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How to read

What a silly question.

Surely, you can read already.

You’re doing it right now.

And yet, I was curious enough to start reading the book “How to Read a Book” by Mortimer Adler.

He was a literature class lecturer at a university, teaching students how to read the classics.

In his book, Adler argues that a book must be read in 3 ways:

  1. Structural (what is the book about as a whole): define the problem the author is trying to solve.

  2. Interpretive (what is being said in detail): know the arguments, and figure out what problems the author solved and which they didn’t.

  3. Critical (criticising the book as communication of knowledge): understand first, then disagree.

If you disagree, back up any disagreement by showing the author is uninformed, misinformed, illogical, or incomplete.

We are talking about non-fiction, knowledge works, of course.

He also points out that the great books must be studied within the context of the books they reference.

That is, one author builds upon the knowledge found by a preceding author.

Sometimes the author disagrees with his predecessor, and advances the field with counter claims.

Here is a link to the [great books].(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Books_of_the_Western_World).

So, in order to understand the ideas of the author, one should study all preceding work related to the advancement of the idea.

I will add more to this article, as I make my way through Adler’s book.