Chapter 8 Chapter 6 Classification of a Book

As we said at the beginning of this book, these reading rules apply to anything you must read or want to read.However, in explaining and analyzing reading, which is the content of this second part, we seem to ignore this principle.When we speak of reading, we often, if not exclusively, mean only "books."why? The answer is simple.Reading a whole book, especially a long and difficult book, has to face extremely difficult problems that ordinary readers can hardly imagine.It is easier to read a short story than a novel.It is easier to read an article than to read a whole book on the same topic.But if you can read an epic or a novel, you can read a lyric or a short story.If you can read a theoretical book—a history, philosophical treatise, or scientific theory—you can read an article or abstract in the same field.

Therefore, the reading skills we are going to talk about now can also be applied to other types of reading materials.What you need to understand is that when we speak of reading, the reading rules stated apply equally to other, easier-to-read sources.Although the degrees of these rules are not the same, when applied to the latter, sometimes the effects are not the same, but as long as you have these skills and know how to apply them, it will always be easier. ※ The importance of book classification The first rule of analytical reading can be said as follows: rule one, you must know what kind of book you are reading, and the sooner you know it, the better.Best to know long before you start reading.

You must know, for example, whether you are reading a work of fiction—a novel, a play, an epic, a lyric poem—or some kind of expository book?Almost every reader recognizes a fictional novel when they see it, so it's easy to think it's not difficult to tell the difference - it's not.Like "Portnoys, Complaint", is it a novel or a treatise on psychoanalysis? Is "Naked Lunch" a novel, or is it a persuasive handbook against the drug epidemic, like those books that describe the horrors of alcohol to help readers quit drinking? Is Gone With The Wind a romance novel or a history of the American Civil War South? "Main Street" (Main Street) and "The Grapes of Wrath" (The Grapes of Wrath) (The Grapes of Wrath), one urban experience, one rural life, are they pure literature or sociological treatises?

Of course, these books are all novels, and they are all in the fiction category on the bestseller list.But asking these questions is not ridiculous.From the title alone, like "Main Street" or "Middleton", it is difficult to guess whether it is a novel or a social science discourse.In many contemporary novels, there are too many viewpoints of social science, and there are also many shadows of novels in social science treatises, it is really difficult to distinguish the two.But there are other sciences—physics and chemistry, for example—that appear in science fiction novels like The Andromeda Strain, or in books like Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. . Clarke's book.And a book like "The Universe and Dr. Einstein" (The Universe and Dr. Einstein) is obviously not a novel, but it is almost exactly the same as a "readable" novel.Perhaps, as William Faulkner said, such books are more readable than other novels.

The main purpose of an expository book is to convey knowledge. "Knowledge" is broadly explained in such books.For any book, if the main content is composed of some opinions, theories, assumptions, and inferences, and the author more or less indicates that these claims are well-founded and reasonable, then this kind of book that conveys knowledge is a discourse. Sex (expository) book.Like novels, most people recognize expository books immediately.However, just as it is difficult to distinguish fiction from non-fiction, it is not easy to distinguish such a variety of expository books.What we need to know is not only what kind of book guides us, but also what method is used to guide us.History books and philosophy books provide completely different knowledge and enlightenment methods.In physics or ethics, there may be different ways of dealing with the same problem.Not to mention the variety of different approaches that various authors have applied to so many different problems.

Thus, the first rule of analytical reading, while applicable to all books, applies especially to non-fiction, expository books.How do you apply this rule?Especially the last sentence of the rule? As we've suggested before, you start by inspecting the book—skimming it with inspectional reading.You read the title, subtitle, table of contents, and at least the author's preface, abstract introduction, and index.If the book has a jacket, look at the publisher's promotional copy.These are the writer's signals to you, letting you know which way the wind is blowing.It's not his fault if you won't stop, look, and listen.

※ What can you learn from the title of a book There are far more readers than you might imagine who are blind to the signals an author is putting forward.We have felt this way over and over again with our students.We asked them what the book was about?We want them to tell us what kind of book this book is in the simplest common terms.This is good, and an almost necessary way to start discussing a book.However, our questions are always difficult to get any answers. Let us give one or two such troubling examples! In 1859, Charles Darwin published a very famous book.A century later, all English-speaking countries are celebrating the birth of this book.The book sparked endless debate, and reviewers who learned little from it, or not much, unanimously affirmed its influence.This book is about human evolution and has the word "species" in its title.What is the title of this book talking about?

You might say it's The Origin of Species, and you'd be right.But you might not say that, you might say it was The Origin of the Species. Recently we asked some well-educated young people in their mid-20s what Darwin wrote As for which book, more than half of the people said it was "The Origin of Race".To make such a mistake is so obvious that they probably never read the book and just assumed it was a book about the origin of the human race.In fact, this book has only a little or nothing to do with the subject.Darwin wrote a book about it later, The Descent of Man. , as the title of the book says, the book talks about the natural world, a large number of plants and animals reproduce from a small number of groups at the beginning, so he declared the principle of "natural selection".We point out this common mistake because many people think they know the title of the book, when in fact very few people have actually read the title and thought about its meaning.

Give another example.In this example, we don't want you to memorize the title, but to think about the meaning.Gibbon wrote a very famous book, and it is also famously long. It is a book about the Roman Empire. He called this book "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire".Almost everyone who picks up that book recognizes the title, and many people know the title even if they haven't seen it.In fact, "decay" has become a household phrase.Even so, when we asked the same group of well-educated young people in their mid-twenties why the first chapter was called: "Empire and Force in the Age of Antony," they had no idea.They didn't see that since the title of the whole book is called "History of Decline and Fall", the narrator should of course start writing from the height of the Roman Empire to the end of the Empire.They unconsciously converted the word "decline" into "rise and fall".They are perplexed that the book does not mention the Roman Republic, an era that ended a century and a half before Antony.If they read the title clearly, even if they didn't know it before, they can deduce that the age of Antony was the peak period of the Roman Empire.Reading the title, in other words, allows the reader to get some basic information before starting to read.But they don't do this, and even more people refuse to read the titles of books they are not familiar with.

One of the reasons many people ignore titles or prefaces is that they think it is unnecessary to categorize the book they are reading.They don't follow the first rule of analytical reading.If they try to follow this rule, the authors will be grateful for their help.Apparently, the author thinks it is important for the reader to know what kind of book he is writing.That's why he goes to such lengths, goes to the trouble of expositing his prefaces, and generally tries to make his titles—or at least their subtitles—understandable.Therefore, Einstein and Infeld tell readers in the preface to their book The Evolution of Physics that they wrote a "scientific book, although very popular. Welcome, but you can't read it the way you read a novel."They also list an analysis table of the content, reminding the reader to learn more about the details in their concepts.In short, the titles of the chapters listed at the beginning of a book can further amplify the meaning of the title.

If the reader ignores all this and cannot answer the question "What kind of book is this?", he has only himself to blame.In fact, he's only getting more and more confused.If he could not answer that question, if he had never asked himself that question, he would never have been able to answer the other questions that followed about the book. Reading titles is important, but not enough.Unless you can have a classification standard in your heart, no matter how clear the title, no matter how detailed the table of contents and preface in the world, it will not help you. If you don't know that psychology and geometry are both sciences, or if you don't know that "principle" and "principle" in the titles of these two books mean roughly the same thing (although generally not the same), you Didn't know that Euclid's Elements of Geometry was the same kind of book as William James's Principles of Psychology—besides, unless you knew The two books are different kinds of science, or the difference between them cannot be further distinguished.The same, take Aristotle's "Politics) (The Politics) and Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" as examples, unless you understand what a real problem is, and how many different real problems there are , otherwise you cannot tell the similarities and differences between the two books. Titles sometimes make sorting books easier.Anyone will know that Euclid's "Principles of Geometry", Descartes' "Geometry" (Geometry) and Hilbert (Hilbert)'s "Geometry Foundations) (Foundations of Geometry) are all mathematics books, how much each other related to the same topic.But it's not all the same.From the title alone, it may not be easy to see that Augustine's "The City of God", Hobbes' "Leviathan" and Rousseau's (Social Contract) are all political. Discussion—Though, if you read the chapter titles of these three books carefully, you will find some common issues that they all want to explore. Again, it's not enough just to classify books into a category.To follow the first reading step, you must know what is this type of book talking about?The title of the book will not tell you, the preface and so on will not explain, sometimes even the whole book is not clear, only when you have a classification standard in your heart, you can make a wise judgment.In other words, if you want to use this rule simply and clearly, you must first make this rule simple and clear.This rule will be easier to understand only when you can distinguish between different books and come up with some reasonable and time-tested classifications. We have already briefly talked about the classification of books.We have said that the main classifications are the fictional class of fiction, and the class of expository expository which conveys knowledge.In expository books we can further classify history from philosophy, and both from science and mathematics. We've made it pretty clear so far.This is a fairly clear taxonomy of books, and most people can put most books into appropriate categories just by thinking about it.However, not all books will do. The problem is that we don't yet have a principle of classification.In the next higher-level reading, we will talk more about the principles of classification.We now have to establish a basic principle of classification that applies to all expository works.This is the principle used to distinguish theoretical and practical works. ※ Practical VS. Theoretical works All people use the words "practical" and "theoretical", but not everyone can tell what they mean--especially the kind of people who are both realistic and determined, and they least trust people. The only ones are ideologues, especially ideologues in government.To such people, "theory" connotes fanciful or unthinkable, while "practical" signifies something that works and can be immediately exchanged for money.There is indeed some truth to this.Practicality has to do with something effective, whether immediate or long-term.Theory, on the other hand, is concerned with knowing or understanding something.If we think carefully about the rough rationale presented here, we see that the distinction between knowledge and action is exactly the two different concepts the author may have had in mind. However, you may ask, when we read expository works, aren’t we receiving the transmission of knowledge?How can there be any action in this way?The answer is, of course, wise action comes from knowledge.Knowledge can be used in many ways, not just to control nature, to invent useful machines or tools, but also to guide human behavior and correct human operational skills in various technical fields.Our example here is the difference between pure and applied science, or, in the usual very crude way, between science and technology. Some books, or some teachers, are only interested in the knowledge they convey.This is not to say that they deny the usefulness of knowledge, or that they insist on knowledge for knowledge's sake.They simply limit themselves to one way of communicating or teaching and leave others to use others.These others are interested in matters other than the pursuit of knowledge itself, and they are concerned with the problems of life which knowledge can help to solve.They also impart knowledge, but always with a point of view emphasizing its practical application. To make knowledge practical, there must be rules of operation.We must go beyond "knowing what's going on" to "how to use it if we want to do something about it".In a nutshell, this is the difference between knowing and doing.Theoretical works teach you what it is, practical works teach you how to do what you want to do, or what you think you should do. This book is a practical book, not a theoretical book.Any guide book is useful.Any book that tells you what to do, or how to do it, is a practical book.So you can see that all study techniques that illustrate an art, practical manuals in any field like engineering, medicine, or cooking, or all esoteric treatises that are conveniently classified as "moral" like economics, Books on ethical or political issues are practical books.We will explain later why this type of book, generally called "normative" (normative) book, will be classified in a very special category among practical books. Perhaps no one would question that we classify as expository books books on learning techniques for the arts, or books of practical manuals, rules, and the like.But the kind of realistic people we mentioned earlier may object to our classification of ethics or economics books as practical books.He would say that a book like that is not useful because what it says doesn't make sense or doesn't work. In fact, even if a book on economics is unreasonable and bad, it doesn't affect this.Strictly speaking, any book that teaches us how to live, what to do, what not to do, and the ethics of rewards for doing something and punishment for not doing it, whether we agree with his conclusion or not It must be considered a useful book. (Some modern sociological studies only provide observations of human behavior without criticism. They are neither ethical nor practical. They are theoretical books—scientific works.) The same is true in economics.Research reports on economic behavior and data analysis research are theoretical rather than practical.In addition, some practical books usually teach us how to recognize the economic life environment (individually or socially as a whole), teach us what to do and what to do, and what punishment will be imposed if we don't do it.Again, we may disagree with the author, but our disagreement does not change this type of book into a non-practical book. Kant wrote two famous philosophical works, one is (The Critique of Pure Reason) and the other is "The Critique of Practical Reason" (The Critique of Practical Reason).The first is about knowing, how we know (not how we know, but why we know), and what we can and cannot know.This is a wonderful theoretical book. The Critique of Practical Reason is about how a person should govern himself, and what is right and moral conduct.The book places a strong emphasis on responsibility as the basis of all right behavior, and what he emphasizes is an idea that many modern readers dismiss.They would even say that it is "impractical" to believe that responsibility is a useful moral concept today.What they mean, of course, is that, in their view, Kant's basic attempt is wrong.But that doesn't detract from the fact that it's a practical book, by our definition. In addition to practical manuals and (broadly) moral treatises, another kind of practical work should also be mentioned.Any kind of speech, whether political or moral suasion, is meant to tell you what to do or how you should react to something.When anyone writes practically on any subject, he is not only trying to give you some advice, but he is also trying to persuade you to follow his advice.In every text of moral discourse, therefore, there is an element of eloquence or persuasion.This situation also occurs in books that teach a certain art, such as this one.So, in addition to trying to teach you how to read better, we have tried, and will continue to try, to convince you to make the effort. Although practical books are all eloquent and advice-encouraging, not all eloquent and advice-encouraging books are practical.Political speeches are very different from political essays, and economic propaganda is very different from analysis of economic issues. The Communist Manifesto is an eloquent piece of eloquence, but Marx's Capital is much more than that. Sometimes you can tell from the title if a book is practical or not.If the title has something like "Tips for..." or "How to..." you can sort it right away.If the field of the title you know is practical, like ethics or politics, engineering or business, and some books on economics, law, and medicine, you can categorize them fairly easily. The title of a book can sometimes tell you more than that.John Locke wrote two books with very similar titles: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and A Treatise Concerning the Origin, Extent, and End of Civilized Government. End of Civil Government), which one is theoretical and which one is practical? From the title of the book, we can infer that the first book is a theoretical book, because any analysis and discussion book is a theoretical book, and the second book is a practical book, because the government's problems are their practical problems.But using the inspectional reading we suggest, one can judge beyond the title.Locke wrote a preface to "On Human Understanding", explaining that what he attempted to explore was "the origin, truth and limit of human knowledge", which is very similar to the preface of another book, but there is an important difference.In the first book Locke is concerned with the certainty or validity of knowledge, in the other with the end or purpose of government.To question the validity of something is theory, but to question the purpose of anything is practical. In explaining the art of inspectional reading, we reminded you not to stop after reading the preface or index, but to look at the key abstracts of the book.In addition, look at the beginning and end of the book, as well as the main content. Sometimes, when the type of a book cannot be distinguished from the title or preface, etc., it is necessary to observe from the main content of a book.At this time, you have to rely on the clues you can find in the body text.As long as you pay attention to the text of the content, and at the same time keep the basic conditions of classification in mind, you should be able to distinguish which kind of book it is without reading too much. A practical book reveals its identity very quickly, for it is often filled with words like "should" and "should", "good" and "bad", "consequence" and "meaning".Typical statements used in practical books are that something should be done (or done); that it is right to do (or make) something; ,etc.In contrast, theoretical works often say "yes" without words like "should" or "should".That is to say that something is true, these are the facts, and it does not say how to change it to be better, or follow this method to make things better, etc. Before we get to the topic of theoretical books, let us remind you that those questions are not as simple as whether you should drink coffee or milk.We've just provided some clues so you can start to tell the difference.The more you know about the difference between theoretical and practical books, the better you will be able to use these clues. First, you have to learn to doubt everything.When it comes to book classification, you have to be skeptical.We have emphasized that economics books are basically practical books, but there are still some economics books that are purely theoretical.Likewise, while books on understanding are usually basically theoretical books, there are still some books (mostly scary) that teach you "how to think".You'll also find that many authors can't tell the difference between theory and practice, just like a novelist can't figure out what is fiction and what is sociology.You will also find that a book has parts of one kind and parts of another, as in Spinoza's Ethics.However, these are reminders of your strengths as a reader, through which you can discover how the author confronts the issues he has to deal with. ※ Classification of theoretical works Traditionally, theoretical works have been categorized as history, science, philosophy, and so on.All are somewhat aware of the difference.However, when you want to make more careful divisions and more precise divisions, difficulties arise.At this moment, let's avoid such danger first and make a rough explanation. In history books, the secret is in the title.If the word "History" does not appear in the title, other forewords, etc. will tell us that what is missing in this book happened in the past-not necessarily ancient times, of course, it may also have happened yesterday thing.The essence of history is an oral story. History is the knowledge of a particular event, not only in the past, but also through a series of evolutions through different times.Historians often describe history with a personal touch—a personal comment, observation, or opinion. History is Chronotopic.In Greek, chronos means time and topos means place.History is dealing with some real events that happened in a certain place at a certain time. The word "chronicle" is meant to remind you of this. Science doesn't pay too much attention to the past, it is confronted with things that may happen at any time and place.Scientists seek laws or general principles.He wants to know how things happened in all or most cases, not like a historian who wants to know why a certain event happened at a certain time and place in the past. Science titles are usually less informative than history titles.Sometimes the word "science" appears, but mostly it's something like psychology, geometry, or physics.We must know what kind of subject this book is talking about. Geometry is of course science, and metaphysics is philosophy.Many aspects of the problem are not clear. In many cases, many scientists and philosophers have incorporated physics and psychology into the scope of their research.Trouble arises when the words "philosophy" and "science" are used, because they are already used too widely.Aristotle called his work "Physics" (Physics) a scientific treatise, but if it is used today, we should classify it as philosophy.Newton named his great work Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, which we consider to be a great work in science. Philosophy is more like science than history. It pursues general truths rather than specific events that happened in the past, whether that past is modern or distant.But the questions raised by philosophers are different from those of scientists, and the methods to solve them are also different. Since things like titles or prefaces don't help us identify a book as a book of philosophy or science, what do we do?There is a criterion that we believe will always work, although you may have to read a considerable amount of content from a book before applying it.If a theoretical book emphasizes content beyond your daily, routine, normal life experience, it is a scientific book.Otherwise it is a book of philosophy. The difference might surprise you.Let us illustrate. (Remember, this only applies to science or philosophy books, not to other types of books.) Galileo's Two New Sciences asks you to use your imagination, or repeat it on a ramp in the lab. some kind of experiment.Newton's "Optics" (Optics) mentioned experiments in a dark room with prisms, mirrors and specially controlled light.The special experiences mentioned by these authors may not have been actually completed in the laboratory by themselves.What Darwin wrote was his own report of many years of field observations.Although these facts can be, and have been, verified by other observers who have made similar efforts, they are not something that ordinary people can verify in their daily lives. In contrast, the facts or observations put forward by philosophers do not transcend the lived experience of ordinary people.A philosopher mentions to his readers his own normal and ordinary experience to prove or support what he says.Locke's Essay on Human Understanding is thus a philosophical work in psychology.But Freud's work is scientific.Whereas Locke's discussion focused on the mental journeys we experience in our lives, Freud proposed to report on the clinical experience he observed in the psychoanalytic clinic. Another great psychologist, William James, took an interesting middle ground.He presents many details that only a trained and careful expert would notice, but he also frequently checks with his readers whether his theories are correct in the light of their own experience.Therefore, James's work "Principles of Psychology" is both scientific and philosophical, although it is still mainly based on science. If we say that scientists are based on experiments, or rely on precise observational research, while philosophers are just thinkers in rocking chairs, most people can accept such comparisons without any objection.This comparison should not be unpleasant.There are certain problems, very important ones, that a person who knows how to think in terms of common human experience can come up with solutions from a rocking chair.There are also some other problems, but they cannot be solved by sitting in a rocking chair and thinking.To solve problems like that requires research investigations—experiments in the laboratory or fieldwork—that go beyond routine life experience.In such cases, special experience is necessary. This is not to say that philosophers are pure thinkers and scientists are mere observers.They all need to think and observe equally, but they will think in terms of different observations.No matter how they arrive at the conclusions they want to prove, their methods of proof are different: the scientist will give evidence from the results of his special experience, but the philosopher will use the commonality of human beings as an example. This difference of approach often occurs in books of philosophy or science, and it gives you an idea of ​​what kind of book you are reading.If you can take the categories of experience mentioned in the book as conditions for understanding the content, then you will know that the book is a work of philosophy or science. It is important to understand this.Because philosophers and scientists do not think in exactly the same way, in addition to relying on different experiences.The way they argue the issue is also different.You must be able to see in these different kinds of arguments what key terms or propositions make up the difference—we're getting a little too far here. The situation is similar with history books.What historians say is different from scientists and philosophers.Historians argue in different ways and explain facts in different ways.What's more, typical history books appear in the form of storytelling.Telling a story is telling a story, whether it is fact or fiction.The historian must write beautifully, which means that he obeys the rules of telling a good story.So Locke's Essay on Human Understanding or Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy are not very good storybooks, however great they may be. You may protest that we have made too trivial a classification of books, at least, too much for an unreader.Are these things really that important? In order to eliminate your protest, we ask you to think of one thing.If you walked into a classroom where the teacher was lecturing or instructing students, you would quickly see that it was a history, science, or philosophy class.This has something to do with the way the teacher lectures. The words and sentences he uses, the way he discusses, the questions he asks, and the answers he expects students to give will all show which subject he belongs to.It is important to understand this first if you want to continue to listen clearly. Simply put, different courses have different teaching methods, and any teacher knows this.Because of the difference in curriculum and teaching methods, philosophy teachers may find it easier to teach students who have not been taught by other philosophy teachers before, while science teachers may hope that students have been trained by other science teachers.and so on. Just as different subjects have different teaching methods, different courses have different learning methods.Students should respond more or less to the teacher's teaching methods.The relationship between books and readers is the same as that between teachers and students.Therefore, since the knowledge that books are to convey to us is different, the way of guiding us will also be different.If we are to follow the guidance of these books, we should learn to read different books with the proper attitude.