Should You Bother With Difficult Books? - Maybe Not

This week we explore the key difference between surface learning and detailed, expert learning.

Exclusive essays:

[georgepantzikis]

In my opinion, not reading the original material gets you a level of knowledge that may be wide, but very shallow. It's like an ocean with the depth of a puddle. It may be hard, but it really is worth it. Your friend, for example, would be able to discuss and argue a philosophical idea in a casual setting, but wouldn't be able to engage in a serious debate with someone who has read the original text.

[anilpanchal]

Man, I need a friend like you with whom I can talk about philosophy 😞

[michaellandon]

The most efficient way to learn is through online lectures. Moral Foundarions of Politics online(Yale). Theory of Literature(Yale). Marx’s Capital(Cambridge). Jay Dyer for philosophy. The Academic Agent, Philosophy and Economics, classical liberalism, pragmatism. I learned more from these lectures even though I have every book from every major philosopher. I have only read a few books in full like Kant’s critique of pure reason, political economy of international relations.

You need to find where the ideas are simple and are uneccessaeily obscure in texts. And where they are legitimately complex for example in Heidegger and Hegel.

[louisaltena]

Although I feel there is still a great deal of value in experiencing difficult books and that the task of trying to understand them is deeply rewarding, you are also seriously disadvantaging yourself if you aren't trying to shortcut the journey to understanding by using online resources. Other academics have already poured over page after page of the Phenomenology of Spirit, you don't need to start from scratch with these texts.

[stevenkandro]

I think it depends on your goal. If it’s something you really care about and want to dive into you need to read source material. But if you’re fine with a superficial understanding of something, online resources are fine. You have to specialize and allocate your time and resources accordingly.

[meropale]

When I was growing up there were these study guides available called "Cliff Notes" which would essentially summarize the contents of a book and give you an analysis, all in a very easy to understand package. This is all fine and dandy but the problem is that it robs you of a chance to make up your mind about the book. Another thing too is that teenagers are given books for which they are not yet emotionally aware or mature enough to understand and they are expected to be graded on their understanding. Finally, you have to build a foundation before tackling difficult material. It's similar to Math in a way where everything builds upon itself. How can you do Calculus if you haven't yet learned to add or subtract?

[socratesandstorybooks]

I think it can be extremly useful to use youtube or online articles etc. to get a general idea/ context of a topic and then to go in and read books. Because this way you remember and understand things so much better. Movies can also be useful for some topics for example I watch movies in French or adaptations of really long fiction books before I go into full study mode.

[ZiggiWillpower]

I did some different courses when I was at university, some that focused more on original texts, and some (more artistic classes) that used the "general ideas" of philosophical/scientific texts as a base to create art. Not many of the students in the more practical courses had been to classes that taught original texts, and some of the teachers were professionals in their field, but without formal university education. From this experience I learned to the enormous extent to which philosophical, political and scientific texts are mis-quoted and mis-understood by people who (with very good intentions) want to simplify them or have learnt them from second-hand sources or abridged versions. One particular example was texts by Hannah Arendt, that were popular in some of these classes. Not claiming in any way to be an expert on Arendt, but in previous classes I had read some of her texts, and could clearly see how they were being mis-used - people (un-ironically) wrote and created pieces informed by "ideas of Arendt" that were pure misunderstandings of her work. And it only took me a little bit of reading and learning from the original texts to get a fuller and more complete understanding of what she had actually said and meant. And I mean, it's pretty much harmless if an art student mis-quotes a philosopher with their work, it's no big deal really. But I think it's funny and representative.

To this I add - since English is not my first language, i frequently use places like SparkNotes when I read both fiction and non-fiction in English. Basically I read a chapter from the original text, and then I look in the summary to see if my understanding of what I read equals what the summary says. If not, I investigate further. So I do see a great use for both things. But original texts ALWAYS and INEVITABLY have details, context, references, styles etc etc etc that will be lost on the reader of a summary. And (especially when it comes to philosophy) those details, contexts, references and styles matter. A lot.

[mehes]

I would say yes and no to your question. Yes because reading challenges us to synthesize and understand concepts. Videos are easy because the information has greater detail (sound and images) and it is like processed information. I would compare videos to processed foods and reading as raw food. Once in a while it is okay to innovate other people’s ideas and conclusions but watching videos too much will make people feel as if they are the ones constructing these ideas and coming to these conclusions. That can turn into a false sense of knowing. I hope you don’t see this as criticism, it’s only an observation.

[reallycoolgal]

The content of a work is as important as the form. Indeed, they are mutually constitutive. So, yes, you should still read Kant and Hegel. I once had a friend who read sparknotes of classics rather than classics themselves. I think this largely misses the point. Books are more than plot points. Reading slowly produces more thought (at least for me). Stopping and thinking has 2 steps. Stopping. And thinking. Stopping is the first step. If we don't give ourselves this time to sit with the ideas, we're only going to have a cursory knowledge, something you pointed to in this vid. That being said, you risk wasting a lot of time misinterpreting people like Kant and Hegel if you read them by yourself. Luckily there are plenty of online lectures to read along with nowadays. So if you really want to grasp what those guys are saying, even as a lay man, you totally can.

[paulwalther]

I had a friend like that too growing up. He had a very high IQ about 145 or so. I'm not sure what mine is, I think maybe 115 or 120. I liked to read and he didn't. I didn't know he wasn't a reader though for a while because we would talk about books like the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Later he admitted that he had never read these books but was just going off what he had heard said about them. It blew my mind. I think on one hand someone with a high IQ like that is just going to absorb random information and be interesting to talk to more than someone who's more average even if well read. At least that was one take away that I had. But also, just like in Good Will Hunting, Matt Damon's character might be extremely knowledgeable about a variety of subjects but as Robin Williams says, it's just not the same as actually experiencing it. For your own development and benefit you may want to struggle through difficult literature. On the other hand, at least for talking to people and just being able to converse on a variety of topics, a superficial overview is good enough. But how much would you enjoy the conversation if you're talking about books you haven't really read but only read summaries or heard other people talk about? I think you enjoyed your conversation at McDonalds more than your friend did. I might be wrong though.

[TwistedMisconception]

Reading the original materials is something I often *want* to do. I struggled through Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf - the stream of consciousness prose style was so different from anything I’d ever read, it took me months to get through it. It is not a long book, but it was a chore to get through. However at the end I found that the more I read it, the easier I understood what Woolf was doing, and it is now one of my favourite books with a masterful use of atmosphere to elicit emotions from the reader. Reading tough books is a thoroughly rewarding process, and as much as I could read a summary or watch a review video about it, reading the book myself has given me a personal experience with what the writer has created, a highly specific artistic experience that is probably very different from someone else’s.

[uptown]

There is a line in The West Wing which addresses the difference between surface learning and deep learning about the great ideas. To paraphrase slightly: These are important thinkers, and understanding them can be very useful. And it's not ever going to happen at a four-hour seminar. When you're making a tough decision, I don't know if you're thinking about Immanuel Kant or not--I doubt it--but if you are, I am comforted to know at least you're doing your best to reach for all of it, and not just the McNuggets.

Do your best to grapple with the great thinkers, and may you ever strive to reach for all they offer you. Don't settle for less.

[ZombieProdigyUS]

From my experience, you can get VERY educated in many areas on YouTube via lectures, documentaries, debates, etc. You may get 85% there on everything you need to know, and you will definitely get better overviews than books, but that remaining say 15%, you have to venture out to find articles, journals, books, forum posts, etc.

So I'd say people should start with places like YouTube, go all out on it, but eventually youll hit a point where the area of interests you enjoy in a particular subject both plateau & are more refined to the point that they *likely* have to be found outside media like YouTube, but not always.

Interesting discussion! :)

[elenasopi]

When I read Plato's Allegory of the Cave it was one of the best experiences ever when I truly understood what was he trying to say.

[Vanessa-wdig]

Your thoughts here are very interesting and I hadn't thought of it that way before.
Just to add to the discussion, coming from watching YouTube to reading more books recently: Watching videos seems to be a more passive method of receiving information while reading is much more activd. Having learned Japanese, I started with listening, which was very passive, and I could get a sense of the language. However, it wasn't until read that there was a much more active learning process. This was where I really deepened my knowledge of the language instead of only being fluent in basic conversation.

On a side note, I could almost compare the differences between the two as to what movies/tv shows are to video games. They are two different mediums of experiencing the same the thing in different ways. One being passive while the other moreso active. I would say there is a greater depth to the story told in the video game than in a movie due to the active participation on the part of the player.

[MCJSA]

"Is it necessary for laypeople to understand the subtleties of arguments?" This depends on how deeply you need to go to achieve whatever goal you have set for yourself. For some purposes, the 'snapshot' might be enough - and certainly it is as a beginning point. Yet, the more your interest deepens, the more deeply you will go. The depth you achieve is probably not the result of a deliberate plan, but an efflorescence of interest that takes you there, like the road not taken. To do this, we probably need some humility at the beginning, to be willing to go where a path leads, and to abandon it without remorse.

[alexandria]

Another benefit of firsthand accounts is that in writing (or any other form of communication) we’re trying to translate between our minds and those of others. Every time that is translated again, a little, or a lot is lost from the original. Sure, there are the one-liners and bullet points you can derive, but then you lose even more of the subtlety and complexity which gave the thing so much meaning and beauty in the first place.

[Fuliginosus]

I get all of my philosophy from Facebook memes.

[KommentarSpaltenKrieger]

Yes, this is definitely one way. Another one is to read a book slowly, but thorougly. Most of these classics have way more content than one can digest during one reading. It is not enough to skim them once.