A Guide To Reading The Great Books

                                                                                                     By Mortimer J. Adler

                                                                                                      September, 1965

Table Of Content

Part I. The Activity Of Reading

Chapter One To The Average Reader

1 2 3 4

Chapter Two The Reading Of "Reading"

1 2 3 4 5

Chapter Three Reading Is Learning

1 2 3 4 5 6

Chapter Four Teachers, Dead Or Alive

1 2 3 4 6

Chapter Five The Defeat Of The Schools

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Chapter Six On Self-help

1 2 3 4

Part II. The Rules

Chapter Seven From Many Rules To One Habit

1 2 3 4 5 6

Chapter Eight Catching On From The Title

1 2 3 4 5

Chapter Nine Seeing The Skeleton

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Chapter Ten Coming To Terms

1 2 3 4 5 6

Chapter Eleven What's The Proposition And Why

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Chapter Twelve The Etiquette Of Talking Back

1 2 3 4 5

Chapter Thirteen The Things The Reader Can Say

1 2 3 4 5

Chapter Fourteen And Still More Rules

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Part III . The Rest Of The Reader's Life

Chapter Fifteen The Other Half

1 2 3 4 5

Chapter Sixteen The Great Books

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Chapter Seventeen Free Minds And Free Men

1 2 3 4

NB：英文是照抄自原著，紧跟的中文不是原文的翻译，而是对原话的个人理解。只有能用自己的话解释出来，才体现了真正理解到的意思。这也是从这本书中学到的。

Preface

The subject was not how to read any book, but how to readagreatbook

这是这一版反复强调的前提，读书一定要读经典。阅读不同的书有不同的阅读方式，以下提到的阅读方法针对的是经典阅读。

The mind passes from a state of understanding less to astate of understanding more, and for reading the few books that are capable ofbeing read with increasing profit over and over again

真正的阅读是理解不断加深的过程

Chapter 2

Read in the second sense:

If he can manage to acquire that greater understanding, hehas literally elevated himself by his own activity.

Conditions:

·The writer is superior to thereader

·The reader must overcome thisinequality

要想从阅读中获益，

·作者要比你优秀，你们知识水平是不平等的。

·在阅读过程中要不断克服这种不平等。

We can learn only from our betters.We must know who they are and how to learn from them.

见贤思齐。所以要知道“贤”是谁，怎么像他们学习。

Chapter 3

Rules of reading: Pick out and interpret the importantwords in a book.

< One has to learn how to read in order to learn fromreading

首先要学会如何阅读，才能在阅读中收益。

< You have gained nothing but information if you have exercisedonly your memory. You have not been enlightened.

获取信息的阅读只动用了你的记忆力，并没有能够启发你

< In addition to knowing what an author says, you knowwhat he means and why he says it.

不仅要知道作者说了什么，还要知道说这些意味着什么，为什么这么说

< We had not made any connection between words they hadread in the book and their own experiences

读书要把知识和自己的经历联系起来。我们的决定是根据已有的经验和知识产生的判断，所以better experience, better decision.

< When we read for information, we require facts. Whenwe read to understand, we learn not only facts but their significance.

事实+意义

< If the writer does not understand more than we do, orif he makes no effort to explain, we can only be informed by him, notenlightened. Great book: read for information and understanding

我们之所以能从书中学习，是因为作者better than us.好书不但传递信息，也提升我们的认知能力。

We may continue to gain knowledge by speaking to nature,for it will always answer.

读书就像和大自然对话，你问什么大自然都不会直接告诉你，但是你却可以从大自然找到匹配你认知能力的答案。读书也是一样，好书之所以要反复读，是因为每次阅读，理解到的思想都不一样，随着阅历的增加，理解的越深刻。

When we seek to learn from nature directly, our ultimateaim is to understand the world in which we live. We neither agree nor disagreewith the nature, as we often do the case of books.

同不同意作者的观点有时候并不是那么重要，因为我们最终的目的是了解自己，理解我们所处的世界

If you ask a living teacher a question, he may reallyanswer you. If you are puzzled by what he says, you can save yourself thetrouble of thinking by asking him what he means. If you ask a book a question,you must answer it yourself. In this respect, a book is like the nature. Whenyou speak to it, it answers you only to the extent that you do the work ofthinking and analysis yourself.

读书就像与自然交谈，无论遇到什么困难，最终都要靠自己解决，解决的程度取决于我们思考和分析能力。

Chapter 4

The great books assume an audience of readers who arethoroughly competent to read. They say: here is knowledge worth having, comeand get it. They do not go for spoon-feeding.

好书一定不是填鸭式教学，而是主动学习。知识确实摆在面前，但是吸收到什么程度取决于自己。（这句话自带声音：“这是知识，没人喂你，过来吧，自己吃！”）

Information is a necessary stepping stone, but our ultimategoal is understanding rather than information.

我们获取信息是为了最终的理解。

The primary sources of his own knowledge should be theprimary sources of learning for his students. He should not come between asnonconductor but he should come between as a mediator---as one who help theless competent make more effective contacts with the best minds.

老师备课用的第一手材料也应该是学生学习的第一手材料。老师不能作为中间的绝缘体，把学生和第一手材料隔离开来，而应该作为中间的传递着，帮助学生和best minds对话

This book has two functions: to interest you in the profitof reading; to assist you in cultivate the art.

让读者因受益于阅读而感兴趣；帮助读者培养艺术感，爱情是一门艺术，阅读也是。

Chapter 5

Knowledge and skill of mind are not the most importantthings in the life. loving the right things is more important.

就像right person is the asset of thecompany. Mr. Right is your true love.

The arts: grammar, logics, and rhetoric (修辞)

If they could read a little better, they would find thatthe world contained a much larger number of intelligible books than they nowsuppose.

阅读使个人理解力提升，如果能普及到每个人，世界将变得更美好

You cannot elevate people by going down to their level. Ifthey succeed in getting you there, there they will keep you, for it is easierto get you to stay down than for them to move up.

你不能为了“救”一个人而沦落到他的地位上，而应该让他爬上来。不然你会和他一起呆在一个level上。

Read, mark, learn, inwardly digest

阅读，标注你认为重要的地方，学习，消化。

Chapter 6

Today's teachers were taught by yesterday and they teachthose of tomorrow.

这就是教育改革的严峻性，也是学生自己要学会学习的重要性。

The old-fashioned way is the way of arts of reading andwriting, the way of reading the great books.

古老的艺术就是阅读和写作。然而现在不仅占据我们时间而且占据我们思想的还有刷手机。想起来很可怕，就和精神上的鸦片一样。

Habit is the second nature

习惯是我们的第二天性。所以小时候就要教育孩子养成好习惯。

When we speak of a man as skilled in any way, we do notmean that he knows the rules of doing something, but that he possesses thehabit of doing it.

一件事情变成一种习惯才能融入血液。

to understand the rules is to know more than the rules

you should be able to tell whether you are getting the liftwhich comes from managing to understanding something which at first seemedunintelligible to you.

The most direct sign that you have done the work of readingis fatigue. Reading that is reading entails the most intense mental activity.It you are not tired out, you probably have not been doing the work

真正能使你提升的阅读一定是个烧脑的过程

To read books passively does not feed a mind.

被动的接受无法充盈你的内心。

I cannot go on reading the next page, if I do not make amemo of something which occurred to me in reading this one.

有什么即时想法一定要随时记录下来

If one is trying to grasp the structure of a book, one maymake several tentative outlines of its main parts in their order, before one issatisfied with one's apprehension of the whole.

想抓住整本书框架，需要一部分一部分来

Schematic outlines and diagrams of all sorts are useful indisengaging the main points from supporting and tangential matters. If one canand will mark the book, it is helpful to underline the important words andsentences as they seem to occur. More than that, one should note the shifts in meaningby numbering the places at which important words are used successively indifferent senses. If the author appears to contradict himself, some notationshould be made of the places at which the inconsistent statements occur, andthe contest should be marked for possible indications that the contradiction isonly apparent.

Types of Reading:

I. For amusement

II. For knowledge

A. For information

B. For understanging

Types of Learning:

I. By discovery: without teachers

II. By instruction: through aid of teachers

A. By live teachers: lectures; liestening

B. By dead teachers: books; reading

Hence Reading II (A and B) is Learning II (B)

But books are also of different sorts:

Types of Books:

I. Digests and repetitions of other books

II. Original communications

And it appears that:

Reading II(A) is related more closely to Books I

Reading II(B) is related more closely to Books II

Tables of Contents are like maps. They are just as usefulin the first reading of a book as a road map is for touring in strangeterritory.

目录就是整个读书之旅的地图，要时不时的回头看看

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