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"true." If he cannot do this by himself, he is obliged to go to someone who can. This may be a priest or a rabbi, or it may be his superior in the party hierarchy, or it may be his professor.

In any case, he is obliged to accept the resolution of his problem that is offered him. He reads essentially without freedom; but in return for this he gains a kind of satisfaction that is possibly never obtained when reading other books.

Here, in fact, we must stop. The problem of reading the Holy Book-if you have faith that it is the Word of God-is the most difficult problem in the whole field of reading. There have been more books written about how to read Scripture than about all other aspects of the art of reading together. The Word of God is obviously the most difficult writing men can read; but it is also, if you believe it is the Word of God, the How to Read Philosophy 295

most important to read. The effort of the faithful has been duly proportionate to the difficulty of the task. It would be true to say that, in the European tradition at least, the Bible is the book in more senses than one. It has been not only the most widely read, but also the most carefully read, book of al.

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H OW TO READ SOCIAL SCI ENCE

The concepts and terminology of the social sciences pervade almost everything we read today.

Modern journalism, for example, does not limit itself to reporting facts, except in the kind of shorthand, "who-whatwhy-when-where" news story that one finds on the front page of a newspaper. Journalists, much more commonly, enmesh the facts in interpretation, commentary, analysis of the news.

These interpretations and comments draw on the concepts and terminology of the social sciences.

These concepts and this terminology are also reflected in the vast number of current books and articles that may be grouped together under the heading of social criticism. We are confronted with a continuous flow of literature on such subjects as race problems, crime, law enforcement, poverty, education, welfare, war and peace, good and bad government.

Much of this literature borrows its ideology and language from the social sciences.

The literature of social science is not confined to nonfiction. There is also a large and important category of contemporary writing that might be termed social-science fiction.

Here the aim is to create artificial models of society that allow us, for example, to explore the social consequences of technological innovation. The organization of social power, the kinds 296

How to Read Social Science 297

of property and ownership, and the distribution of wealth are variously described, deplored, or lauded in novels, plays, stories, moving pictures, television shows. Insofar as they do this they may be said to have social significance or to contain

"relevant messages." At the same time they draw on and disseminate elements of the social sciences.

Furthermore, there is hardly any social, economic, or political problem that has not been tackled by specialists in these fields, either on their own or by invitation from officials who are actively coping with these problems. Specialists in the social sciences help to formulate the problems and are called upon to help in dealing with them.

Far from the least important factor in the growing pervasiveness of the social sciences is their introduction at the high school level and in the junior and community colleges. In fact, student enrollments in social science courses are running far ahead of enrollments in the more traditional literature and language courses. And enrollments in social science courses greatly exceed those in courses dealing with the "pure" sciences.

What Is Social Science?

We have been talking of social science as if it were a single entity. That is hardly the case.

Which, in fact, are the social sciences? One way to answer the question is to see what departments and disciplines universities group under this name. Social science divisions