A thing that has really helped my to understand the topics is to try to solve the problems the book tries to tackle, myself. That way you can see the book as pieces of the missing puzzle of your own model of reality, you share experiences with the philosopher.
Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren actually recommend that in their masterpiece _How to Read a Book_. They ask you to figure out what questions the author is trying to solve in a given book, and then read it closely to see if they answer it. It's part of a lovely strategy they call _analytical reading_, which is their term for a careful, critical reading of a difficult text to master its key ideas.
I wish I would have seen this before I started my semester in the Philosophy department. The only methods of learning I thought were there available to rely on while learning philosophy was either the rope theory or memorizing. Your method makes so much more sense to follow and I could literally see it in my mind while you were talking about it.
1) Before reading a book cover to cover, to properly understand you need context. - Do a vast inspection. - if a book is isolated/stand alone concept then do inspection to the book itself (table of contents, read entire book in an hour- look for themes - books that require background reading- use secondary resources. Quick inspection of all foundations. Why? Because there is too much info to understand in first reading. 2) read entire book very fast eg 2 hrs 3) reread and find details this time - you attached individual bits back to this existing memory
Is it helpful to do a "vast reading" then note take reading chapter by chapter? I'm a very slow reader and the book I want to analyze is a dense political essay. Doing a vast reading as well reading it again would take me over a year and I would rather take six months if possible .
hugely agree with your recommendation of starting with a thorough inspection of the contents page. it gives you such a tantalising-but-cohesive sense of progression of what the book is going to be. as Chidi says on The Good Place, "it's like a menu... but the food is words!"
I was planning on reading "The critique of pure reason" and then I land here. Thank you for your insights. I absolutely love your videos. Also I'm learning German and hope someday after reading Kant in English I'll be able to read him in German as well. Your videos are like the supplements that provide with the initial mandatory guidelines. Love from India.
Similarly with textbooks: Firstly you flip through a chapter Then you look at the questions at the end in the "Quiz" section, if there is one Then read the bold print Then read the first and last sentence and then finally, read through the chapter.
I love using rereading to make a "worksheet" per se to take notes. Putting down the headings and subheadings w/ an estimate of how many lines itll take to get the details down has been how I've been able to retain anything from Poli Sci
Great content! I would like to add another thing, I really like putting things "in a nutshell" that's how useful super summarized videos on RU-vid and memes are. If you make everything fun not only you will enjoy it, but you will also remember it. And that's how learning should be. Creative, simple, fun, and enjoyable 🖤
I love this!!! This is one of the single most useful videos I’ve watched in a while. Like so many others I can be very intimidated by “hard” books. I am now looking forward to delving deep into some of the intriguing books I find difficult to understand.
R.C. Waldun, have you heard of this author named Peter Hollins? I am reading his book "The Science of Self Learning," and he has opened my eyes. He talked about the reasons for wanting to become an autodidact, like for purpose, mastery, and autonomy. He gave reasons as to why people struggle with reading anything heavier than fiction. And they all applied to me. Like, I felt like he was speaking directly to me. In the book, he talks about the SQ3RR method. Now I knew about this method, but he really goes into depth about it, which I love. He talks about note-taking techniques, like the Cornell notes method, the Feynman technique, and self-explanation. And he talked about everything in such a casual way. No heavy jargon or anything. It's like you're listening to a friend. And the author from "How to Read a Book" that you were thinking of is Mortimer J. Adler. I read some of his book. Mr. Hollins also mentioned him in the book, breaking down elementary reading, inspectional reading, analytical reading, and syntopical reading. I am sure that everything written in his book you probably already know of, but he has truly opened my eyes to a point that no one else could. I thought about is book when you mentioned "autodidact."
I was the best student in class at school, but I had the worst rote memory among my peers. When I read my textbooks, I tried to imagine and visualize everything that I read and it started to come naturally. Everything I read just made sense and was built into my worldview bit by bit. I even 'dropped out' of reality often, meaning I sat down to read my biology and lost the sense of time entirely. The next thing I knew it was late in the evening and I was running out of time to do some other stuff. My classmates often asked me how I remembered so much stuff and I couldn't explain it. Now I can 😅 P.S: love from Ukraine, your channel is awesome
I'm so glad I found your channel. It's the exact kind of content I was looking for, and you're able to explain things in a very simple and easy to understand manner.
i think im meant to take history courses now after watching your videos, first i was overwhlem, now after your videos i feel excited again, thank you friend
Bertrand Russell is a brilliant articulator. I think it is safe that you can read it as a novel, whilst following his flows of thoughts. But if his language becomes too technical, I recommend Roger Scruton's "A Short History of Modern philosophy" as a head start. Don't bite off more than you can chew; you don't read "Of Grammatology" without reading Rousseau. Take it easy and slow, and tell me how it goes!
As soon as you mentioned Hegel, I got flashbacks. haha I get this strange sense that he has important insights, that’s he’s going somewhere, but then I go back and read him and.... yeah what?
I'm a reader of different kinds and genre of books. I usually don't understand some RU-vidrs due to their vague ideas about how to read and understand books. I recommend your RU-vid channel for newbies.
Yeah, there’s First Philosophy which is fairly self-contained, apart from some references to the scholastics and then there’s The Phenomenology of Spirit, for which having an encyclopedic knowledge of everything that has every happened and every thought a person has ever had is necessary for understanding.
I have eyes and i have books in my hand. when i look through this page its nice to see those printing in it but read .what do you meant by reading how do you know you read right is it that feeling of satisfactiin that u mean you got the speaking of author
Is reading up summaries of chapters online an effective way for getting an idea of how the book works? Cause it seems more efficient than reading the first line of each chapter
Do not, dwell on paragraphs that you do not understand. Read it through, the big picture is what matters at first. Detailed analysis is what re-reading is for.
I also got that book "how to read a book "in chapter 4 page 35 it says reading a paragraph or two do you think that is a good thing to do to understand a book?
about to try out descartes in a few months. i have a collection of his works and was quite intimidated the last time i tried to read him - so, sincerely thank you for the tips.
I have eyes and i have books in my hand when i look through this page its nice to see those printing in it but read what do you meant by reading how do you know you read right
Funny enough, I am currently using Foucaoult as my throretical background of my university essay and was lucky I already had good sources at hand to understand him. However maybe I sould really start to do proper inspectional readings instead of just being like 'oh this looks like it could help me understand it' XD
The Quirky Inquiry The reason I mention him is because he is the one who i first heard say is that the brain is not good st remembering lists, but pathways, contingent series.
Well after the last two years of stumbling around like an idiot, (not to mention those endless nights of bashing my head against the wall, then against the penguin edition of COPR), I have to agree with you.
Sorry I'm too autistic so yeah I start woth the details. Didn't that one psychologist say this is why I need to also work on getting a whole picture? I think this will work out.
Don't just learn dates or any data just focus on understanding and than I guess you don't have to read in skeleton probably . Instead of how? You can focus on why? why anything is written and what's its purpose.