Part One: The Dimensions of Reading

1. The Activity and Art of Reading

• 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. p4
• But the packaging is often done so effectively that the viewer, listener, or reader does not make up his own mind at all. Instead, he inserts a packaged opinion into his mind… p 4
• the more active the reading the better. p5
• Successfull communication occurs in any case where what the writer wanted to have received finds its way into the reader’s possession. p6
• As you go through the pages, either you understand perfectly everything the author has to say or you do not. If you do, you may have gained information, but you could not have increased your understanding. p7
• You do not understand the book perfectly. Let us even assume–what unahppily is not always true–that you understand enough to know that you do not understand it all. You know the book has more to say than you understand and hence that it contains something that can increase your understanding. p7
• But whether it is a fact aout the book or a fact about the world that you have learned, you havegained 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. p.11

2. The Levels of Reading

• The effectiveness with which he reads is determined by the amount of effort and skill he puts into his reading. p16
• Reading, like unaided discovery, is learning from an absent teacher. We can only do that successfully if we know how. p16
• Still another name for this level might be skimming or pre-reading. p18
• Whereas the question that is asked at the first level is “What does that sentence say?” the question typically asked at this level is “What is this book about?” p18
• Analytical reading is thorough reading, complete rading, or good reading–the best reading you can do. p19
• Analytical reading is preemminently for the sake of understanding. p19
• When reading syntopically, the reader reads many books, not just one, and palces them in relation to one another and to a subject about which they all involve. p20

3. The First Level of Reading: Elementary Reading

• Indeed, this discovery of meaning in symbols may be the most astounding intellectual feat that any human ever performs… p25

4. The Second Level of Reading: Inspectional Reading

• Skimming or pre-reading is the first sublevel of inspectional reading. p32

1. Look at the title page and, if the book has one, as its preface
2. Study the table of contents
3. Check the index
4. If the book is a new one with a dust jacket, read the publisher’s blurb
5. Look now at the chapters that seems to be pivotal to its argument
6. Turn the pages, dipping in here and there, reading a paragraph or two, sometimes several pages in sequenc, never more than that… Above all, do not fail to rad the last two or three pages, or, if there is in an epilogue, the last few pages of the main part of the book.

• Think of yourself as a detective look for the clues to a book’s general theme or idea, alert for anything that will make it clearer. p 36
• In tackling a difficult book for the first time, read it through without ever stopping to look up at or ponder the things you do not understand right away. p36
• Finally, do not try to understand every word or page of a difficult book the first time through. This is the more important rule of all. p43

5. How to Be a Demanding Reader

• Ask questions while you read–questions that you yourself must try to answer in the course of reading. p46

1. What is the book about as a whole?
2. What is being said in detail, and how?
3. Is the book true, in the whole or part?
4. What of it?

• And that is why there is all the difference i nthe world between the demanding and the undemanding reader. The latter asks no questions–and gets no answers. p47
• Know what the four questions are is not enough. You must remember to ask them as you read. The habit of doing that is the mark of a demanding reader. Moroe than that, you must know how to answer them persistently and accurately. p48
• Reading a book should be a conversation between you and the author. p49

1. Underlining
2. Vertical lines at the margin
3. Star, asterick, or ther doodad at the margin
4. Numbers in the margin
5. Numbers of other pages in the margin…many readers use the symbol “Cf” to indicate the other path numbers; it means “compare” or “refer to”
6. Circling the key words or phrases
7. Writing in the margin or at the top or bottom of the page–to record questions (and perhaps answers)

• After finishing the book and making your personal index on the back endpapers, turn to the front and try to outline the book not page by page or point by point (you have already dont that at the back), but as an integrated structure, with a basic outline and an order of parts. p 50
• 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? p. 51
• We therefore call this kind of note-making structural. p51
• The notes you make at this level of reading are, therefore, not structural but conceptual. The concern the author’s concepts, and also your own, as they have been deepened or broadened by your reading of the book. p51
• Again, such notes will tend to be conceptual; and the notes on a page may refer to you not only to other pages in that book, but also to pages in other books. p52

Part Two: The Third Level of Reading: Analytical Reading

6. Pigeonholing a Book

• To make knowledge practical we must convert it into rules of operation. We must pass from knowing what is the case to knowing what to do about it if we wish to get somewhere. This can be summaraized in the distinction between knowing that knowing how. Theoretical book teach you that something is the case. Practical books teach you how to do something you want to do or think you should do. p66

7. X-Raying a Book

• The second rule of analytical reading can be expressed as follows: Rule 2: State the unity of the whole book in a since sentence, or at most a fiew sentences (a short paragraph) p. 75
• Rule 3: Set forth the major parts of the book, and show how these are organized into a whole, by being ordered to one another and to the unity of the whole. p76
• A good book, like a good house, is an orderly arragement of parts. Each major part has a certain amount of independence. p77
• As houses are more or less livable, so books are more or less readable. The most readable book is an architectural achievement on the part of the author. The best books are those that have the most intelligible structure. Though they are usually more complex than poorer books, their greater complexity is also a greater simplicity, because their parts are better organized, more unified. p77
• The difference between good and bas stories having the same essential plot lies in what the author does with it, how he dresses up the bare bones. p79
• Nevertheless, although the rules are reciprocal, they are not followed in the same way. The reader tries to uncover the skeletons that the book conceals. The author starts with the skeleton and tries to cover it up. His aim is to conceal the skeleton artistically or, in other words, to put flesh on the bare bones. If he is a good writer, he does not bury a puny skeleton under a mass of fat; on the other hand, neither should the flesh be too thin, so that the bones show through. If the flesh is thick enough, and if the flabbiness is avoided, the joints will be detectable and the moition of the parts will reveal the articulation. p90
• Rule 4: Find out what the author’s problems were. p.92
• If you know the kinds of questions anyone can ask about anything, you will become adept in detecting an author’s problems. They can be formulated briefly: Does something exist? What kind of thing is it? What casued it to exist, or under what conditions can it exir or why does it exist? What purpose does it serve? What are the consequences of its existence? What are its characteristic properties, its typical traits? What are its relations to other things of a similar sort, or of a different sort? How does it behave? These are all theoretical questions. 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 these conditions, what is the right thing todo, or the better rather than the worse? Under what conditions would it be better to do this rather than that? These are all practical questions. p93

The first stage of analytical reading, or rules for finding what a books 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.

8. Coming to Terms with an Author

• Rule 5: Find the important words and through them come to term with the author. p. 98
• The main point is that one word can be the vehicle for many terms, and one term can be experessed by many words. p100
• In comparing a book to a jigaw puzzle, we have made one assumption that is not true. A good puzzle is, or course, one all of whose parts fit. The picture can be perfectly completed. The same is trye of the ideally good book. but there is no such book. p108
• …you will find that your comprehension of any book will be enormously uncreased if you go to tge trouble of finding its important words, identifying their shifting meanings, and coming to terms. p112

9. Determining an Author’s Message

• But the reader must usually come to terms with an author first, before he can find out what the author is proposing, what judgement he is declaring. p113
• Thus, the two processes, outlining and interpretation, meet at the level of propositions and arguments. You work down to propositions and arguments by dividing thr book into its parts. You work up to arguments by seeing how they are composed of propositions and ultimately of terms. When you have completed the two processes, you can really say that you know the contents of a book. p115
• Propositions are the answers to questions. p116
• Rule 6: Mark the most important sentences in a book and discover the propositions tey contains. p119
• Rule 7: Locate or construct the basic arguments in the book by finding them in the connection of sentences. p119
• But the heart of his communication lies in the major affirmations and denials he is making, and the reasons he gives for so doing. p120
• 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. p123
• State in your own words! p124
• Find if you can the paragraphs in a book that sate uts important arguments; but if the arguments are not thus expressed, your task is to construct them, by taking a sentence from this paragraph, and one from that, until, you have gathered together the sequence of sentences that state the propositions that compose the argument. p128
• If the book contains arguments, you must know what they are, and be able to put them into a nutshell. p129
• Rule 8: Find out what the author’s solutions are p134

The seonc stage of analytical reading, or rules for funding what a book says (interpreting its contents) 5. Come to terms with the author by interpreting his key words. 6. Grasp the authors’ 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 provlems the author has solved, and which he has not; and as to the latter, decide which the author knew he had failed to solve.

10. Criticizing a Book Fairly

• Reading a book is a kind of conversation. p136
• It must be completed by the work of criticism, the work of judging. p137
• The most teachable reader is, therefore, the most critical. p139
• Rule 9: You must be able to say, with reasonable certainty, “I understand,” before you can say one of the following things: “I agree,” or “I disagree,” or “I suspend judgement.” p 141
• When you disagree, do so reasonably, and not disputatiously or contentiously. p144
• Respect the difference between knowledge and mere personal opinion by giving reasons for any critical judgement you make. p148

11. Agreeing or Disagreeing with an Author

The First Srage if Analytical Reading: 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 wut hthe utmost brevity.
3. Enumberate 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 has tried to solve.

The Second Stage of Analitcal Reading: Rules for Interpreting a Book’s 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 of the latter, decide which the author knoew he had failed to solve.

The Third Stage of Analytical Reading: Reading Rules for Criticizing a Book a a Communication of Knowledge

9. Do not begin citicism until you have completed your outline and your interpretation of the book. (Do not say you agree, disagree or suspend judgement, until you can say “I understand.”)
10. Do not disagree disputatiously or contentiously.
11. Demonstrate that you recognize the difference between knowledge and mere personal opinion by presenting good reasons for any critical judgement you make.
12. Show wherein the author is uninformed.
13. Show wherein the author is misinformed.
14. Show wherein the author is illogical.
15. Show wherein the author’s analysis or account is incomplete.

12. Aids to Reading

• On the whole, it is best to do all that you can by yourself before seeking outside help. p.167
• …the rule in the case of extrinsic reading is that you should not read a commentary by someone else until after you have read the book. p172

Part Three: Approaches to Different Kinds of Reading Matter

13. How to Read Practical Books

• …you can always recognize a rule because it recommends something as worth doing to gain a certain end. p191
• This brief discussion gives you a clue to the two major questions you must ask yourself in reading any sort of practical book. The first is: What are the author’s objectives? The second is: What means for achieving them is he proposing? p.193
• …if Rule 4 as adapted for practical books is find out what the author wants you to do, then Rule 8. as similaryly adapted, is find out how he proposes to do this. p195

16. How to Read History

• A historical fact, though we may have a feeling of trust and solidity about the word, is one of the most elusive thingns in the world. p231
• At any rate, we would admit that every narrative history has to be written from some point of view. But to get at the truth, we ought to look at it from more than one viewpoint. p234
• This we read Thucydides not because he described perfectly what happened before he wrote his book, but because he to a certain extent determined what happened after. And we read him, strange as this may seem, to know what is happening now. p235
• Let us sum up these two suggestions for reading history. The first is: if you can, read more than one history of an event or period that interests you. The second is: read a history not only to learn what really happened at a particular time and place in the past, but also to learn the way men act in all times and places, especially now. p236
• With regard to the second question, the historian tells a story, and that story, of course, occurred in time. Its general outlines are thus determined, and we do not have to search for them. But there is more than one way to tell a story, and we must know how the historian has chosen to tell his. Does he divide his work into chapters that correspond to years or to decades or generations? Or does he divide it according to other rubrics of his own choosing? Does he discuss, in one chapter, the economic history of his period, and cover its wars and religious movements and literary productions in others? Which of these us most important to him? If we discover that, if we can say which aspect of the story he is telling seems to him most fundamental, we can understand him better. We may not agree with his judgement about what is basic, but we can still lean from him. p237

Current Events questions:

1. What does the author want to prove?
2. Whom does he want to convince?
3. What special knowledge does he assume?
4. What special language does he use?
5. Does he really know what he is talking about?

17. How to Read Science and Mathematics

• The leading terms in scientific work are usually expressed by uncommon or technical words. They are relatively easy to spot, and through them you can readily grasp the propositions. p252
• The proposition asserts this if-then relationship. It does not assert the truth of the hypothesis, not does it assert the truth of the conclusion, expect when the hypothesis is true. Nor su this connection between hypothesis and conclusion seen to be true until the proposistion is proved. It is precisely the truth of this connection that is proved, and nothing else. p257
• They can be read without too much difficulty if you always keep in mind that your primary obligation is not to become competent in the subject matter but instead to understand the problem. p260

18. How to Read Philosophy

• A work of speculative or theoretical philosophy is metaphysical if it is mainly concerned with questions about being or existence. It is a work in the philosophy of nature if it is concerned with becoming–with the nature and kinds of changes, their conditions and causes. If its primary concern is with knowledge–with questions about what is involved in our knowing anything, with the causes, extent, and limits of human knowledge, and with its certainties and uncertainties–then it is a work in epistemology, which is just another name for theory of knowledge. p269
• For the sake of brevity in what follows, let us call questions about that is and happens in the world, or about what men ought to do or seek, “first-order questions.” We should recognize, then, that there are also “second-order questions” that can be asked: questions about our first-order knowledge, questions about the content of our thinking when we try to answer first-order questions, questions about the ways which we express such thoughts in language. This distinction between first-order and second-order questions is useful, because it helps to explain what has happened to philosophy in recent years. The majority of professional philosophers at the present day no longer believe that first-order questions can be answered by philosophers. Most professional philosophers today devote their attention exclusively to second-order questions, very often to questions having to do with the language in which thought is expressed. p270
• Up to about 1930, or perhaps even a little later, philosophical books were written for the general reader. p270
• All you can do is reflect upon the question. There is, in short, nothing to do but think. p271

On Philosophical Styles:

• The Philosophical Dialogue

• The Philosophical Treatise or Essay

• The Meeting of Objections

  • Rather, it is Aquinas’ explicit recognition of conflicts, his reporting of different views, and his attempt to meet all possible objections to his own solutions. p277

• The Systemization of Philosophy

• The Aphoristic Style

• …the most important thing to discover in reading any philosophical work is the question or questions it tries to answer. The questions may be stated explicitly, or they may be implicit to a certain extent. In either case, you must try to find out what they are. p280

• The fact that philosophers disagree should not trouble you, for two reasons. First, the fact of disagreement, if it is persistent, may point to a great unsolved, perhaps, insoluble problem. It is good to know where the trye mysteries are. Second, the disagreements of other are relatively unimportant. Your responsibility is only to make up your own mind. In the presence of the long conversation that the philosophers have carried on through their books, you must judge what is true and what is false. When you have read a philosophical book well–and the means reading other philosophers on the same subject, too–you are in a position to judge. p285

Part Four: The Ultimate Goals of Reading

20. The Fourth Level of Reading: Syntopical Reading

• Knowing which books should be read, in a general way, is the second requirement. p301
• A curious paradox is involved in any project of syntopical reading. Although, this level of reading is defined as the reading of two or more books on the same subject, which implies that the identification of the subject matter occurs before the reading begins, it is in a sense true that the identification of the subject matter must follow the reading, not precede it. p305
• …inspect all of the books on your list. p306
• First, it will give you a clear enough idea of your subject so that your subsequent analytical reading of some of the books on the list is productive. And second, it will allow you to cut down your bibliography to a more manageable size. p306
• …they do not understand how to read some books faster than others. They spend the same amount of time and effort on every book or article they read. p307
• He also discovers, in the short time it take him to inspect it, whether the book says something important about his subject or not. p307

The Five Steps of Syntopical Reading

1. Finding the Relevant Passages

• …it is you and your concerns that are primarily to be served, not the books that you read. p. 308
• Above all, remember that your task is not so much to achieve an overall understanding of the particular book before you as to find out how it can be useful to you in a connection that may be very far from the author’s own purpose in writing it. p309
• But when you read a book analytically, you put yourself in a relation to it of disciple to master. When you read syntopically, you must be the master of the situation. p309

2. Bringing thr Authors to Terms

• Thus it is you who must establish the terms, and bring your authors to them rather than the other way around. p310
• Syntopical reading, in short, is to a large extent and exercie in translation. p.310

3. Getting the Question Clear

• The best way to do this is to frame a set of questions that shed light on our problem, and to which each of our authors gives answers. p311
• The first questions usually have to do with the existence or character of the phenomenon or idea we are investigating. p312
• These may have to do with how the phenomonon is known or how the idea manifests itself. A final set of questions might have to do with the consequences of the answers to the previous questions. p312

4. Defining the Issues

• The task of the syntopical reader is to define the issues in such a way as to insure that they are joinded as well as may be. p213

5. Analyzing the Discussion

• The sytopical reader, in short, tries to look at all side and to take no sides. p316
• That paradox can be stated thus: Unless you know what books to read, you cannot read syntopically, but unless you can read sytopically, you do not know what to read. p320
• Hence the reader is called upon to discover precisely what relevance the passage has to the topic. To learn to do this is to acquire a major skill in the art of reading. p323

21. Reading and the Growth of the Mind