HOW TO READ A BOOK

by Mortimer J Adler

  Another difference between a good and a bad writer is the omission of steps in an argument. Sometimes they can be omitted without damage or inconvenience, because the propositions left out can be generally supplied from the common knowledge of readers. But sometimes their omission is misleading, and may even be intended to mislead. One of the most familiar tricks of the orator or propagandist is to leave certain things unsaid, things which are highly relevant to the argument, but which might be challenged if made explicit. While we do not expect such devices in an honest author whose aim is to instruct us, it is nevertheless a sound maxim of careful reading to make every step in an argument explicit.

  Whatever kind of book it is, your obligation as a reader remains the same. If the book contains arguments, you must know what they are, and in a nutshell. Any good argument can be put into a nutshell. There are, of course, arguments built upon arguments. In the course of an elaborate analysis, one thing may be proved in order to prove another, and this may be used in turn to make a still further point. The units of reasoning, however, are single arguments. If you can find these in any book you are reading, you are not likely to miss the larger sequences.

  This is all very well to say, you may object, but unless one knows the structure of argument as a logician does, how can one be expected to find them in a book, or worse, to construct them when the author doesn't state them com-pactly in a single paragraph?

  I can answer you by pointing out why it must be obvious that you do not have to know about arguments "as a logician does." There are relatively few logicians in the world, for better or for worse. Most of the books which convey knowledge and can instruct us contain arguments. They are intended for the general reader, not tor the specialists in logic.

  I, for one, do not believe that great logical competence is needed to read these books. I repeat what I said before, that the nature of the human mind is such that if it works at all during the process of reading, if it comes to terms with the author and reaches his propositions, it will see his arguments as well.

  There are, however, a few things I can say which may be helpful to you in carrying out this third rule. In the first place, 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. It you find the conclusion first, then look for the reasons. If you find the reasons first, see what they lead to.

  In the second place, discriminate between the kind of argument which points to one or more particular facts as evidence for some generalization and the kind which offers a series of general statements to prove some further generalization. General propositions which are called self-evident, or axioms, are propositions we know to be true as soon as we understand their terms. Such propositions are ultimately derived from our experience of particulars.

  For example, when you understand what any physical whole is, and when you understand what it means for anything to be a part of such a whole, you know at once that the whole is greater than any of its parts. Through understanding three terms—

  whole, part, and greater than—you at once know a true proposition. The most important step in getting to that truth is restricting the meaning of the word "whole" by the qualification physical. The proposition that the whole is greater than a part is not true for every sort of whole. But when you use these words with restricted meanings, you reach terms which are evidently related in a certain way. What becomes evident in this way is a familiar axiom, a proposition which men have commonly recognized to be true for many centuries.

  Sometimes such propositions are called tautologies. The name makes very little difference except to indicate how you feel about the proposition whose truth is clear without proof—a generalization which is argued directly from particulars. When in modern times self-evident truths have been called "tautologies," the feeling behind it is sometimes one of contempt for the trivial, or a suspicion of legerdemain. Rabbits are being pulled out of the hat. You put the truth in by defining your words, and then pull it out as if you were surprised to find it there. Notice, however, that that is not the case. To restrict the meaning of a word is not to define a thing. Wholes and parts are things, not words. We did not define them. In fact, we cannot. What we did do was to limit our words so that they referred to a certain type of thing with which we are acquainted.

  Once that was done we found we knew something that our restricted words could express.

  In the literature of science, the distinction is observed between the proof of a proposition by reasoning and its establishment by experiment. Galileo, in his Two New Sciences, speaks of illustrating by experiment conclusions which had already been reached by mathematical demonstration. And in a concluding chapter, the great physiologist Harvey writes: "It has been shown by reason and experiment that blood by the beat of the ventricles flows through the lungs and heart and is pumped to the whole body." Sometimes it is possible to support a proposition both by reasoning from other general truths and by offering experimental evidence. Sometimes only one method of argument is available.

  In the third place, 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. He may honestly try to tell you what all his assumptions are, or he may just as honestly leave you to find them out for yourself. Obviously, everything cannot be proved, just as everything cannot be defined. If every proposition had to be proved, there would be no beginning to any proof. Such things as axioms, or propositions somehow drawn directly from experience, and assumptions, or postulates, are needed for the proof of other propositions. If these others are proved, they can, of course, be used as premises in further proofs.

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  These three rules of reading—about terms, propositions, and arguments—can be brought to a head in a fourth and final rule. This fourth rule governs the last step in the second reading of a book. More than that, it ties the second reading together with the first.

  You may remember that the last step in the first reading was the discovery of the major problems which the author tried to answer in the course of his book. Now, after you have come to terms with him and grasped his propositions and arguments, you can check what you have found by answering the following questions. Which of the problems that the author tried to solve did he succeed in solving? In the course of solving these, did he get into any new ones? Of the problems he failed to solve, old or new, which did the author himself know he failed on? A good writer, like a good reader, should know whether a problem 'has been solved or not, though I can see how it might cost the reader less pain to acknowledge the failure.

  When you are able to answer these questions, you can feel reasonably assured that you have managed to understand the book. If you started with a book that was above you—

  and one, therefore, that was able to teach you something—you have come a long way.

  More than that, you are now able to complete your reading of the book.

  The third and last stage of the job will be relatively easy. You have been keeping your eyes and mind open and your mouth shut. Up to this point, you have been following the author. From this point on, you are going to get a chance to argue with the author and express yourself.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Etiquette of Talking Back

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  and where are we now?

  I said at the end of the last chapter that we have come a long way. We have learned what is required of us in the first reading of a book. That is the reading in which we analyze the book's structure. We have also learned four rules for doing a second reading of the same book—an interpretative reading. The four rules are: (i) come to terms with an author by interpreting his basic words; (2) grasp the author's leading propositions through finding his important sentences; (3) know the author's arguments by finding them in, or constructing them out of, sequences of sentences; (4) determine which of his problems the author solved and which he
did not, and, of the latter, decide which the author knew he failed to solve.

  You are now ready for the third way of reading the same book. Here you will reap the reward of all your previous efforts.

  Reading a book is a kind of conversation. You may think it is not conversation at all, because the author does all the talking and you have nothing to say. If you think that, you do not realize your opportunities and obligations as a reader.

  As a matter of fact, the reader has the last word. The author has had his say, and then it is the reader's turn. The conversation between a book and its reader would appear to be an orderly one, each party talking in turn, no interruptions, and so forth. If, however, the reader is undisciplined and impolite, it may be anything but orderly. The poor author cannot defend himself. He cannot say, "Here, wait till I've finished, before you start disagreeing." He cannot protest that the reader has missed his point.

  Ordinary conversations between persons who confront each other are good only when they are carried on decently. I am not thinking merely of the decencies according to conventions of social politeness. There is, in addition, an intellectual etiquette one should observe. Without it, conversation is bickering rather than profitable communication. I am assuming here, of course, that the conversation is about a serious matter on which men can agree or disagree. Then it becomes important that they conduct themselves well. Otherwise, there is no profit in the enterprise. The profit in good conversation is something learned.

  What is true of ordinary conversation is even more true of the rather special situation in which a book has talked to a reader and the reader answers back. That the author is well disciplined, we shall take for granted temporarily. That he has conducted his part of the conversation well can be assumed in the case of great books. What can the reader do to reciprocate? What must he do to hold up his end well?

  The reader has an obligation as well as an opportunity to talk back. The opportunity is clear. Nothing can stop a reader from pronouncing judgment. The roots of the obligation, however, lie a little deeper in the nature of the relation between books and readers.

  If a book is of the sort which conveys knowledge, the author's aim was to instruct. He has tried to teach. He has tried to convince or persuade his reader about something. His effort is crowned with success only if the reader finally says, "I am taught. You have convinced me that such and such is true, or persuaded me that it is probable." But even if the reader is not convinced or persuaded, the author's intention and effort should be respected. The reader owes him a considered judgment. If he cannot say, "I agree," he should at least have grounds for disagreeing or even tor suspending judgment on the question.

  I am saying no more than that a good book deserves an active reading. The activity of reading does not stop with the work of understanding what a book says. It must be completed by the work of criticism, the work of judging. The passive reader sins against this requirement, probably even more than against the rules of analysis and interpre.

  tation. He not only makes no effort to understand; he dismisses a book simply by putting it down or forgetting it. Worse than faint praise, he damns it by no critical consideration whatsoever.

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  What I mean by talking back, you now can see, is not something apart from reading. It is the third way in which a book must be read. There are rules here as in the case of the other two readings. Some of these are general maxims of intellectual etiquette. We shall deal with them in this chapter. Others are more specific criteria for defining the points of criticism. They will be discussed in the next chapter.

  There is a tendency to think that a good book is above the criticism of the average reader. The reader and the author are not peers. The author is subject to trill only by a jury of his peers. Remember Bacon's recomn-endation to the reader: "Read not to contradict and confute; not to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider." Sir Walter Scott cast' even more direful aspersions on those "who read to doubt or read to scorn."

  There is a certain truth here, as we shall see, but I do not like the aura of impeccability with which books are thus surrounded, and the false piety it breeds. Readers may be like children, in the sense that great authors can teach them, but that does not mean they must not be heard from. I am not sure Cervantes was right in saying, "There i? no book so bad but something good may be found in it." I do think, however, that there is no book so good that fault cannot be found with it.

  It is true that a book which can enlightel its readers, and is in this sense their better, should not be criticized by them until they understand it. When they do, tley have elevated themselves almost to peerage with the autror. Now they are fit to exercise the rights and privileges of their new position. Unless they exercise their critical faculties now, they are doing the author an injustice. He has dote what he could to make them his equal. He deserves tiat they act like his peers, that they engage in conversation with him, that they talk back.

  As I pointed out before, docility is generally confused with subservience. (We tend to forget that ihe word "docile" is derived from the Latin root which means to teach or be taught.) A person is wrongly thought to ?e docile if he is passive and pliable. On the contrary, docility is the extremely active virtue of being teachable. No one is really teachable who does not freely exercise his power of independent judgment. The most docile reader is, therefore, the most critical. He is the reader who finally responds to a book by the greatest effort to make up his own mind on the matters the author has discussed.

  I say "finally" because docility requires that a teacher be fully heard and, more than that, understood, before he is judged. I should add also that sheer amount of effort is not an adequate criterion of docility. The reader must know how to judge a book, just as he must know how to arrive at an understanding of its contents. This third group of rules for reading is a guide to the last stage in the disciplined exercise of docility.

  We have everywhere found a certain reciprocity between the art of teaching and the art of being taught, between the skill of the author which makes him a considerate writer and the skill of the reader which makes him handle a book considerately. We have seen how the same principles of grammar and logic underlie rules of good writing as well as rules of good reading. The rules we have so far discussed concern the achievement of intelligibility on the part of the writer and the achievement of understanding on the part of the reader. This last set of rules goes beyond understanding to critical judgment. Here is where rhetoric comes in.

  There are, of course, many uses of rhetoric. We usually think of it in connection with the orator or propagandist. But in its most general significance, rhetoric is involved in every situation in which communication takes place among men. If we are the talkers, we wish not only to be understood but to be agreed with in some sense. If our purpose in trying to communicate is serious, we wish to convince or persuade— nwe precisely, to convince about theoretical matters and to persuade about matters that ultimately affect action or feeling.

  To be equally serious in receiving such communication, one must be not only a responsive but a responsible listener. You are responsive to the extent that you follow what has been said and note the intention which prompts it. But you also have the responsibility of taking a position. When you take it, it is yours, not the author's. To regard anyone except yourself as responsible for your judgment is to be a slave, not a freeman.

  On the part of the speaker or writer, rhetorical skill is knowing how to Convince or persuade. Since this is the ultimate end in view, all the other aspects of communication must serve it. Grammatical and logical skill in writing clearly and intelligibly has virtue in itself, but it is also a means to an end. Reciprocally, on the part of the reader or listener, rhetorical skill is knowing how to react to anyone who tries to convince or persuade us. Here, too, grammatical and logical skill, which enables us to understand what is being said, prepares the way for a critical reaction.

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  Thus you see how the three arts of grammar, logic, and rhetoric co-operate in regulating the elaborate processes of writing and reading. Skill in the first two readings comes from a mastery of grammar and logic. Skill in the third depends on the remaining art.

  The rules of this third reading rest on the principles of rhetoric, conceived in the broadest sense. We shall consider them as a code of etiquette to make the reader not only polite but effective in talking back.

  You probably also see what the first rule is going to be. It has been intimated several times already. It is simply that you must not begin to talk back until you have listened carefully and are sure you understand. Not until you are honestly satisfied that you have accomplished the first two readings should you feel free to express yourself. When you have, you not only can justifiably turn critic, but you should.

  This means that the third reading must always follow the other two in time. You have already seen how the first two readings interpenetrate each other. They are separate in time only for the beginner, and even he may have to combine them somewhat.

  Certainly, the expert reader can discover the contents of a book by analyzing the whole into its parts and, at the same time, constructing the whole out of its elements of thought and knowledge, its terms, propositions, and arguments. But the expert no less than the beginner must wait until he understands before he is justified in criticizing.

  Let me restate this first rule of critical reading in the following form. 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." These three remarks exhaust all the critical positions you can take. I hope you have not made the error of supposing that to criticize is always to disagree. That is ap unfortunate, popular misconception. To agree is just as much an exercise of critical judgment on your part as to disagree. You can be just as wrong in agreeing as in disagreeing. To agree without understanding is inane. To disagree without understanding is impudent.