How To Read A Book- A Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading - Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren [92]
The arguments in a practical book of this sort will be attempts to show you that the rules are sound. The writer may have to appeal to principles to persuade you that they are, or he may simply illustrate their soundness by showing you how they work in concrete cases. Look for both sorts of arguments.
Th� appeal to principles is usually less persuasive, but it has one advantage. It can explain the reason for the rules better than examples of their use.
In the other kind of practical books, the kind dealing mainly with the principles underlying rules, the major propositions and arguments will, of course, look exactly like those in a purely theoretical book. The propositions will say that something is the case, and the arguments will try to show that it is so.
But there is an important difference between reading such a book and reading a purely theoretical one. Since the ultimate problems to be solved are practical-problems of action, in 1 96 HOW TO READ A BOOK
fields where men can do better or worse-an intelligent reader of such books about "practical principles" always reads between the lines or in the margins. He tries to see the rules that may not be expressed but that can, nevertheless, be derived from the principles. He goes further. He tries to figure out how the rules should be applied in practice.
Unless it is so read, a practical book is not read as practical. To fail to read a practical book as practical is to read it poorly. You really do not understand it, and you certainly cannot criticize it properly in any other way. If the intelligibility of rules is to be found in principles, it is no less true that the significance of practical principles is to be found in the rules they lead to, the actions they recommend.
This indicates what you must do to understand either sort of practical book. It also indicates the ultimate criteria for critical judgment. In the case of purely theoretical books, the criteria for agreement or disagreement relate to the truth of what is being said. But practical truth is different from theoretical truth. A rule of conduct is practically true on two conditions : one is that it works; the other is that its working leads you to the right end, an end you rightly desire.
Suppose that the end an author thinks you should seek does not seem like the right one to you. Even though his recommendations may be practically sound, in the sense of getting you to that end, you will not agree with him ultimately. A:nd your judgment of his book as practically true or practically false will be made accordingly. If you do not think careful and intelligent reading is worth doing, this book has little practical truth for you, however sound its rules may be.
Notice what this means. In judging a theoretical book, the reader must observe the identity of, or the discrepancy between, his own basic principles or assumptions and those of the author. In fudging a practical book, everything turns on the ends or goals. If you do not share Karl Marx's fervor about economic justice, his economic doctrine and the reforms it suggests are likely to seem to you practically false or irrelevant.
How to Read Practical Books 1 97
You may think, as Edmund Burke did, for example, that preserving the status quo is the most desirable objective; everything considered, you believe that to be more important than removing the inequities of capitalism. In that case, you are likely to think that a book like The Communist Manifesto is preposterously false. Your main judgment will always be in terms of the ends, not the means. We have no practical interest in even the soundest means to reach ends we disapprove of or do not care about.
The Role of Persuasion
This brief discussion gives