Listen to listen

Said CNN. S. "You can not find a cup of tea big enough, or a book big enough, so it can suit me," Oscar Wilde adds in another high-rise leap. "If you do not enjoy repeating the same book more than once "There are a lot of interesting and interesting comments for the great thinkers and culture throughout our history about reading. We share it a lot when we talk about classical novels, and contemporary bestsellers as well. But when it comes to philosophy, A measure of coldness and terror creeps into the floor of the room, and we stop talking.

Not only because the notorious philosophy in our societies - and the whole world in fact - but also because many consider it an indescribable material, as if it were a profession with a very specific group of people, and it is similar to the old talismans. Philosophy is already heavy, but the problem is not so much the philosophy itself as it is in the way we see and read the philosophical books. We imagine that the book - a book - is supposed to go very smoothly, feeling as if you are reading in a river.

Eleven times ?!

For philosophy, and a lot of areas in fact, that's not true. There is basically nothing we can call a "quick read", it is an "illusion" that some have invented to get some pounds out of your portfolio to prepare a course for quick reading. Whenever the subject is complex and difficult, you have to read carefully. , A professor of philosophy says to his students: "Critique of the pure mind of Kant? This is a book you can read 11 times, but do not worry, the tenth time you will start to understand it." Of course it may be a bit exaggerated, but holds the important idea here.

Reading is really a skill that grows with time and practice, but your speed does not improve with neurodynamic imaging capabilities as some claim, but in three cases: the first being read in the same book more than once, the situation will improve clearly each time, and this is a major problem. That as long as the first reading was impossible, the same would be true, this is not true.

The fifth case is to read the same author more than once, here will get used to his style of writing, Philosophy, and concepts that are often repeated.

Let us contemplate René Descartes, who, in his book "An Essay on the Curriculum," presented us with a useful and important tool for reading philosophy in four stages. The book was presented by Kimberly Plassing from the State University of Buffalo, "The full report can be read from this link

First Reading: Read the book as a whole, and quickly, as if you were to do with a novel, the goal here is to capture only the general idea on which the book is based.

Second reading: Read the book a second time, but this time the author's arguments, at this point rarely addressed and left a mark at the parts that did not understand, in a separate paper or on the sides of the book.

Third reading: Read the book, but keep the questions and problems that you mentioned in the second step are present in your mind. This will help you see the solutions and difficulties you have encountered.

Fourth reading: Read the book If any of these difficulties remain with you, that last reading will be enough to complete the task.

Paper, pen and five lenses

At this stage of our conversation together, Daniel Kaufman, a professor of philosophy at the University of Missouri, emphasizes one of the important points Descartes points out when, in his first lecture every academic year, he provides important advice to junior philosophy students: philosophy is never read without paper and pencil . There is - in fact - a completely wrong idea of ​​reading that says - you get some materials that have a degree of complexity - you can sit aside on the couch and enjoy the flow of information to your brain, but of course not true, this pair (paper and pen) play two roles in reading Philosophy.

It helps to organize your understanding of philosophical material. Here we can learn an important way to understand the philosophical text presented by the brilliant trio Gerald Jones, Jeremy Hayward and Dan Cardinal in their reference. The simplified "AQA AS Philosophy" for high school students and university entrance examinations in English schools is called the "five lenses". The idea is simply to use each lens, in the following order, to examine the philosophical text for best understanding.

First, lens Context: Who wrote this text? Why did he write it? When did he write it? Searching for the context in which this text is written will help you understand many of its implications.

Second, lens conventions: What words are used in a conventional way? What do you mean? These conventions open the door to a broader search, and represent the road signs in any philosophical book, stop and hope a little.

Third, lens concepts: What is the main idea that is repeated in this text? What does a writer mean? What does this have to do with terminology? Now, through the first and second lenses, you can have an idea on the subject.

Fourth, the lens arguments: What argument is raised by the subject? What is the writer trying to prove? In what way? Look for the commas that have the words "for this reason" and "conclude that" and "based on the above", etc., tried to extract the argument that builds the subject in successive relationships (since ... so .. here we can say).

Fifth, lens structure: How can divide this subject into a group of sections written in your own way? Each of these sections will include an idea, its number in the simple way 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. Here you will be able to work a complete summary of your topic.

When you read philosophy, put those five lenses in the background of your thoughts, and use them with the text as if you were an investigator who would like to get a crime manual. This simple method aims at organizing the reading process. Philosophical texts, topics and philosophical ideas are also inherently complex and not easy at all because they are based on a set of ideas that extend in separate time and intellectual domains. Philosophical arguments slowly build themselves up and move between several stages, so it is important that you always understand how Building these arguments slowly and with the same degree of care can not find them while reading a novel or a light book.

A large sheet of size A1 can also help you better connect philosophers or philosophical ideas, especially when you are trying to read books that explain general philosophy or philosophy. Here, a simple tree on that painting, written and drawn with your own hands, can avoid you A lot of confusion and give you a general picture when you respond immediately to important general questions: Who agrees with who at that point? Who disagrees with whom? Who used it differently than it used to be? How did Feuerbach and Marx develop Hegel's ideas? How do postmodernism begin from Protagoras more than 2,000 years ago?

To the world of the Internet

On the other hand, the book is not alone the tool of knowledge, especially with complex materials. The moment you get to know the main terms that you are facing, and do not understand exactly what nature or what you can mean by meanings, and in each of the five lenses, you can go out to the wide world of Internet to help you in three ways:

First, look at the philosophical encyclopedias available on the Internet, or in the articles available from other sources, on this term to achieve a better understanding of it. Often you will find a simplistic article by a philosopher or a philosophy student explaining the idea you are specifically looking for. This is because sometimes books may contain a degree of repetition of the same ideas.

Second, go to YouTube. A simple episode, or a long but simple lecture, for example, can help you understand what you are looking for. In fact, sometimes lectures are much better than written material, and you may shorten reading time. The way the speaker and his body language conveys the simplicity of writing.

Third: Go to a friend, colleague or group on Facebook interested in philosophy to discuss that idea or concept, these discussions will help you to understand some ideas, and will stimulate you to continue more.

These three mechanisms open up a better door for digesting the text or philosophical subject that you want to understand. Diversification of learning mechanisms also helps in digesting and clarifying the idea. It surrounds you with the atmosphere of philosophy and makes it fast. It is like being in a state of Gestalt. Their worlds, their lovers and their interests, whether books, discussions, or even movies, it directs your cognitive tools to focus their attention more on philosophy.

The real pleasure

In the end, the goal of reading is to understand, not to prepare the books that ended this month in a publication on Facebook or tweet on Twitter, it does not matter that you finish the book every week and 50 pages per hour, in fact we can consider the story of "fixed rate" Other, sometimes the pages of the book may pass easily, but in others may stand a little with one page, you may want to go back, and may return them more than once, in order to achieve a clear understanding of them.

Sometimes you may choose a book that is heavier than your level. If you are really interested in that topic, there is no need to continue to resist with the book, especially if problems arise with each line. If you are interested in the philosophy of Carnav, go back a bit and learn what the logical position means. If you are interested in the philosophy of Thomas Kun, there is a need to know the arguments formulated by Pierre Doheim and later by Willard Cowen and so on. At that point, you can benefit from what some amateurs do - mostly in English - when they do something like an "entrance" to read some important books on YouTube or on a blog when you try to start with a famous book like Criticism of the Pure Mind, With an important article for Putnam or Quinn, these introductions will help you a lot as a start.

Now, before we finish, let's add an important addition specifically to the Arabic content. When translation seems complex, it can be traced to the original text. Many Arabic translations face a real crisis, so you will always need to improve your English language - at least - to better understand some passages and perhaps whole books. "Bad translation" is not "your inability to understand", often the first proposal succeeds.

In the end, the real pleasure is not in the reading itself, in the sense: it does not happen to feel the wide degrees of pleasure and you read the text of philosophical or philosophical topic, it is not like to eat pieces of chocolate and fun in the case of ecstasy as happens in television ads, It is sometimes boring, and it may cause your anger to be hard to understand. But the real fun is not the reading itself, but the knowledge you get at the end of your journey to understand a subject is the real pleasure.