How To Read A Book- A Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading - Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren [56]
We have to face here a problem similar to the one we faced in the last chapter. Because language is not a perfect medium for the expression of thought, because one word can have many meanings and two or more words can have the same meaning, we saw how complicated was the relation between an author's vocabulary and his terminology. One word may represent several terms, and one term may be represented by several words.
Mathematicians describe the relation between the buttons and the buttonholes on a well-made coat as a one-to-one relationship. There is a button for every buttonhole, and a hole for every button. Well, the point is that words and terms do not stand in a one-to-one relation. The greatest error you can make in applying these rules is to suppose that a one-to-one relationship exists between the elements of language and those of thought or knowledge.
As a matter of fact, it would be wise not to make too easy assumptions even about buttons and buttonholes. The sleeves of most men's suit jackets bear buttons that have no corresponding buttonholes. And if you have worn the coat for a while, it may have a hole with no corresponding button.
Let us illustrate this in the case of sentences and propositions. Not every sentence in a book expresses a proposition. For one thing, some sentences express questions. They state problems rather than answers. Propositions are the answers to questions. They are declarations of knowledge or opinion. That 1 1 8 HOW TO READ A BOOK
is why we call sentences that express them declarative, and distinguish sentences that ask questions as interrogative. Other sentences express wishes or intentions. They may give us some knowledge of the author's purpose, but they do not convey the knowledge he is trying to expound.
Moreover, not all the declarative sentences can be read as if each expressed one proposition. There are at least two reasons for this. The first is the fact that words are ambiguous and can be used in various sentences. Thus, it is possible for the same sentence to express different propositions if there is a shift in the terms the words express. "Reading is learning" is a simple sentence; but if at one place we mean by "learning"
the acquisition of information, and at another we mean the development of understanding, the proposition is not the same, because the terms are different. Yet the sentence is the same.
The second reason is that all sentences are not as simple as "Reading is learning." When its words are used unambiguously, a simple sentence usually expresses a single proposition.
But even when its words are used unambiguously, a compound sentence expresses two or more propositions. A compound sentence is really a collection of sentences, connected by such words as "and," or "if . . . then," or "not only . . . but also."
You may rightly conclude that the line between a long compound sentence and a short paragraph may be difficult to draw.
A compound sentence can express a number of propositions related in the form of an argument.
Such sentences can be very difficult to interpret. Let us take an interesting sentence from Machiavelli's The Prince to show what we mean:
A prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred; because he can endure very well being feared whilst he is not hated, which will always be as long as he abstains from the property of his citizens and from their women.
This is grammatically a single sentence, though it is extremely complex. The semicolon and the "because" indicate the major Determining an Author's Message 1 1 9
break in it. The first proposition is that a prince ought to inspire fear in a certain way.
Beginning with the word "because," we have what is in effect another sentence. ( It could