How to Read a Book Flashcards
What is reading for?
Reading- as defined and defended in this book- is a basic tool in the living of a good life. The most direct sign that you have done the job of reading is that you have fatigue when you are finished. You will expend a ton of mental activity during this time and it is mentally exerting. It is a mind’s workout. • Bacon says that reading makes you a full man and that writing makes you an exact man. The mind can be severely disciplined by reading, listening, and talking (discussing). Discussion may help to make you exact, as well. The animal impulse to impose our will upon others, thoughtlessly, is thusly checked. Having skill in reading and discussion will sharpen many of the same skills. Those who can read well, can speak and listen well, they have disciplined minds. Discipline is indispensable for the free use of our powers. It allows you to use your powers and operate at your fullest potential. REMEMBER: You are an old school, TCM person, all Men are. We are like the Men of the past. We have not changed. So, you are full of so much mental talent, we have a plethora of human powers, skill, genius, CREATIVE FORCE, BEAUTY, INTIMACY, POWER TO ATTRACT, and many other human faculties. Reading, Gaining knowledge and skill, are certainly just a few ways to unleash these abilities and give them free reign. You will blossom. **YOU ARE DUE for blossoming, by the way, due to the fact that you ARE a late bloomer. You want to get, “there,” as soon as possible so you are PRESENT for the moment your blossoming begins to unfold and you are flourishing!• A reading society brings about a good society. Intelligent communication among men.
The Motive Behind, “How to Read a Book”
• Adler, “This is a book about reading in relation to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” All of the reading that I do will make me aware of things and give me wisdom, this will give me wings that will allow me to sour to the heights of my greatest aspirations and freely become the person I envision myself to be. The first part of this book is a brief discussion on reading, the 2nd part is entirely devoted to the rules, the final part relates reading to other areas of your life. In the next few chapters, he is going to give you GENERAL reading rules-the science. He is also only going to give you the rules for reading expository books (books intended to explain) and none of the rules for reading books that are poetic in nature, for example. If you would like to further learn how to approach reading books of different subjects and would like to further dive into this arena, you can in the future, I put it in our file box :) ! The expert reader is a man of many fine distinctions (HE HAS AN EXACT TASTE AND AN *AWARENESS, OR YOU COULD SAY, A MIND THAT WILL ACKNOWLEDGE, THE SPECIFIC DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN THINGS- FOR WE ARE ALL AWARE OF THESE DISTINCTIONS).
Reading a book is Open Communication between the Writer and Readers
**In writing, the writer is certainly not trying to avoid having his literature understood. He wants his readers to fully understand what he is saying. You grasp the content you have read, fully, or not at all. The amount the reader comprehends will depend on the amount of activity you put into the reading as well as the mental skill you employ while reading.
Read to Understand. Reading is directly intended to make you Better, To Expand Your Person.
Reading for understanding means that you have come to understand something, more, and that you have digested all of the reading material with rigorous effort. READING, means the material teaches you new things, things that you know nothing about, or rather, expands your understanding and comprehension of something you already know about. These would also be classified as books that are, challenging. Only read books that are challenging, this is why you read. Be sure that as you read, you connect with what you are taking in and that you are truly comprehending the symbols because memorizing information is not the same as READING a text. Never memorize information. Reading a book that is challenging and you learn something new, will expand your awareness add more knowledge to your store of wisdom. **Reading should, literally ELEVATE your mind. YOU SHOULD HAVE THIS EXPERIENCE. Then, you are growing as a person! Which, is one of the main, fundamental purposes of reading! The author is, LITERALLY, the teacher, and you are the student-you must walk away from the finishing of the book, having been taught something. It is tantamount to taking a course on a subject from a trained, professional, instructor. When reading, the writer must be superior to the reader- we can only learn from our betters. Reading is a complex activity involving a large number of separate acts. Most people only truly READ when it involves their career, something they care about, or when they are in love-meaning they pour much effort into effectively reading the love letters . • Seek to understand, to grasp, to assimilate knowledge, as opposed to merely being informed (this means you have information memorized in your head, but you do not assimilate it). Reading will take you further if you look to UNDERSTAND what you read. Adler uses the term “original communication” to mean that an instructor (or anyone else for that matter) genuinely discusses information in a textbook, is present, as opposed to regurgitating what the textbook has said. If there is no “original communication” then the instructor is repeating what he read in the text or digesting () it, in which you could learn everything just as well by reading the book yourself. Take in books where the author is an independent thinker and uses “original communication.” I will use movies for example, you can spot and get an intuitive sense of the ones that are original and stand on their own, and you can tell the ones that completely blend in with all the rest and are a complete regurgitation of the latest “trend.” The “great books” or “classics” are all filled with “original communication,” this is why they are so wonderful. To be familiar with whether a book is good or bad, you will juxtaposition them to the classics. You must read all of the classics. Most books are not written to do anything more than inform, and ask nothing from their reader. It seeks to stuff their mind rather than enlighten. Most professors are not intellectually better than their students except for the wisdom that is given to them by age-education, is SUPPOSED to be the upliftment of our minds by great minds of the past and present. Brittney, through reading the great books and many other of THEIR works, such as, Plutarch’s Lives, you will KNOW WHAT a MAN IS, you will know what a FEMALE IS. The Men in Plutarch were great.The reader and author are not peers. The author is subject to trial only by a jury of his peers. Another meaning for the word, peer, is, an equal. On the same level. Having the same capability. The reader MUST become knowledgeable on the subject and BECOME a peer of the author, in order that they can, talk back. • You will have to change your friends. You will hang around people who have it all. This is all because you are reading the great books. You will have to befriends those who are rich, successful, popular, who look good, read, speak well, have a great time, have much in common, those who lead the ideal life, have great conversation, and satisfying intimacy. Social circles are intellectual communities where people enjoy learning about various subjects and discussing them. They also do and become things that are inspired from what they read (more on this later :D ).
How To Comprehend as You Read
Connect the reading to your own experience of life. Connect it to reality so that you are able to relate to (and relate) the material and apply it later.
Reading with Quality, not for Quantity
• Being a heavy reader and yet, being poorly read, is a mixture of knowledge and folly. The Greeks called these people, “sophomores.” Too often, heavy reading often means the quantity not the quality. Schopenhauer found that most men read passively and glutted themselves with toxic doses of unassimilated information.Verbalism, is the besetting sin of those who fail to read interpretively. They never go beyond the words. They take what they read only as verbal memory and can merely recite, emptily.
What our Overly Liberal Society Needs Today
People must re-learn how to work with others again. Each generation of men should, not and cannot, go on in this world learning everything for themselves, as if nothing had been learned before them. You are living your life with people and therefore must work with them. Do not try to learn for yourself, what you can be taught by others. Honor the tradition of being taught by your elders and those who know (including experts). You must read, CAREFULLY (without rush) and CRITICALLY. • The problem liberalism today is that we ask too little of ourselves. We are not demanding the excellence from ourselves that will ensure the freedom that we have. The liberal arts make it POSSIBLE for us to think freely because it disciplines our minds. Many in liberal society confuse authority with tyranny and discipline with regimentation. Democracies society must be full of free and independent thinking men, and well-educated peoples. There must be the capacity for ruling and being ruled. All peoples in a democratic society have to be able to communicate idea with one another- actively, critically, and intelligibly.
Living Teachers versus, Dead
**In this book, Adler calls living teachers, live teachers, and he calls books, dead teachers. Whatever can be learned by a live teacher, can be learned by dead ones. You may have to read more books and research many things for yourself if you do not choose the aid of a live teacher, this can take more time, but if you know how to read, it can be done. The instructor is going by what they have read, as well.
The Liberal Arts (Grammer. Logic. Rhetoric)
The liberal arts are a lost art. At one time, it was the art of, grammar, logic, and rhetoric. This is what the B.A. and M.A. degrees were supposed to be of. These are the arts of reading, writing, speaking, and listening. The decline of the liberal arts is the reason why we are not exceling in the area of education and performance the way we used to in the past. We do not write and read as well as people from other ages and we cannot teach successive generations how to. Adler states that we came to this point in our human history where we are poor in areas of education because we want to do too many things alone. We THINK we can do everything by ourselves, we do not need any help. Therefore, “We do not need to look to the past and follow tradition, we can figure out everything individually, for ourselves. We need not follow the teachings of philosophers and scientists, now dead, they can teach us nothing.” You see the vicious cycle here…eventually, we are flabby and lazy, and want nothing to do with anything! Adler says that students must be given an education that focuses on the ancient, traditional, fundamental, and essential subjects (liberal arts, how to read, how to speak, politics, etc). They must be taught to the student from the very beginning, well into their Masters. We must be taught this because it is the foundation of our Human Heritage. The student must be taught and guided throughout the entire time, and they must constantly GROW in their skill level. Then, he says, the Universities will be turning out able professionals into the world who will create a wonderful society to live in. A common error made in “liberal” societies, is that they do not allow AUTHORITY to play its proper role. Balance is in order. There are times when you must be given what IS best, versus, what you understand to be in your best interest, at the time. For example, if my son wants to eat ice cream, and I know that they OUGHT to eat a healthy snack during this time, for various reasons, that is what NEEDS to happen- NOT, “what he FEELS” should happen. You cannot elevate people, help them, nor fix a situation by going down to their level. Education need not become less liberal as it becomes more universal. This is because people fear authority. They liken discipline to autocracy and tyranny- to sum it up, a lack in civil freedom. Authority is the voice of reason and leadership from someone who KNOWS, is respectable, has studied long and hard, is trusted, and is deserving of that position. The liberal arts education is what makes you a free man, you are able to think for yourself, communicate, and live a conscious and responsible life. You are able to do a good job at all that you do. To speak well means you know how communication is received, and in addition, you have mastered the medium to produce the desired effects. Your obligation is to express fine and precise shades of meaning when you speak. You are at the adult stage of your life. **You MUST develop the latent skills that you have. Your strengths and everything that you ought to know in order to be a thriving human being. You must receive in person instruction through mentorship (go to your elders to learn, those who are experts and have experience), gather information through reading, research, and study, and learn through getting out in the field and performing the task, and gaining experience through doing and repetition. You must learn to research things and find them out for yourself.
In the world of Concept, Very Little is Original
Little of what is said, thought, or done in the modern world is ever truly new. This is due to the colossal works of the Greeks, Romans, and the great thinkers of the Middle Ages. They touched upon nearly EVERY human subject that Man could possibly come up with- all done with astounding profundity and insight, plus, amazing accuracy!- that all other human beings to follow, will rarely be able to avoid touching upon their work and the knowledge that they have already presented us with. It is a challenge to be original. Learn their great works, and you will know the foundation of all human knowledge . Also, you will be able to spot people who are fakes, unoriginal, and copy cats. Drawing from inspiration through tradition is proper and different than copying someone. All schools ought to make their students read the classic works of our human history because it is the foundation of our human heritage, it is what we need to be intimately familiar with. The culture and the educational system in which it exists typically feed into one another. Today our school systems are entirely illiberal, and they indoctrinate us rather than discipline and educate. **We are fattened and made flabby, we are sitting ducks, for any strong will to impose their desire upon .
Mere Doing, Makes Perfect
• **HOW TO BECOME AN ARTIST OR MASTER AT ANYTHING: There is no other way of forming a habit of operating, then by operating-doing its operations, physically. That is what it means to say that one learns by doing. By doing something over and over, you can do the same thing much better than when you started. That is what is meant by the saying, Practice makes perfect. What you do imperfectly at first you begin to do with an AUTOMATIC PERFECTION that instinctive performance has. It will become as natural to you as blinking and eating. A habit is first nature – Advice from Mortimer J. Adler. Read books in relation to one another. This way you can grab a whole, hold of a topic. Learning to read a poetical work and piece of fine art is just as challenging as learning to read for knowledge. Reading for knowledge and for enjoyment are two different processes. The criteria of judgement is different when it is beauty rather than truth that is being critiqued. I want to know the science of how to do things, and use repetition to master those tools. Then, I will be a great artist at doing things. I do not want to be one of those who is “good at doing things even though they do not have formal knowing of the science behind the task which they are performing.”
Learn about the Academic Areas of Study from the Masters!
In the olden days, nearly all of the great authors and professionals wrote essays where they scientifically teach you how to critique poetry, recognize good music, and so on. They tell you how to think and understand thier very profession. You can read these (Edgar Allen Poe, Cicero, etc.) and learn about different subjects and how to become familiar with them from the great Masters! In these essays, they will demonstrate the rules that are used for the subject and they will exemplify them in practice by giving examples and so on. The great books must be read scientifically and poetically. Whatever purpose you have, you must employ the rules that go along with it. There is no error in reading poetry as if it were philosophy or reading science as if it were poetry, however you had better know which you are doing, and how to do it well (employ the rules). You can get creative with how you do things in life, of course :) . To make knowledge practical, you must convert it to rules of operation. After you master the rules of operation through repetition, you can be creative with it :) . -Throughout this book, Adler has referred to reading and writing as the liberal arts and at other times, he calls them, rhetoric, logic, and grammar. In the former, he is referring to the operations which the rules direct us in performing well, in the latter, he is referring to the rules themselves which govern such operations. Liberal arts are sometimes referred to as a science. Every subject has a scientific, methodical, detail oriented side to it.
From Many Rules to One Habit
• Learning Plateau: This is where you will move right along in the very beginning of acquiring a new skill, your accuracy and competency is steadily rising. Then suddenly, you will hit a wall. Where it seems as though the law of Cause and Effect is no longer in operation for you. Then, you will suddenly begin to start moving up and ahead in your progress again, like never before. Plateaus are very common, although only found, when you are learning a complex skill. The Plateau time is where “hidden” learning is going on, higher units of activity are getting formed during this time. Then, once that learning has reached a certain point and “clicked” for you, you suddenly jump ahead with renewed improvement and traceable progress. Where at first you had to learn many, separate and different acts, later becomes one, complex and whole, Action. For example, you learn your letters, then you learn how to form words, then you learn to write sentences, then you are writing an entire paper! All of the rules for reading that you are receiving today, must be learned as separate parts, and then you will do them all at once, in the future, and thusly, be a beautiful reader. Adler says that if you have the experience of learning a complex skill- like my having learned volleyball- you will not fear learning all of the different part of a complex skill in separate pieces before putting all of those skills together to equal one entire skill! When all of the subordinate acts can be done automatically, you have formed the habit of the whole performance. The acts will lose their separateness and you will be able to point your mind in the direction of the performance as a whole.
3 Types of Reading
• There are 3 Types of Reading: 1. Structural or Analytic- The reader proceeds from the whole to the parts. (You must know what kind of book it is, that is, the subject matter, what then book as a whole is trying to say, into parts the whole is divided, and what the main problems are that the author is trying to solve, what did they solve; if nothing, what did they fail at solving). 2. Interpretive or Synthetic- The reader proceeds from the parts to the whole. (You must discover and interpret the most important words in the book, do the same for the most important sentences, and similarly for the paragraphs which express arguments). 3. Critical or Evaluative- The reader judges the author, and decides if he agrees or disagrees with them. The first two readings can grow together and be fused together. The 3rd reading can only undertake the criticism after understanding has been reached. The understanding, comes from completing the first two readings.
Reading with a Full View and Perspective of Things
You must read intrinsically and extrinsically. Intrinsic means reading a book in itself, quite apart from other books. Extrinsic means reading a book in light of other books. These books you read increase your learning and understanding of the book you are reading or help you in criticizing a reading. These other books can be dictionaries, almanacs, interpretations, digests, books full of commentary, etc. Not only are many of the great books related, but they have been written in a certain order. They wrote the books in relation to one another with purpose. A later writer has been influenced by an earlier one. If you read the earlier writer first, he may help you understand the later book. Reading related books in relation to one another and in an order which renders the later ones more intelligible is a basic rule for extrinsic reading. You must read any book with x-ray eyes in order to grasp its structure. It is all dressed up and you have to see the bones underlying its flesh. When you do this for literature, instead of it being an ineffable blur, it will move before you as a living thing. You will understand it. You will hear more of the author and see the vision of what they are saying to you. Reminder: Read masterly commentaries on famous works! They will break down the meaning of the entire work for you, with such great detail! Sometimes, with more detail than the original work.
