| Type | Book |
|---|---|
| Date | 1972 |
| Pages | 426 |
| Tags | nonfiction |
By reading and grappling with difficult books, one can increase one's understanding. This means not merely acquiring new facts, but rather learning new ways of understanding, new paradigms--expanding the scope and depth of one's apprehension.
Not all books offer this opportunity. Books read for entertainment might do nothing else but entertain, and books read simply to acquire facts might not challenge the understanding; only by struggling with a book beyond one's understanding and overcoming it can one improve.
A single book may be read in any of these ways--for entertainment, for information, or for improved understanding--thought not all books are sufficient to challenge the experienced reader.
Learning by reading is likened to investigation of the world, as opposed to learning in a class:
If you ask a living teacher a question, he will probably answer you. If you are puzzled by what he says, you can save yourself the trouble of thinking by asking him what he means. If, however, you ask a book a question, you must answer it yourself. In this respect a book is like nature or the world. When you question it, it answers you only to the extent that you do the work of thinking and analysis yourself.
Adler suggests four levels of reading: elementary, inspectional, analytical, and finally syntopical.
This is the sort of thing you probably think of as the simple act of reading: the mechanical process of moving your eyes across the page, understanding the vocabulary and the syntax. This isn't any special way of reading a book, but it is a necessary building block for the further levels.
The first level of reading we will call Elementary Reading. Other names might be rudimentary reading, basic reading, or initial reading; any one of these terms serves to suggest that as one masters this level one passes from nonliteracy to at least beginning literacy. In mastering this level, one learns the rudiments of the art of reading, receives basic training in reading, and acquires initial reading skills. We prefer the name elementary reading, however, because this level of reading is ordinarily learned in elementary school.
This is a sort of quick pass over the book. You read the table of contents, and skim through it to understand what kind of book you're holding, what its topic is, and how it's organized.
The second level of reading we will call Inspectional Reading. It is characterized by its special emphasis on time. When reading at this level, the student is allowed a set time to complete an assigned amount of reading. He might be allowed fifteen minutes to read this book, for instance--or even a book twice as long.
Hence, another way to describe this level of reading is to say that its aim is to get the most out of a book within a given time--usually a relatively short time, and always (by definition) too short a time to get out of the book everything that can be gotten.
Still another name for this level might be skimming or pre-reading. However, we do not mean the kind of skimming that is characterized by casual or random browsing through a book. Inspectional reading is the art of skimming systematically.
At this level, you read the book actively, asking questions of it, and trying to understand it fully.
The third level of reading we will call Analytical Reading. It is both a more complex and a more systematic activity than either of the two levels of reading discussed so far. Depending on the difficulty of the text to be read, it makes more or less heavy demands on the reader.
This level involves reading many books on a subject in order to get a view on the whole, perhaps learning things which are not written in any individual book.
The fourth and highest level of reading we will call Syntopical Reading. It is the most complex and systematic type of reading of all. It makes very heavy demands on the reader, even if the materials he is reading are themselves relatively easy and unsophisticated.
Another name for this level might be comparative reading. 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. But mere comparison of texts is not enough. Syntopical reading involves more. With the help of the books read, the syntopical reader is able to construct an analysis of the subject that may not be in any of the books. It is obvious, therefore, that syntopical reading is the most active and effortful kind of reading.
This sort of reading the student should be capable of by the time he or she is in high school, but, Adler laments, often even students entering college have not mastered even this elementary level. Adler suggests that high schools and colleges teach courses based on his book.
Adler divides this level of reading into two steps, which are ultimately to be performed simultaneously: systematic skimming or pre-reading; and superficial reading.
This activity should give you an idea of the content of the book, as well as whether the book merits a more in-depth reading. Some options for this step:
These steps should have taken no more than an hour--perhaps much less.
Read through the book without stopping, even if you do not understand something. Understanding half of a difficult book is better than understanding none of it because you were stumped by a difficult section early on.
What is the right approach? The answer lies in an important and helpful rule of reading that is generally overlooked. That rule is simply this: 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. Most of us were taught to pay attention to the things we did not understand. We were told to go to a dictionary when we met an unfamiliar word. We were told to go to an encyclopedia or some other reference work when we were confronted with allusions or statements we did not comprehend. We were told to consult footnotes, scholarly commentaries, or other secondary sources to get help. But when these things are done prematurely, they only impede our reading, instead of helping it.
It may be possible for most readers to improve the speed at which they read--this is the promise of speed reading courses. However, a book should not be read more quickly than is efficient, nor more slowly than is needed. Some attention to reading speed may be beneficial, but the speed at which one's eyes move across the page is not the most important factor in efficient reading.
There are four main questions to ask about any book:
Is the book true, in whole or part?
This does not mean "Is the book fiction?", but "Is the author truthful and correct?". 4. What of it?
This question is in two parts. First, whatever the book said, does it really matter to you? And, if so, what are you going to do about it? How will you continue your engagement with the subject?
Reading a book should be a conversation between you and the author.
So, you should write in books as you read them, as the physical manifestation of this conversation. Adler suggests:
I have too often relied on the library for my reading material ever to be comfortable writing in books, but Adler's point is well taken.
The balance of the chapter is devoted to reminding the reader that it takes a lot of work to learn new things.
Adler proposes a rule for analytical reading:
Rule 1. You must know what kind of book you are reading, and you should know this as early in the process as possible, preferably before you begin to read.
This is part of the knowledge gained from an inspectional reading. How, precisely, should books be classified?
Adler classifies as practical books that teach how to do something, and as theoretical those that teach about something. Additionally, persuasive writing is classified as practical, inasmuch as it is exhorting one to behave or believe in a certain way.
Theoretical works Adler divides into history, science, and philosophy. History deals with events at a particular time and place. Science and philosophy both hope to be of general application, but science is concerned with empirical studies, while philosophy requires only pure reason.
Why classify books? Because different sorts of subjects must be taught and learned in different ways. Only by understanding the genre of a book can one read it to best advantage.
Rule 2. State the unity of the whole book in a single sentence, or at most a few sentences (a short paragraph).
Rule 3. Set forth the major parts of the book, and show how these are organized into a whole, by being ordered to one another and to the unity of the whole.
To accomplish this rule, Adler suggests making an outline of the book, dividing it into sections and subsections as necessary to fully describe the organization of the book. However, he indicates that the reader is not, in fact, expected to do this in full for every book. Rather, this is an ideal that should be kept in sight as the reader analyzes the book, constructing an outline in such detail as is needed, as the book merits, and as time permits.
Rule 4. Find out what the author's problems were.
In other words, what questions was the author trying to answer, in writing the book?
Adler ends the chapter by restating the four rules together in a slightly different form:
The First Stage of Analytical Reading, or Rules for Finding What a Book Is About
- 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.
For the communication to be successfully competed, therefore, it is necessary for the two parties to use the same words with the same meanings--in short, to come to terms.
Adler is defining 'term' to mean a word as used--the word and its meaning in the particular utterance in question.
Rule 5. Find the important words and through them come to terms with the author.
You can be sure of one thing. Not all the words an author uses are important.
Authors may use technical vocabulary specific to their fields, or may invent new words--or adapt existing ones--to their needs in a specific work. One must pay attention to any instances where the meaning of a word does not seem to be totally clear in order to cope with the latter, while the former might pose little problem for a reader with some familiarity with the subject.
Perhaps you are beginning to see 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.
Now we come to propositions and arguments. Propositions may be made up of multiple sentences, and a single sentence may contain several propositions. The relationship between the two is like that between words and terms.
Rule 6. Mark the most important sentences in a book and discover the propositions they contain.
Having come to terms with the author, now you may recognize the propositions constituted by those terms. Find the author's argument and follow it. The main argument of the book will be made up of the most important propositions, and those propositions will likely contain the most important terms. So we see that the process works in both directions, from terms to arguments and back again.
Rule 7. Locate or construct the basic arguments in the book by finding them in the connection of sentences.
Adler suggests that the reader restate each proposition in order to demonstrate (and test) understanding.
If, when you are asked to explain what the author means by a particular sentence, all you can do is repeat his very words, with some minor alterations in their order, you had better suspect that you do not know what he means.
Having found the arguments, decide whether the author has solved the problems he set out to solve.
Rule 8. Find out what the author's solutions are.
In short, you must understand a book before you can judge it, and you should judge it based on the facts of the matter. Agreeing with the author is not 'losing', and disagreeing is not 'winning'.
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." The second general maxim of critical reading is as obvious as the first, but it needs explicit statement, nevertheless, and for the same reason. It is Rule 10, and it can be expressed thus: when you disagree, do so reasonably, and not disputatiously or contentiously. There is no point in winning an argument if you know or suspect you are wrong.
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Charles Van Doren | Author |
| Mortimer J. Adler | Author |
| Simon & Schuster, Inc. | Publisher |