagination in reading it.

How dull this must be for these readers.... he says from some experience. It isn't that I never use my imagination when reading, that's silly, I use it constantly. But I'm getting the feeling that this author has something rigorous in mind which I'm predicting that I do not do.

Present and Absent Teachers 14

While reading and listening are closely related in the learning process, there is a key difference. When you are able to listen to a teacher, it is often because they are present, which means you can likely engage with them. This isn't always the case, but... it *is* always the case when it comes to a book. that is why this book places its primary emphasis on reading.

The Levels of Reading

The goal a reader seeks — be it entertainment, information or understanding — determines the way they read.

Four levels of reading:

Elementary Reading
Inspectional Reading
Analytical Reading
Syntopical Reading

The First Level of Reading: Elementary Reading 21

I'm curious about the new research in the area of reading instruction. This book is from the 1970's and that makes it more than a little outdated when the author is discussing recent trends in research, from his era.

Stages of Learning to Read 24

**Stage 1**: Reading Readiness - this is the stage where all of the characteristics required for the feat of reading are developed (vision, intellect, memory, desire to read, etc.). Begins at birth and normally continues til about age 6 or 7.
**Stage 2**: Word Mastery - single words and simple sentences. By the end of this period, students are expected to be reading simple books, with enthusiasm.
**Stage 3**: Growth and Context - at this stage, student are rapidly growing in their vocabulary and ability to unlock meaning from the content they encounter. They begin to see the distinction between reading for education or pleasure.
**Stage 4**: Refinement - ability to carry concepts from one thing they've read, to another book, and see relationships. Ideally this stage is reached in early adolescence, and developed throughout life.

Stages and Levels 26

The last four stages are all stages of the *first* level of reading. Only when a child has mastered those four levels of elementary reading are they ready to move on to the higher levels of reading.

Higher Levels of Reading and Higher Education 28

As of the writing of this book, it seems that high school, and even college education do not do much to help a student learn to read beyond an elementary level. In the author's opinion, high school ought to leave a student at least able to perform analytcal reading, and college should leave a student able to do syntopical reading and research on any subject by the time they graduate.

Again, I'm quite curious about how this has changed in the last 50 years.

Reading and the Democratic Ideal of Education 29

The author's appeal to the mission of becoming a nation of truly competent readers.

The Second Level of Reading: Inspectional Reading 31

Inspectional Reading I: Systematic Skimming or Prereading 32

Begin by inspecting the exterior of the book, if there is a dust jacket, read the summary or blurb about the book.
Next, examine the table of contents to get a feel for the structure of the argument the book is making.
Check the index for the range of topics discussed and the books the author refers to. Dive into a few pages on any that seem crucial.
Look through any chapters that seem pivotal to the point. Read the opening and closing pages, if they have a summary (most do).
Read a few pages at a time in places that seem important. Never skip the epilogue. Too many authors can't resist summarizing the whole work there.

lnspectional Reading II: Superficial Reading 36

*In tackling a difficult book for the first time, read it through without ever stopping to ponder the things you do not understand right away.*

It is better to understand 50% of a difficult book, than it is to understand none of it. For this reason, when reading a difficult book, we want to read it cover to cover, without stopping for the areas that don't quite make sense. We need the experience of reading the book to the end, in order to better understand it on the second pass. If we try and analyze too early, we end up gaining less because we don't know where the book is taking us. Once we've taken the whole journey once, the second pass will bring more clarity.

On Reading Speeds 38

Speed reading courses are great, but generally only focus on matters in the elementary reading level, not on the upper levels of comprehension. Still, most of us can read faster than we actually do, we just haven't been taught how, and speed reading can help that. Either way, the goal isn't just outright speed. The goal is a wide range of speeds at one's disposal. We can fly by the interstitial "filler" material, and slow down to process the heavy concepts that demand more of our faculties.

Fixations and Regressions 40

We don't read by scanning each single word, our eyes jump in blocks of words and our mind pieces the parts together. We can immediately increase our reading speed by embracing that experience and practicing it.

*I can say that I felt my reading speed increase significantly when I starting allowoing my eyes to take larger jumps. At first it felt odd to feel my mind lag behind a little bit, but, then I hit a groove and it felt good.*

The Problem of Comprehension 41

Some things don't take a whole lot of time or effort to comprehend -- these things can be read quickly without missing much of anything.

Others must be read with much more care... much more time and attention. Some words carry so much weight that a person could ponder them for years before really comprehending them.

The goal of this book is increasing comprehension. *which excites the hell out of me because I was testing at the top of the (high school) class in reading comprehension when I was a kid.*

Summary of Inspectional Reading 43

There is no single right speed a person ought to read at. The content dictates the speed. The ability to read at various speeds, and to know which speed is appropriate is the ideal.

This quick-skimming, inspectional level of reading is also the ideal first step preceding a reading at the analytical level. Understanding the basic outline and structure of a difficult book before really digging into the material is a useful and ideal place to begin.

How to Be a Demanding Reader 45

Whether by setting ourselves up to fail by reading in an environment and posture that causes us to fall asleep while reading, or simply spacing out while reading, we do not do well at keeping our mind focused on the task of reading.

We need to be active, demanding readers.

The Essence of Active Reading: The Four Basic Questions a Reader Asks 46

The basic practice of active reading simply requires asking questions while we read — but not just any questions, we need to ask the right questions, in the right order. This primarily applies to expository or non-fiction works. The four questions are:

**What is this book about as a whole?**

What is the leading theme of the book, and how is the author dividing this theme up in an orderly way through the subdivision of essential subordinate themes or or topics?

**What is being said in detail and how?**

Discover the main ideas, assertions, and arguments that make up the author's particular message.

**Is the book true, in whole or in part?**

We can't answer this question until we've answered the first two.
We are obligated to make up our own mind.

**What of it?**

If we've learned something from the book, we must ask about the significance of what we've learned.
Why does the author think it is important to know these things?
Is it important to us to learn them?
Is it necessary to go deeper and learn from whatever else follows?

Reading a book at any level beyond the elementary is essentially an effort on our part to ask it questions (and to answer them to the best of your ability).

The question need to be asked in order — the first two are the core of inspectional reading, the last two are the result of analytical reading. The last one is even more relevant in syntopical reading.

How to Make a Book Your Own 48

Read with a pencil in hand and practice Marginalia.

The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it, does not know what he thinks.

I agree with this statement. Regardless of a person's ability to articulate, when a thought is clear and firmly held, it becomes easy to express. Even if all the person can do is think out loud about it, so long as a conclusion is drawn at the end.

Holding a pencil in hand while reading, and writing in the margins as we go is all about alertness, and about thinking. The pencil keeps you awake. And it lets you express your thoughts in words as you read. Writing our reactions down, as we read, helps us to better remember the words of the author because we are engaging with them.

The author suggests a number of marginalia devices which can be used. I've added them to the Marginalia note.

The Three Kinds of Note-making 51

I find it an interesting coincidence that note-making would pop up in this book too, especially since I'm reading it off the heels of How to Take Smart Notes.

I've added the kinds of notes the author mentions to What is a note#3 Types of individual notes from How to Read a Book

Forming the Habit of Reading 52

Any art or skill is possessed by those who have formed the habit of operating according to its rules.

I've copied the whole quote because it applies so clearly to the Craftsman's Mindset

Not everyone understands that being an artist consists in operating according to rules. People point to a highly original painter or sculptor and say, "He isn't following the rules. He's doing something entirely original, something that has never been done before, something for which there are no rules." But they fail to see what rules it is that the artist follows. 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 made. N o 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. And this is the art — the skill or craft — that we are talking about here.

From Many Rules to One Habit 54

Part One of the book concludes with a reminder that the process of learning to read in the ways the author teaches will take time, and will likely feel awkward, slow, and difficult while we learn this new skill. There are a large number of separate and simultaneous acts that we need to become familiar with before we develop proficiency.

The person who has had one experience in acquiring a complex skill knows that he need not fear the array of rules that present themselves at the beginning of something new to be learned. He knows that he does not have to worry about how all the separate acts in which he must become separately proficient are going to work together.

Part Two: The Third Level of Reading: Analytical Reading

Pigeonholing a Book 59

Though this book focuses on reading whole books, the same principles can and do apply to any written material.

The Importance of Classifying Books 60

**This is the _first_ and most important rule** of Analytical Reading: Before we can do any amount of analytical reading, we need to know what kind of book we are reading. Is it fiction, expository, a play, a script, a poem, etc. We must classify the book.

What You Can Learn from the Title of a Book 61

The author makes some good points about the necessity of reading and understanding titles as it relates to analytical reading. Specifically, that he points out the title of Darwin's "Origin of Species" is not "Origin of *the* Species" and how such a misreading of the title can lead to a whole host of incorrect assumptions of the content inside.

The title matters, and a good title will clue you in about what is inside.

Practical vs. Theoretical Books 65

These two main categories of books cover just about everything, but not all books will fall neatly into one (or either). Some will be a combination.

*Practical books* deal with how to do something. They are primarily concerned with the application of knowledge.

*Theoretical books* deal with things to be seen or understood. - this one is still a little unclear, but I see the title of the next section so I expect to get more clarity.

Kinds of Theoretical Books 70

**History** - Only ever concerned with the past, even if that past was just an hour ago. Usually told in narrative form. They are chronotopic — alwyas dealing with particular things that existed or events that occured on a particular date, and in a particular place.

**Science** - Matters that can happen at any time or place. Fundamental laws and generalizations about how reality works. The science book is about how things happen. These books depend on experiments and elaborate observational research — which places these topics well outside the daily life experience of the average human.

**Philosophy** - Seeks general truths rather than an account of particular events. Deals with experiences common to all. I might say these are books concerning wisdom more than knowledge.

The primary distinction between science and philosophy books concerns the sort of experience being referred to as the condition for understanding what is being said

Concerning the importance of classifying a book before we dive into analytical reading, the author compares it to walking into a random classroom and paying attention to the class. We would understand quickly, and benefit from knowing, what kind of class we were in, if we intended to pay attention. He then has this to say:

as books differ in the kinds of knowledge they have to communicate, they proceed to instruct us differently; and if we are to follow them, we must learn to read each kind in an appropriate manner.

X-raying a Book 75

Every book has a skeleton between it's covers. Your job as an analytical reader is to find it.

**Rule 2** of analytical reading is: "state the unity of the whole book in a sentence, or at most a few sentences."

This needs a little clarification. Every well-crafted large body of work has a main point or theme. We need to be able to articulate this point or theme as succinctly as possible. If we have to use more than a few sentences, we may not have distilled it enough yet.

**Rule 3**: Set forth the major parts of the book and show how these are organized in to a whole, by being ordered to one another, and to the unity of the whole.

A good book is an orderly arrangement of parts. Each major part has a certain amount of independence — and each can stand mostly on their own — but they must relate to each other, and to a unifying main point or theme, for the book to make sense.

Of Plots and Plans: Stating the Unity of a Book 78

Any book of quality will have a central theme to it. This is the unity referred to in rule 2. It is the writer's job to tie everything together with a central theme, but it is the responsibility of the reader to find that unity.

The author mentions two other books that pique my interest — because he calls them two of the most influential books of the last two centuries, and suggests they are related.

There is no one right way to state the unity of a book; however, what is most important in the process is that the statement be brief, accurate, and comprehensive.

Mastering the Multiplicity: The Art of Outlining a Book 88

A well-stated unity indicates the major parts that compose the whole; you cannot understand the 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.

The major parts of the book may be seen immediately once we grasp the unity of it. But these parts are usually complex themselves, with their own interior structures to reveal.

If step two had us saying "the author is talking to us about such and such and so and so," then step three is saying "the author accomplishes this in five major parts..."and listing out the parts and points of each.

Part one is about so and so and is divided into 4 major subsections, the first considers X, the second considers Y, and so on...
Part two discusses XB in 2 sections, the first section is divided into 3 subsections...
etc..

A good rule always describes the ideal performance. But a person can be skilled in art without being an ideal artist. He can be a good practitioner if he merely approximates the rule. We have stated the rule here for the ideal case. You should be satisfied if you make a very rough approximation of what is required.

As an exercise, outline the US Constitution in this way.

Outlining does *not* mean slavishly following the structure of the table of contents. It simply means that we do our best to note and convey the structure *we* observe in the text.

This process can seem daunting, and it should be noted that we do not have to fully implement it for every book we read. The depth we process at is dictated by our motivation for reading, and the quality and complexity of the book.

This eventually becomes a faster and more automatic process.

The Reciprocal Arts of Reading and Writing 90

a piece of writing should have unity, clarity, and coherence.

These two skills feed off of one another, and therefore are affected by the same principles. Unity, clarity, and cohesion are hallmarks of good writing. That said, a reader wouldn't get much out of reading a bare-bones outline, so the author has to add flesh to the skeleton in order to give life to the writing.

If the writing has unity, we must find it. If the writing has clarity and coherence, we must appreciate it by finding the distinction and order of the parts. What is clear is so by the distinctness of its outline. What is coherent hangs together in an orderly disposition of parts.

Discovering the Author's Intentions 92

**Rule 4** Find out what the author's problems were.

As a reader, we ought to be able to uncover and state the main question the book tried to answer. If this is a complex question, we would want to break it down into its subordinate questions.

If there is an order, we should be able to state which of these questions needs to be answered first before the next can be addressed.

We want to be careful of falling into the Intentional Fallacy, in which we think we can discover what was in the author's mind from the book they've written. So, although it would be a mistake to try to psychoanalyze Shakespeare by reading Hamlet, we still want to try to state what the author was trying to do.

We understand that Content Dictates Form so, we want to understand the motivation behind the content, and then seek to understand the end the structure serves.

Some examples of questions motivating each of the two types of books we are discussing:

**Theoretical:**

Does something exist?
What kind of thing is it?
What caused it to exist, or under what conditions can it exist, or why does it exist?
What purpose does it serve?
What are the consequences of its existence?
What are its characteristic properties or typical traits?
What are its relations to other things of a similar sort, or a different sort?
How does it behave?

**Practical:**

What ends should be sought?
What means should be chosen to a given end?
What things must one do to gain a certain objective, and in what order?
Under those conditions, what is the right thing to do, or the better rather than the worse?
Under what conditions would it be better to do this rather than that?

These lists are far from exhaustive and can even be useful in fictional or more poetic works.

The First Stage of Analytical Reading 94

This section concludes the chapter with a four point summary of rules for finding what a book is about. They are copied below.

Classify the book according to kind and subject matter.
State what the whole book is about with the utmost brevity.
Enumerate its major parts in their order and relation, and outline these parts as you have outlined the whole.
Define the problem or problems the author is trying to solve.

Coming to Terms with an Author 96

The aim of the second stage of analytical reading is not about outlining the structure, but about the interpretation of the contents of the book.

Once the first four rules of the last chapter are completed, we can move on to the next phase of analytical reading, with the introduction of four more rules of reading. The first of which we call "Coming to Terms."

Each of these rules will have two aspects: a grammatical, and a logical.

The grammatical will deal with the words used

The logical will deal with their meaning, or terms

In short, it means to understand the language the author is using, in they way they meant to use it. Not necessarily in the way it first strikes us.

Words vs. Terms 96

Where there is unresolved ambiguity in communication, there is no communication, or at best communication must be incomplete.

The same word can mean different things to different people. If either party in a conversation doesn't understand the same words as having the same meanings, it cannot be said they have communicated effectively.

For our purposes, we can consider a term to be an unambiguous word. Meaning that both the writer and the reader have a common understanding of that term, and its meaning. Thus, we can think of terms as a skilled use of words for the sake of communicating knowledge.

It should be noted that ambiguity is often desirable in other forms of literature that are not expository, like poetry or fiction. For the purposes of conveying knowledge however, ambiguity is a pothole in an otherwise smooth road.

**Rule #5:** Find the important words and through them come to terms with the author.

*Note: The rule has two parts: first we identify and locate the important words, the ones that make a difference. Then, we determine the meaning of those words (as used) with precision.*

Because language is imperfect as a medium for conveying knowledge, it also functions as an obstacle to communication.

One word can be a vehicle for many terms, and many words can be used to express one term.

Finding the Key Words 100

You can be sure that most of the words the author uses are not important. Only the ones the author uses in a special way are important to them. Of course, this isn't an absolute rule, we just need to understand that some words are more important than others.

You cannot locate the key words without making an effort to understand the passage in which they occur.

If we do not fully understand the passage, it is probably because we do not know the way the author is using certain words. If we mark the words that trouble us, we may very well hit the very ones the author is using specially.

One way of distinguishing these terms, is through the author's use of typographical emphasis, like italics and question marks.

Technical Words and Special Vocabularies 103

*Technical words* will generally be specific to the field that the book covers. Every field of knowledge has its own technical vocabulary. The reader will seek these words out, or discover them as the author introduces the word.

One clue to an important word is the author arguing with other writers about it. When we find an author talking about how another uses a word, and how our author intends to use it differently, this points to the word being quite important to them.

Beyond the technical words, we have the words the author uses to express main ideas and leading concepts, these make up their *special vocabulary*. These are the words that carry the argument or analysis. If what the author is saying is original, it is likely they use some language in special ways. Either way, we are looking for the words that are important to the author because, they need to be important to us as well, and we need to know how the author intends them to be interpreted.

Finding the Meanings 106

If finding the key words and technical terms is step 1, then finding their meanings would be step 2. Here is the process:

Determine if the word has one or many meanings (as used by the author) – if it has many, try to find, understand, and describe their relationship. In the case of many meanings, go to each location where the word is used and look for clues to the reason for the shift in meaning.
>You have to discover the meaning of a word you do not understand by using the meanings of all the other words in the context you do not understand.'
We should not forget that one words can represent several terms. One way to remember this is to distinguish between the author's vocabulary and their terminology. If you make a list and one column of the important words, and the other of their important meanings, you will see the relation between the vocabulary and the terminology. Specifically you will find two relationships. On the one hand, a single word may be related to several terms. On the other hand, a single term may be related to several words.
so long as each usage is definite, the word so used as a term. and a term can be expressed as a word or a phrase. And all the relations that exists between the words and terms hold also between terms and phrases two phrases may express the same term, and one phrase may express several terms, according to the way its constituent words are used.

Determining an Author's Message 114

The two processes, outlining and interpretation, meet at the level of propositions and arguments. We work down to the propositions by breaking the book up into its parts. We work up to the arguments be seeing how they are composed of propositions and ultimately of terms. Once these two processes are complete, we can say we really know the contents of the book.

Sentences vs. Propositions 117

Sentences and paragraphs are grammatical units. They are units of language. Propositions and arguments are logical units, or units of thought and knowledge.

Not all sentences are propositions or arguments. Some are questions, some are wishes or intentions. *Propositions are the answers to questions.* They are declarations of knowledge or opinion.

Propositions are declarative

Questions are interrogative

**Rule 6**: Find the most important sentences and discover the propositions they contain.

**Rule 7**: Locate or construct the basic arguments of the book by finding them in the connection of sentences.

As before, these rules are primarily for expository work.

Finding the Key Sentences 121

Pay special attention to the sentences that you don't immediately understand. An essential part of reading well is to be perplexed *and know it.* Pause at the sentences that *puzzle* you, not just those that *interest* you.

Finding the Propositions 124

Locating the key sentences is only the first part of Rule 6, we still have to uncover the proposition(s) the sentence(s) contain.

When we find these propositions, we need to state them in our own words. This is the test for whether or not we understand what they are saying.

The vice of verbalism can be defined as the bad habit of using words without regard for the thoughts they should convey and without awareness of the experiences to which they should refer.

Finding the Arguments 128

**Rule 7 - Expanded**: Find if you can the paragraphs in a book that state its important arguments; but if the arguments are not thus expresses, 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.

Some tips on carrying out this rule:

Remember that every argument must involve a number of statements. Of these, some give the reasons why you should accept a conclusion the author is proposing. If you find the conclusions first, look for the reasons. If you find the reasons first, see where they lead.
Discriminate between the kind of argument that points to one or more particular facts as evidence for some generalization and the kind that offers a series of general statements to prove some further generalizations. The former kind of reasoning is usually referred to as inductive, the latter as deductive. The names are irrelevant though, what matters is the ability to discriminate between the two.
Observe what things the author says he must *assume*, what he says can be *proved* or otherwise evidenced, and what need not be proved because it is *self-evident*

Self-evident arguments are sometimes seen as trivial (or viewed with suspicion), due to the belief that they do not teach us anything. They are common knowledge, common notions, common sense. And yet, not all self-evident propositions fall into this non-instructive category. Some really do add to our knowledge, and yes, there are many that do not.

Finding the Solutions 185

**Rule 8**: Determine which of their problems the author has solved, and which they have not; as to the latter, decide whether the author knew they had failed to solve it.

Some questions to ask:

Which of the problems the author tried to solve did they succeed in solving?
In the course of solving these, did they raise any new ones?
Of the problems they failed to solve, old or new, which did the author themselves know they had failed on?

The Second Stage of Analytical Reading 186

This second stage helps to answer that question of what is being said and how.

Criticizing a Book Fairly 137

Reading a book is a conversation, even if it feels one-sided because the author can't respond to our comments. similarly, the author can't defend themselves if we've misunderstood something, or dismissed them before the author was given the change to explain later in the book.

The reader has a responsibility to read A *good* book *actively*.

Whether in agreement of disagreement with the author, the reader should be able to agree or disagree with clarity

Teachability as a Virtue 189

Teachability is often confused with subservience. a person is wrongly thought to be teachable if they are passive and pliable. On the contrary, teachability is an extremely active virtue. No one is teachable who does not freely exercise their power of independent judgment.

The most teachable person is therefore the most critical... the one who does the work of forming their own opinion, and making up their own mind on what the author has presented.

Teachability required a teacher to be fully heard (and understood) before being judged.

The Role of Rhetoric 140

To regard anyone except yourself as responsible for your judgment is to be a slave, not a free man. It is from this fact that the liberal arts get their name.

For the author, rhetorical skill is knowing how to convince or persuade

For the reader, rhetorical skill is knowing how to react to anyone who tries to convince or persuade us.

Grammar an logical skill enable us to understand what is being said, and paves the way for a critical reaction.

The Importance of Suspending Judgment 142

The three arts of grammar, logic, and rhetoric work together to regulate the elaborate processes of reading and writing.

Skill in the first two stages of analytical reading comes from mastery of grammar and logic. skill in the third stage rests on the principles of rhetoric. We consider the use of rhetoric to be like a code of etiquette to make the reader not only polite, but also effective in talking back.

**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."

To criticize does not always mean to disagree. A person can be just as wrong in their agreement as they can be in their disagreement.

To agree without understanding is inane. To disagree without understanding is impudent.

Suspending judgment is also an act of criticism, although it may not seem this way at first glance. To suspend judgment is akin to taking the position that something has not been sufficiently shown. We are essentially saying that we are not convinced or persuaded one way or the other.

The last thing we want to do is take a position of: "I don't know what you mean, but I think you're wrong"

Doesn't this stance sound incredibly arrogant? I think so. Which is why we never want to be the person who could say such a thing sincerely.
There is no point in answering critics of this sort. The best option is to simply ask them to restate our position for us. Since this is the claim they are challenging, they ought to be able to paraphrase it accurately if they indeed understood it.
If they can't paraphrase it *in their own words* you can be sure they do not understand, and ought to feel entirely justified in ignoring their criticism.

All criticism that is not based on understanding is irrelevant.

According to the autho's experience, those students who plainly do not know what the author is saying seem to have no hesitation in setting themselves up as judges re: the content. They not only disagree with with something they don't understand but, what is equally bad, they often agree with a position they can't intelligibly express in their own words. It isn't an opinion at this level, it is just words.

If understanding isn't present, affirmations and denials are equally meaningless and unintelligible. Neither is a position of doubt or detachment any more intelligent in a reader who does not know what they are suspending judgment about.

We ought not be too quick to claim understanding either, a *good* book will challenge us with things we didn't know, or hadn't considered. There is likely a great deal of work to be done before we can honestly claim understanding.

Similarly, to say we *don't* understand is also a critical judgment but, *only after we have tried our hardest does it reflect on the book rather than us ourselves.* If we've done everything we possibly can to understand the book, but it still eludes us, it may be that the book is unintelligible. The presumption however is in favor of the book, if it is a book of quality. Good books demand effort on our part, and only after exhausting this genuine effort that we can honestly say we cannot understand it. **This is why we must spend a significant amount of time in the first two stages of analytical reading.**

We we reach the conclusion that we don't understand, it is important to be mindful of our tone of voice. Be sure the tone concedes that it may not be the author's fault that we don't understand.

One last point in this section is that if we are only reading a portion of the work, we must be even more cautious about claiming understanding. Many authors write books that expand on ideas the author introduced in other books within their larger body of work. Some examples of this are:

Emmanuel Kant: Critique of Pure Reason is related to Critique of Practical Reason

Adam Smith: The Wealth of Nations is related to Theory of the Moral Sentiments

Karl Marx: The Communist Manifesto is related to Capital

Each of these books needs to be read in the context of the other work by the same author.

The Importance of Avoiding Contentiousness 145

**Rule 10:** When you disagree, do so reasonably, and not disputatiously or contentiously.

The one who regards conversation as a battle can only win by being an antagonist, only by disagreeing successfully, whether they are right or wrong.

Any reader who approaches a book in this spirit is reading only to find something they can disagree with.

The only profit in conversation is what one can learn from them, if we realize that we "win" only by gaining knowledge, not by knocking the other person down, we may see the futility of merely being contentious.

We must be as prepared to agree as we are to disagree. Our only motivation should be the consideration of the facts — the truth about the case in question.

On the Resolution of Disagreements 147

**Rule 11:** Respect the difference between knowledge and mere personal opinion by giving reasons for any critical judgment we make

We ought to regard all disagreements as capable of being resolved. The author urges us not to disagree hopelessly. disagreement is a futile agitation unless there is a hope that it may lead to a resolution of an issue.

The relatively ignorant often disagree with the relatively learned about matters exceeding their knowledge. The more learned, however, have a right to be critical of errors made by those who lack relevant knowledge. Disagreement of this sort can also be corrected. Inequality of knowledge is always curable by instruction.

Be as prepared to have one's own mind changed as we are to seek to change the mind of another. We should also keep before us the possibility that we misunderstand, or that we ourselves are ignorant on some point.

If an author does not give reasons for their propositions, they can be treated only as expressions of personal opinion on their part.

We, as readers reading for knowledge, must do more than make judgments of agreement or disagreement, we must give reasons for them. When we agree, it can be sufficient to actively share the author's reasons for the point on which we agree. But when we disagree, we must give our grounds for doing so. Otherwise we are treating a matter of knowledge as if it were merely personal opinion.

**Knowledge** contains opinions which can be defended with evidence of one kind or another.

**Opinion**, in the sense the author uses the word, is unsupported judgment.

Agreeing or Disagreeing with an Author 152

Prior to any agreement or disagreement, we must be sure to understand the author fully. If we don't, then our work in the analytical level of reading is not over, and we ought to get back to work.

The exception to the second half of that statement is when we say "I don't understand" as a critical remark... as in, the book is unintelligible. Perhaps this is a fault of the structure, or the connections between points being too loose. Either way, if the fault is in the book itself, the reader ought to be able to identify the areas where there is trouble.

To the extent that the reader support the charge that the book is unintelligible, they have no further critical obligations.

If we can safely say we *do* understand the book, and we thoroughly agree with the author on all points, then we can likewise say that the analytical work is done.

However, when we disagree, a good reader must be acquainted with the principles of argument. We must be able to carry on a civil, as well as intelligent controversy.

Not simply by following an authors arguments, but only by meeting them as well, can the reader ultimately reach significant agreement or disagreement with their author.

One common mistake is the idea that all disagreement is rooted in misunderstanding. The example given is a political one. The author suggests that in the case of subjects like political policy, we can fully understand the other person's meaning, and still hold an opposite view. What matters most, is that before we from an opinion, we need to ensure that we fully understand both the terms being used, and the meanings behind them.

Prejudice and Judgment 154

There are three conditions that must be satisfied if the controversy is to be well conducted.

We must remember that humans are animals, as well as rational beings, and take an honest account of the emotions we bring to the dispute, or those that arise during it. It is too easy to think we have strong reasons, when all we really have are strong feelings.
We must make our own assumptions explicit. Meaning, we must know what our prejudices are — that is, our prejudgments — are. If we don't do this, we are likely to forget that our "opponent" may be equally entitled to different assumptions. *Good controversy should not be a quarrel about assumptions.*
We must strive for impartiality — in spite of it being essentially impossible. One of the most reliable ways of getting closer to impartiality is to make sincere effort to try to take the other's point of view. If we aren't able read a book sympathetically, our disagreement with it is likely to be more contentious than civil.

The author asserts that these three conditions are the Sine qua non of intelligent and profitable conversation.

Acknowledging that we humans are imperfect, the author provides four simpler points to keep in mind during disagreement/argument/controversy. He frames them as the reader responding to the author (as in, talking back) with something like "I understand, but I disagree. After we have made that remark to the author, we can make our remarks to the author via these four points:

You are uninformed
You are misinformed
You are illogical — your reasoning is not cogent
Your analysis is incomplete

None of these points are required to be independent of each other; however, the reader cannot make any of these statement without being definite and precise in the way(s) the author uninformed, misinformed, or illogical.

A book cannot be uninformed or misinformed about *everything*. It cannot be totally illogical.

To reiterate, any time we are refuting an author, we must make definitive statements, backed up by supporting points. We need valid, evidence-based reasons for saying what we do in our disagreement.

Judging the Author's Soundness 156

Here, the author dives deeper on the first three of the four points listed above, which deal with the soundness of the author's statements and reasoning. He suggests that the fourth needs a more thorough explanation, which is covered in the next section.

**Uninformed** - To say that an author is uninformed is to say that they are missing some piece of critical knowledge which is relevant to the problem they are attempting to solve. It is important to know that unless the knowledge would have been relevant, there is no point in making the statement. Also, to make this statement, we need to be able to not only state the knowledge the author lacks, but also show how it is relevant.

**Misinformed** - To say that an author is misinformed is to say they assert what is *not* the case. They are proposing as true, or more probable, what is in fact false or less probable. Being misinformed and uninformed are related, and this should be addressed if it is relevant to the author's conclusions. To support the remark, we must be able to argue it in the same way as the previous point.

**Illogical** - This is saying the author has committed a logical fallacy. In general, fallacies are of two sorts. The first is the Non sequitur, which is to say that the conclusion drawn does not follow the reasons offered. The second is the occurrence of inconsistency, which means two things the author has tried to say are incompatible.

Judging the Author's Completeness 160

Before elaborating on the fourth point regarding completeness of the book's arguments or points, we must understand this:

Since you have said you understand, your failure to support any of these first three remarks obligates you to agree with the author as far as he has gone. You have no freedom of will about this. It is not your sacred privilege to decide whether you are going to agree or disagree. If you have not been able to show that the uninformed, misinformed, or illogical on relevant matters, you simply cannot disagree. You must agree. You cannot say, as so many other students do, "I find nothing wrong with your premises, and no errors in reasoning, but I don't agree with your conclusions." All you can possibly mean by saying something like that is that you do not *like* the conclusions. You are not disagreeing. You are expressing your emotions or prejudice. If you have been convinced, you should admit it. (If, despite your failure to support one or more of these three critical points, you still honestly feel unconvinced, perhaps you should not have said you understood in the first place).

Where the first three points deal with the author's terms, propositions, and arguments, the fourth bears on the structure as a whole.

**Incomplete** - To say the author's analysis is incomplete is to say that they have not solved all the problems they started with, or that he has not made as good a use of their materials as possible, that they did not see all their implications and ramifications, or that they failed to make distinctions that are relevant to their undertaking.

It isn't enough to say the book is incomplete. We could reasonably say that of any book. Humans are finite, and so are our works, every last one.

Therefore, there is no point in making this remark unless the reader can define the inadequacy precisely, either by their own efforts as a knower or through the help of other books.

A reader who agrees with a book in part — because they find no reason to make any of the other points of adverse criticism — may, nevertheless, suspend judgment on the whole, in the light of this fourth point about the book's incompleteness. suspended judgment on the reader's part responds to an author's failure to solve their problems perfectly.

This suspension of judgment is important because we may need to pull from other books in order to understand how to fill in the completeness gaps.

The fourth critical remark ties together the three stages of analytical reading of any book. The last step of *structural outlining* is to know the problems that the author is trying to solve. The last step of *interpretation* is to know which of these problems the author has solved, and which they have not. The final step of *criticism* is the point about completeness. It touches structural outlining insofar as it measures how satisfactorily they have solved them.

The Third Stage of Analytical Reading 161

The final sections summarizes all the rules thus far:

Aids to Reading 166

**Intrinsic Reading**: Reading a book, itself, separate from any other source.

**Extrinsic Reading**: Reading a book in the light of other books (or sources).

Ultimately we cannot read a book in entire isolation from other influences, we will always (at the very least) bring our experiences to bear on it.

The author has waited so long to introduce extrinsic aids because of the importance of thinking through things ourselves first.

Don't read a commentary on a work to understand the work. Process through the work yourself, thoroughly, first — then, seek aid if necessary.

The more we do this, the less necessary it will be.

**Four Categories of Extrinsic Aids**

Relevant Experiences
Other Books
Commentaries and Abstracts
Reference Books

Outside help should be sought whenever a book remains unintelligible to you, either in whole or in part, *after you have done your best to read it according to the rules of intrinsic reading*

The Role of Relevant Experience 169

Common Experience - Most relevant to the reading of fiction and philosophy
Special Experience - Most relevant to the reading of scientific works

We use both types in the reading of historical works

How to Use Commentaries and Abstracts 174

*These should be used wisely, which is to say sparingly*

Commentators are not always right in their commentary. Even if they are right, they may not be exhaustive. We may be able to discover important meanings in a book that a commentator may have left undiscovered.

When consulting a commentary, be sure it is only *after* having read the entire book yourself. Do the best you can, and then, use them to clear up things that still puzzle you.

In this way both you and the commentator have read the book, and therefore stand on essentially equal footing.

When the author refers to an Abstract, he is talking about summaries. In this context, that is what the word means, not the same as abstraction.

How to Use Reference Books 176

*The sections is confined to discussing dictionaries and encyclopedias*

Four kinds of knowledge are necessary to use a reference book well:

Knowledge of what it is you want to know. (You must be able to ask the book a question)
Knowledge of where to find out what you want to know. (You would not go looking for information on racial history in the USA in a Thesaurus)
Knowledge of how the reference book is structured (You must know how to locate the information within the reference book)
Knowledge of whether the question is considered knowable by the compilers of the reference book, or not.

Reference books are useless to people who know nothing. They are not guides to the perplexed

How to Use a Dictionary 175

The dictionary is more than a book of how to spell or pronounce words, and it is more than the meanings of those words — it shows the growth and development of the language.

The author lists four ways we can look at words. I see no need to copy it here, but it is on page 178. The most interesting point he makes is that words are like little signs with not just one meaning but many. That they and their meanings change over time. A good dictionary has information about these evolutions, we just need to know how to ask the questions a dictionary is best suited to answer.

How to write, and pronounce
Grammatical use
Meaning(s)
History/Etymology

How to Use an Encyclopedia 182

*Encyclopedias are vast collections of facts about the world. Ideally, they are full of nothing but facts.*

Facts are **NOT** opinions — neither are they ideas, concepts, or theories. Facts represent the way reality truly is.

The one exception to this is in the case of an encyclopedic entry for a disproven theory.

That said, we must accept that, while truth itself does not change, our understanding of truth can evolve over time.

Ultimately the author's point is that we need to recognize that while an encyclopedia is a great source for facts about the world as we know it, we ought not to use it as a sole source of understanding. As a reference material for something context-rich, it won't be enough.

Approaches to Different Kinds of Reading Matter

How to Read Practical Books 191

The author has stated many times that the rules mentioned thus far are not to be used when reading poetry, novels, and plays. The following sections will describe methods for these forms of literature.

The Two Kinds of Practical Books 198

A practical book, by itself, can never solve a problem — it requires action on the part of the reader to solve the problem at hand. The book cannot do it on its own.

The two kinds of practical book are:

Those that are about rules (like this book, a cookbook, or a driving manual)
Those that are about the principles that generate rules. (most great books on economics, politics, and morals are of this sort)

There may be some crossover, the distinction is not absolute. Both may be found in the same book. The point is one of relative emphasis.

The main difference when analyzing a practical book vs. a theoretical book is that while we can either agree or disagree with the theoretical book, a practical book must be judged based on the usefulness of the rules or principles within it. Do they lead reliably to the ends or goals in question.

We have no practical interest in even the soundest means to reach ends we disapprove of or do not care about.