Sunday, October 28, 2018

中西文化經典

最近看了胡適,梁啟超的國學書單與哈佛大學,芝加哥大學校長所擬的西方經典書單,書單都擬的很好,但這些對我都太多了,實在沒有那麼多時間閱讀消化,我有需要從書單中再挑選。書不在多,有通則靈。能夠深入去消化幾本書,比讀一大堆書卻沒有好好咀嚼消化要來得強。其實哲學文學與歷史,中西都各選五六家,這樣就可以了。書目太龐大,也不切實際,不如先從小的書單開始。我把通史概論也列上,通史概論的目的是為求整體的了解,免得見樹不見林。科學要讀經典嗎? 大學教科書也許還比較能反映整體科學的進展,也比較容易理解。免費的OpenStax大學教科書其實寫得很好,有了這個基礎再去讀一些原著,或許更能抓住科學史上重要的原創者的思路。

中國文化
哲學: 中國哲學史,四書,老子,莊子,朱熹,王陽明
文學: 中國文學史,詩經,楚辭,唐詩,古文觀止,紅樓夢
歷史與社會: 中國通史
科學:  中國科技史

我有點猶豫是不是要列中國的科技在書單中。從傳統儒家的價值觀來說,這是次要的選項。傳統的國學書單也不會列科學這一項,他只是諸子裡的雜家,中國有沒有科學都是一個問號,但無疑地中國是一個有技術的文明。李約瑟能從今日科學的眼光把中國科技史整理出來,實在貢獻很大,特別這是傳統儒家不太重視的部分,但對今日中國而言卻是極具時代意義。夢溪筆談,天工開物說明宋明時代中國物質文明的進步。天工開物在清朝甚至被列為禁書,以致於在中國幾乎是失傳了,流落國外,卻被日本人,歐洲人當作是寶的中國科技百科全書。這是中國民間科技的總匯,天工開物可以讓我們看到農業社會中各行各業的生活素描。中國科技是屬於民間的技藝,中國文人缺乏系統性的科學思想。西方一開始亞里斯多德就有一套完整的自然哲學。亞里斯多德的自然哲學雖然很多結論被後人推翻,但他提供了一個理性思想的架構,成為後世科學思想繼續探究自然的基石。亞里斯多德的自然哲學可以說已經被自然科學取代了,但亞里斯多德的自然哲學在歷史上卻是自然科學思想的起始點。中國雖有陰陽五行的自然哲學,但陰陽五行是一個預設性結論,要求把所有事物都簡單地塞進陰陽五行的宇宙論架構,甚麼東西最後都可以歸納出陰陽五行的結構,這是中國人用陰陽五行來解釋宇宙的自然哲學。朱熹的格物,也沒有真的能格出甚麼物理學,這也不是他的目的。陰陽五行最後的重點還是在天人相應,人事要反映天道的循環變化。運用陰陽五行在醫學的黃帝內經至今還是中醫的理論根據,而至今中醫還是有其實用性。陰陽五行也還是宋明理學的出發點。我們今日如何看待陰陽五行是一個大問題,陰陽五行現代還有意義嗎? 還是他就只是一種歷史的遺物? 陰陽五行其實是一種對稱性與循環性思維,日月星辰的運行與春夏秋冬的循環是一種天文的對稱與循環,而對稱之中還有一個中央的平衡點,這是陰陽五行的原始構想,農作,工商業,人體,政治都有季節性。論及對稱性,那可是現代物理學上一個極為重要的大觀念。我們可能由對稱性把陰陽五行觀念賦予現代的詮釋嗎? 這種對稱性思考可以擴大延伸到各個領域嗎?  哲學,科學,歷史與社會,文藝? 將陰陽五行套用在各種事物是宋明理學所要講的萬物之理嗎? 萬事萬物都有一理,是不是就是將陰陽五行之理的映射在萬事萬物,所謂理一分殊。這既不是演繹法,也不是歸納法,這是投射法。一理統萬物,這是一幅季節循環的宇宙圖像。這也反映出在農業社會中,按季節循環行事的重要性。但今天其實氣候仍是我們人類生活的大因子。陰陽五行也可以說根源於一種季節性的思考,一年日復一年的節奏。把陰陽五行投射到文藝,就形成春天的文藝,夏天的文藝,秋天的文藝,冬天的文藝。像紅樓夢就穿插了許多春夏秋冬的節日,而整個紅樓夢的人生也如春夏秋冬,人生有一個季節性,有興起,有沒落,這是一個光陰的故事。把陰陽五行投射到歷史,就是朝代或文明興衰的循環史觀,如湯恩比的歷史研究。把陰陽五行投射到政治,就是周禮的六宮,天地春夏秋冬。國父的五權憲法也是基於分工與平衡,行政為中央,立法與司法對稱,這是法律的平衡,考試與監察對稱,這是人事的平衡。使中央的行政院,能以對稱與平衡的中庸之道執行政務。對稱與平衡也是西方三權分立的原則。大中至正,講究對稱與平衡是一種美學原則,也是倫理原則,也是政治原則,這也出現在儒家,亞里斯多德,多瑪斯的古典主義哲學。對稱與平衡是空間結構靜力學,這是指相輔相成的構成元素,興衰與循環是時間發展動力學。這是指從潛能到實現的生長發展過程,還有事物的凋零與結束的過程,春重規劃,夏重發展,秋重維持,冬重檢討。以民國史為例,三民主義與五權憲法是民國政治的核心價值與基本架構,革命建國,北伐統一,對日抗戰,國共內戰就是民國的春夏秋冬四個階段。每個朝代的興衰都有它的轉折點。這就是讀歷史的時候需要去探討的。寫到這裡,好像陰陽五行也有它的意義,但是陰陽五行最常代表的金木水火土有甚麼意義呢? 我目前看不出來,這是一種原始的元素論,這應該被週期表取代了吧。


西文化
哲學與神學: 西哲學史,聖經,柏拉圖,亞里斯多德,多瑪斯,加爾文,康德
文學:             西文學史,荷馬,莎士比亞,歌德,托爾斯泰,杜斯妥也夫斯基
歷史與社會: 西洋通史,君王論,國富論,洛克,盧騷,孟德斯鳩,美國的民主
科學:             微積分,物理,化學,生物,牛頓,達爾文

以中國文化傳統為根,然後盡量地去吸取西洋文化傳統為養分,來使中國文化繼續成長與茁壯。我想這也是談中華文化復興應有的基本立場。無論是去中國化或反傳統或反西方其實都是是文化上的自殺。中華文化有其豐富的內涵,不要丟棄中華文化的傳統,不需妄自菲薄,但也不要驕傲自大, 不要有民族排外反西方的思想因為我們實在還有太多好學的。簡而言之,中國文化求德,西方文化求智,中西兼修,德智並重。中西文化都是人類的精神遺產。

不過我現在先專注朱熹與亞里斯多德就好了,他們是中國文化與西方文化集大成的代表性人物。戰略需宏遠,戰術需集中焦點。真要研究,要深入一家都已經不是容易的事。

Friday, October 26, 2018

最低限度之必讀書目 梁啟超

講到國學經典書單,不能不提梁啟超的書單。我只提他的書單的附錄。因為他的書單實在太長了。可是他的附錄,最低限度之必讀書目,也是很長。胡適的國學書單的長度,那就更別提了。但是胡適最重視的白話小說,梁啟超可是不客氣全省了,大概在他看來這些都只是消遣休閒的作品。
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附錄 最低限度之必讀書目 梁啟超
上所列五項,倘能依法讀之,則國學根柢略立,可以為將來大成之基矣。惟青年學生校課既繁,所治專門別有在,恐仍不能人人按表而讀。

今再為擬一真正之最低限度如下:


  • 《四書》
  • 《易經》
  • 《書經》
  • 《詩經》
  • 《禮記》
  • 《左傳》

  • 《老子》
  • 《墨子》
  • 《庄子》
  • 《荀子》
  • 《韓非子》

  • 《戰國策》
  • 《史記》
  • 《漢書》
  • 《后漢書》
  • 《三國志》
  • 《資治通鑒》(或《通鑒紀事本末》)
  • 《宋元明史紀事本末》

  • 《楚辭》
  • 《文選》
  • 《李太白集》
  • 《杜工部集》
  • 《韓昌黎集》
  • 《柳河東集》
  • 《白香山集》。
  • 其他詞曲集,隨所好選讀數種。

以上各書,無論學礦、學工程,皆須一讀,若並此未讀,真不能認為中國學人矣。
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這是梁啟超當年所謂的最低限度之必讀書目,說實在的,今天大概只有中文系的學生才讀得了這些書。我自己有一個比較小的書單,對我這比較實際一點。

經: 四書,詩經
史: 史紀
子: 老子,莊子,朱熹,王陽明
集: 楚辭,古文觀止,唐詩三百首,紅樓夢




Thursday, October 25, 2018

哈佛經典叢書(Harvard Classics)

1909出版51卷的《哈佛經典》 和1952出版54卷的《西方世界偉大著作》 類似,內容有些重疊,但哈佛經典已經翻成中文了,所以中文讀者可以先讀這套書。在Amazon下載這套電子書也不過就一塊錢,但它的價值遠遠超過這些。哈佛的校長Dr. Eliot 認為人文教育可以通過每天花十五分鐘閱讀經典獲得。這真是鼓舞人心的說法,我想這是每個有心人都可以做得到的,這是自修的人文教育。大學教育有老師的授課與同學的討論,有其價值。但大學之外的人文教育是可以持續終身的自我訓練,這是更可貴的價值。他把小說放在第二套經典叢書《哈佛文學經典》。其實Dr. Eliot當年並不是為大學教育設計《哈佛經典》,而是為沒有機會上大學的大眾也能自修大學的人文教育而設計的。這是一個偉大的構想。半個世紀後大英百科出版的《西方世界偉大著作》應該也受到《哈佛經典》的啟發。但我覺得《西方世界偉大著作》選的書更具有代表性,《哈佛經典》居然漏掉亞里斯多德與多瑪斯,沒有亞里斯多德,感覺希臘文化就少了一半,沒有多瑪斯,天主教也少了一半。這好像國學經典沒有孟子,沒有朱熹。《哈佛經典》好像刻意貶低士林哲學的價值,而相反地《西方世界偉大著作》的主編阿德勒本身就是多瑪斯主義哲學家,這也許是兩套書的哲學最大不同點。《 哈佛經典講座》是《哈佛經典》的最後一卷書,這卷書導引讀者進入各類主題。這一卷書是西方文化的導論,寫得非常好,這是一份尋寶的地圖。先把導論讀好,讓師父引進門。就如同編者所介紹的如下。

英文的在網路上就有 Harvard Classics

這個系列講座 更多地 為有抱負、 有志氣的青年們打開了一個 收藏 文獻資料的寶庫—— 這些 青年 們 在 早年 時為了增加 家庭收入, 或者為了供養自己, 因生活所迫中斷了自己的教育; 也為“ 那些多年來必須通過 堅持 每天愉快地 花 幾分鍾時間來閱讀 優秀的文學作品以使 得 自己成為 有教養 人士 的 人” 打 開了一扇通往寶庫的大門。 本系列作品還將幫助眾多 的讀者培養“對 高品質的嚴肅讀物的閱讀品位”—— 我在制作這個 系列作品 時 就考慮到教育目標的 完成。

查 爾 斯· W. 艾 略 特


《哈佛經典》 為 普通讀者提供了一座巨大的知識寶庫, 囊括人類智力活動所有主要領域的典範 作品。 如今《 哈佛經典講座》打開了通向這座寶庫的大門。 通過《 哈佛經典講座》, 讀者在名師的引領指導下,被領入範圍廣泛的各種課題。這個系列作品, 包括其介紹、 註釋、閱讀指南,以及詳盡的索引,與講座 一起,構成了一個在綜合性與權威性方面前所未有的閱讀課程。 威廉· 艾倫· 尼 爾 森

《 哈佛經典講座》目錄
  1. 历史篇 总论 古代 历史 文艺复兴 法国大革命 美国领土的扩张 
  2. 诗歌篇 概述 《荷马史诗》 但丁 约翰· 弥尔顿的诗歌 英国诗集 
  3. 自然科学篇 简介 天文学 物理学 和 化学 生物 科学 凯尔 文论“ 光与潮汐” 
  4. 哲学篇 总论 苏格拉底、 柏拉图与罗马斯多噶学派 现代哲学的兴起 康德导论 爱 默 生 
  5. 传记篇 概述 普卢塔克 本韦努托· 切利尼 富兰克林 和 伍尔曼 约翰· 斯图尔特· 密尔 
  6. 小说篇 总论 大众 小说 马洛礼 塞万提斯 曼佐尼 
  7. 批评与随笔 篇 总论 中世纪读什么 诗歌理论 德国的美学批评 文学批评的构成 
  8. 教育篇 总论 弗 兰 西 斯· 培根 洛克与弥尔顿 卡莱尔与纽 曼 赫胥黎论科学与文化 
  9. 经济与政治篇 总论 文艺复兴时期的政府理论 亚当· 斯 密与《 国富论》 美国宪法的发展 法律与自由 
  10. 戏剧篇 总论 希腊 悲剧 伊丽莎白时期的戏剧 浮士德的传说 现代英国戏剧 
  11. 航行与探险篇 简介 希罗多德与埃及 伊丽莎白时代的冒险家 发现的时代 达尔文 贝格尔 号之旅 

哈佛經典

維基百科,自由的百科全書
哈佛經典(Harvard Classics)是一套五十一卷本的經典圖書匯集,起源於哈佛大學第二任校長查爾斯·愛略特的「五英尺書架」(Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf),於1909年出版第一版。
艾略特在一次演講中說,人文教育可以通過每天花十五分鐘閱讀可以放在五英尺書架上的經典圖書獲得(最初的說法是三英尺)。出版商P. F. Collier and Son看到了機會並且請艾略特選擇應該包含的圖書,「哈佛經典」就是這件事情的結果。

書目

NEW YORK: P.F. COLLIER & SON, 1909–1917
  • 第1卷
    • His Autobiography, by Benjamin Franklin
    • 《富蘭克林自傳》 [美]班傑明·富蘭克林/著
    • Journal, by John Woolman
    • 《喬治·沃爾曼日記》[美] 喬治·沃爾曼/著
    • Fruits of Solitude, by William Penn
    • 《痛思錄》[美]威廉·配恩/著

  • 第2卷
    • The Apology, Phado and Crito of Plato
    • 《柏拉圖對話錄:辯解篇、菲多篇、克利多篇》[希臘]柏拉圖/著
    • The Golden Sayings of Epictetus
    • 《愛比克泰德金言錄》[希臘] 愛比克泰德/著
    • The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
    • 《沉思錄》 [羅馬] 馬庫思·奧勒留/著

  • 第3卷
    • Essays, Civil and Moral & The New Atlantis, by Francis Bacon
    • 培根論說文集及新阿特蘭蒂斯 [英]弗蘭西斯·培根/著
    • Areopagitica & Tractate on Education, by John Milton
    • 米爾頓論出版自由與教育 [英]約翰·米爾頓/著
    • Religio Medici, by Sir Thomas Browne
    • 虔誠的醫生 [英]托馬斯·布朗爵士

  • 第4卷
    • Complete Poems Written in English, by John Milton
    • 約翰·米爾頓英文詩全集 [英]約翰·米爾頓/著
  • 第5卷
    • Essays and English Traits, by Ralph Waldo Emerson
    • 《愛默生文集》[美]拉夫·沃爾多·愛默生/著
  • 第6卷
    • Poems and Songs, by Robert Burns
    • 《伯恩斯詩歌集》 [蘇格蘭]羅伯特·伯恩斯/著

  • 第7卷
    • The Confessions of Saint Augustine
    • 《懺悔錄》聖奧古斯丁/著
    • The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas à Kempis
    • 《效法基督》托瑪斯·坎皮斯/著

  • 第8卷
    • Agamemnon, The Libation-Bearers, The Furies & Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus
    • Oedipus the King & Antigone of Sophocles
    • Hippolytus & The Baccha of Euripides
    • The Frogs of Aristophanes
    • 《希臘戲劇》埃斯庫羅斯、索福克勒斯、尤里皮德斯、阿里斯托芬/著
  • 第9卷
    • On Friendship, On Old Age & Letters, by Cicero
    • 《論友誼、論老年及書信集》[羅馬]西塞羅/著
    • Letters, by Pliny the Younger
    • 《書信集》[羅馬](小)普林尼/著
  • 第10卷
    • Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith
    • 《國富論》[英]亞當·斯密/著
  • 第11卷
    • The Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin
    • 《物種起源論》[英]查爾斯·達爾文/著
  • 第12卷
    • Lives, by Plutarch
    • 《比較列傳》[希臘]普盧塔克/著
  • 第13卷
    • AEneid, by Vergil
    • 《伊尼亞德》[羅馬]維吉爾/著
  • 第14卷
    • Don Quixote, Part 1, by Cervantes
    • 《唐吉珂德》[西班牙]塞萬提斯/著
  • 第15卷
    • The Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan
    • 《天路歷程》[英]班揚/著
    • The Lives of Donne and Herbert, by Izaak Walton
    • 《多恩與赫伯特生平》 [英]艾薩克·沃頓/著
  • 第16卷
    • Stories from the Thousand and One Nights
    • 《天方夜譚》[英]愛德華·威廉·蘭訥/譯
  • 第17卷
    • Fables, by Aesop
    • Household Tales, by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
    • Tales, by Hans Christian Andersen
    • 《民間傳說與寓言》伊索、格林、安徒生/著
  • 第18卷
    • All for Love, by John Dryden
    • The School for Scandal, by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
    • She Stoops to Conquer, by Oliver Goldsmith
    • The Cenci, by Percy Bysshe Shelley
    • A Blot in the 『Scutcheon, by Robert Browning
    • Manfred, by Lord Byron
    • 《英國現代戲劇》 [英]德萊頓;謝里丹;歌德史密斯;雪萊;勃郎寧;拜倫
  • 第19卷
    • Faust, Part I, Egmont & Hermann and Dorothea, by J.W. von Goethe
    • 《浮士德(第一幕)》 [德]歌德/著
    • Dr. Faustus, by Christopher Marlowe
    • 《浮士德博士》 [英] 克里思托福·馬洛/著
  • 第20卷
    • The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri
    • 《神曲》[意]但丁/著
  • 第21卷
    • I Promessi Sposi, by Alessandro Manzoni
    • 《許婚的愛人》[意]曼佐尼/著
  • 第22卷
    • The Odyssey of Homer
    • 《奧德賽》[希臘]荷馬/著
  • 第23卷
    • Two Years before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana, Jr.
    • 《兩年水手生涯》[美](小)達納/著

  • 第24卷
    • On Taste, On the Sublime and Beautiful, Reflections on the French Revolution & A Letter to a Noble Lord, by Edmund Burke
    • 《伯克文集》 [英]愛德蒙·伯克/著

  • 第25卷
    • Autobiography & On Liberty, by John Stuart Mill
    • 《穆勒文集》約翰·斯圖亞特·穆勒/著
    • Characteristics, Inaugural Address at Edinburgh & Sir Walter Scott, by Thomas Carlyle
    • 《卡萊爾文集》托馬斯·卡萊爾/著

  • 第26卷
    • Life Is a Dream, by Pedro Calderón de la Barca
    • Polyeucte, by Pierre Corneille
    • Phadra, by Jean Racine
    • Tartuffe, by Molière
    • Minna von Barnhelm, by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
    • Wilhelm Tell, by Friedrich von Schiller
    • 《歐洲大陸戲劇》卡爾德隆;高乃依;拉辛;莫里哀;萊辛;席勒/著
  • 第27卷
    • English Essays: Sidney to Macaulay
    • 《英國名家隨筆》菲利浦·錫德尼;本·簡森;亞伯拉罕·考利;約瑟夫·愛迪生;里查德·斯迪爾;斯威夫特;丹尼爾·笛福;塞繆爾·詹森;休謨;西尼·史密斯;柯勒律治;威廉·哈茲利特;韓特;蘭姆;德·昆西;雪萊;馬庫萊
  • 第28卷
    • Essays: English and American
    • 《英國與美國名家隨筆》薩克雷;紐曼;阿諾德;羅斯金;白芝皓;赫胥黎;佛里曼;斯蒂文森;錢寧;愛倫。坡;梭羅;洛威爾
  • 第29卷
    • The Voyage of the Beagle, by Charles Darwin
    • 《比格爾號上的旅行》 [英] 查爾·達爾文/著
  • 第30卷
    • Scientific Papers
    • 《科學論文集:物理學,化學;天文學;地質學》法拉第;赫姆霍爾茲;湯姆森;紐科姆;蓋基/著
  • 第31卷
    • The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini
    • 《契里尼自傳》[意]本維努托·契里尼/著
  • 第32卷
    • Literary and Philosophical Essays
    • 《文學和哲學名家隨筆》(法國、德國、義大利卷)蒙田;布沃;勒南;拉辛;席勒;康德;馬志尼;拜倫;歌德/著
  • 第33卷
    • Voyages and Travels: Ancient and Modern
    • 《古代和現代著名航海與旅行記》希羅多德;德雷克;吉爾伯特;雷利/著
  • 第34卷
    • Discourse on Method, by René Descartes
    • Letters on the English, by Voltaire
    • On the Inequality among Mankind & Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar, by Jean Jacques Rousseau
    • Of Man, Being the First Part of Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes
    • 《法國和英國著名哲學家》笛卡爾;伏爾泰;盧騷;霍布斯/著
  • 第35卷
    • The Chronicles of Jean Froissart
    • The Holy Grail, by Sir Thomas Malory
    • A Description of Elizabethan England, by William Harrison
    • 《見聞與傳奇》傅華薩;馬洛尼;哈里森/著
  • 第36卷
    • The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli
    • 《君王論》馬基雅維利/著
    • The Life of Sir Thomas More, by William Roper
《托馬斯.莫爾傳記》威廉.羅珀/著
    • Utopia, by Sir Thomas More
    • 《烏托邦》托馬斯·莫爾/著
    • The Ninety-Five Thesis, Address to the Christian Nobility & Concerning Christian Liberty, by Martin Luther
    • 《馬丁·路德論文和演講集》馬丁·路德/著

  • 第37卷
    • Some Thoughts Concerning Education, by John Locke
    • Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists, by George Berkeley
    • An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, by David Hume
    • 《17、18世紀英國著名哲學家》洛克;伯克利;休謨/著

  • 第38卷
    • The Oath of Hippocrates
    • Journeys in Diverse Places, by Ambroise Paré
    • On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals, by William Harvey
    • The Three Original Publications on Vaccination Against Smallpox, by Edward Jenner
    • The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever, by Oliver Wendell Holmes
    • On the Antiseptic Principle of the Practice of Surgery, by Joseph Lister
    • Scientific Papers, by Louis Pasteur
    • Scientific Papers, by Charles Lyell
    • 《科學論文集:物理學、醫學、外科學和地質學》帕雷;哈維;詹納;霍姆斯;利斯特;巴斯德;賴爾/著

  • 第39卷
    • Prefaces and Prologues
    • 《名著之前言與序言》卡克斯頓;喀爾文;哥白尼;諾克斯;斯賓塞;萊利;培根;

  • 第40卷
    • English Poetry I: Chaucer to Gray
    • 英文詩集(卷I):從喬叟到格雷

  • 第41卷
    • English Poetry II: Collins to Fitzgerald
    • 英文詩集(卷II):從科林斯到費茲傑拉德

  • 第42卷
    • English Poetry II: Collins to Fitzgerald
    • 英文詩集(卷III):從丁尼生到惠特曼

  • 第43卷
    • American Historical Documents: 1000-1904
    • 美國歷史文件:1000-1904

  • 第44卷
    • Confucian: The Sayings of Confucius
    • Hebrew: Job, Psalms & Ecclesiastes
    • Christian I: Luke & Acts
    • 聖書(卷一):孔子;希伯來書;基督聖經(I)

  • 第45卷
    • Christian II: Corinthians I & II & Hymns
    • Buddhist: Writings
    • Hindu: The Bhagavad-Gita
    • Mohammedan: Chapters from the Koran
    • 聖書(卷二):基督聖經(II);佛陀;印度教;穆罕默德

  • 第46卷
    • Edward the Second, by Christopher Marlowe
    • Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth & The Tempest, by William Shakespeare
    • 伊利莎白時期戲劇(卷I):愛德華二世馬洛/著; 哈姆雷特,利爾王,麥克白,暴風驟雨 莎士比亞/著

  • 第47卷
    • The Shoemaker’s Holiday, by Thomas Dekker
    • The Alchemist, by Ben Jonson
    • Philaster, by Beaumont and Fletcher
    • The Duchess of Malfi, by John Webster
    • A New Way to Pay Old Debts, by Philip Massinger
    • 伊利莎白時期戲劇(卷II):德克;詹森;博蒙特;佛萊徹;韋伯斯特;馬辛加/著
  • 第48卷
    • Thoughts, Letters & Minor Works, by Blaise Pascal
    • 帕斯卡文集帕斯卡/著
  • 第49卷
    • Epic & Saga: Beowulf, The Song of Roland, The Destruction of Dá Derga’s Hostel & The Story of the Volsungs and Niblungs
    • 史詩與傳說
    • 貝奧武甫
    • 羅蘭之歌
    • 韃德嘎旅店的毀滅
    • 沃爾松和尼貝龍根之歌
  • 第50卷
    • Lectures on the Harvard Classics
    • 哈佛經典講座

The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction[編輯]

The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction was selected by Charles W. Eliot, LLD (1834-1926), with notes and introductions by William Allan Neilson. It also features an index to Criticisms and Interpretations.
  • Vols. 1 & 2: The History of Tom Jones, by Henry Fielding
  • Vols. 1 & 2: 《湯姆·瓊斯》, 亨利·菲爾丁
  • Vol. 3: A Sentimental Journey, by Laurence Sterne; Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
  • Vol. 3: 《一縷芳魂》,勞倫斯·斯特恩;《傲慢與偏見》,簡·奧斯汀
  • Vol. 4: Guy Mannering, by Sir Walter Scott
  • Vol. 4: 《蓋伊·曼納林》,沃爾特·司各特
  • Vol. 5 & 6: Vanity Fair, by William Makepeace Thackeray
  • Vol. 5 & 6: 《名利場》,薩克雷
  • Vols. 7 & 8: David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens
  • Vols. 7 & 8:《大衛·科波維爾》,查爾斯·狄更斯
  • Vol. 9: The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot
  • Vol. 9: 《弗洛斯河上的磨坊》,喬治. 艾略特
  • Vol. 10: The Scarlet Letter & Rappaccini's Daughter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne; Rip Van Winkle & The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington Irving; Three Short Stories, by Edgar Allan Poe; Three Short Stories, by Francis Bret Harte; Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog, by Samuel L. Clemens; The Man Without a Country, by Edward Everett Hale
  • Vol. 10: 《紅字》& 《拉帕帕齊尼醫生的女兒》,納撒尼爾·霍桑;《李伯大夢》 & 《沉睡谷傳奇》,華盛頓·歐文;三則短篇小說,埃德加·愛倫·坡;三則短篇小說,布雷·哈特;《吉姆•斯邁利和他的跳蛙》,薩慕爾·克萊門斯(馬克·吐溫);《無國之人》,愛德華·埃弗雷特·希爾
  • Vol. 11: The Portrait of a Lady, by Henry James
  • Vol. 11: 《貴婦的肖像》,亨利·詹姆斯
  • Vol. 12: Notre Dame de Paris, by Victor Marie Hugo
  • Vol. 12: 《巴黎聖母院》,維克多·馬里·雨果
  • Vol. 13: Old Goriot, by Honoré de Balzac; The Devil's Pool, by George Sand; The Story of a White Blackbird, by Alfred de Musset; Five Short Stories, by Alphonse Daudet; Two Short Stories, by Guy de Maupassant
  • Vol. 13: 《高老頭》,奧諾雷·德·巴爾扎克;《魔沼》,喬治·桑;《一隻白色黑鳥的故事》,阿爾弗萊·德·繆塞;五則短篇小說,阿爾封斯·都德;兩則短篇小說,居伊.德.莫泊桑
  • Vols. 14 & 15: Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship & The Sorrows of Werther, by J. W. von Goethe; The Banner of the Upright Seven, by Gottfried Keller; The Rider on the White Horse, by Theodor Storm; Trials and Tribulations, by Theodor Fontane
  • Vols. 14 & 15: 《威廉·邁斯特》 & 《少年維特的煩惱》,約翰·沃爾夫岡·馮·歌德;《七個傳說》,高特費里特·凱勒;《白馬騎士》,特奧多·施托姆;,《審判與磨難》,台奧多爾·馮塔納
  • Vols. 16 & 17: Anna Karenina & Ivan the Fool, by Leo Tolstoy
  • Vols. 16 & 17: 《安娜·卡列尼娜》 & 《傻瓜伊萬》,列夫·托爾斯泰
  • Vol. 18: Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  • Vol. 18: 《罪與罰》,費奧多爾·陀思妥耶夫斯基
  • Vol. 19: A House of Gentlefolk & Fathers and Children, by Ivan Turgenev
  • Vol. 19: 《貴族之家》 & 《父與子》,伊萬·屠格涅夫
  • Vol. 20: Pepita Jimenez, by Juan Valera; A Happy Boy, by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson; Skipper Worse, by Alexander L. Kielland
  • Vol. 20: 《佩皮塔·希門尼斯》,胡安·巴雷拉;《快樂男孩》,比昂斯滕·比昂松;《Skipper Worse》亞力克山德·基蘭德






"On or about December, 1910," Virginia Woolf wrote, "human character changed." Woolf was not referring to a specific event so much as to a new cultural climate, a new way of looking at the world, that would become known as modernism. When he finished his introduction to the Harvard Classics in March of that same year, Charles William Eliot could hardly have guessed that such a change was just over the horizon. Yet it is tempting to think that his "five-foot shelf" of books, chosen as a record of the "progress of man...from the earliest historical times to the close of the nineteenth century," was meant as a time capsule from that era just about to end. In 50 volumes
we have a record of what President Eliot's America, and his Harvard, thought best in their own heritage--a monument from a more humane and confident time. It is surprisingly easy, even today, to find a complete set of the Harvard Classics in good condition. At least one is usually for sale on eBay, the Internet auction site, for $300 or so, a bargain at $6 a book. The supply, from attics or private libraries around the country, seems endless--a tribute to the success of the publisher, P.F. Collier, who sold some 350,000 sets within 20 years of the series' initial publication.
In fact, though the series bears the Harvard name, it was a commercial enterprise from the beginning. In February 1909, Eliot was preparing to retire from the presidency of Harvard after 40 years. Two editors from Collier, Norman Hapgood and William Patten, had read a speech Eliot delivered to an audience of working men, in which he declared that a five-foot shelf of books could provide "a good substitute for a liberal education in youth to anyone who would read them with devotion, even if he could spare but fifteen minutes a day for reading." Now they approached Eliot with a proposition: he would pick the titles to fill up that shelf, and Collier would publish them as a series.
At their very first interview, Hapgood and Patten convinced Eliot to say yes. He enlisted professor of English William A. Neilson, later the president of Smith College, to act as his assistant, and secured the approval of the Board of Overseers for the series' name. Eliot and Neilson worked for a year, the former deciding "what should be included, and what should be excluded," while the latter was responsible for "introductions and notes" and the "choice among different editions of the same work." By the time publication began, in 1910, Eliot's celebrity had turned the series into a media event, and earned Collier valuable free publicity. The question of what the series should include and exclude called forth articles and letters to the editor across the country.
In his introduction to the series, dated March 10, 1910, Eliot made it clear that the Harvard Classics were intended not as a museum display-case of the "world's best books," but as a portable university. While the volumes are numbered in no particular order, he suggested that they could be approached as a set of six courses: "The History of Civilization," "Religion and Philosophy," "Education," "Science," "Politics," and "Criticism of Literature and the Fine Arts." But in a more profound sense, the lesson taught by the Harvard Classics is "Progress"--progress in each of these departments and in the moral quality of the human race as a whole. Eliot's introduction expresses complete faith in the "intermittent and irregular progress from barbarism to civilization," "the upward tendency of the human race."
Eliot's life was spent in the cultivation of that tendency. He built up Harvard into one of the world's great universities, vastly expanded its student body, course offerings, and faculty, and became a sort of public oracle on questions of education. He was one of the most effective evangelists for what the Victorian poet and critic Matthew Arnold called "sweetness and light." Samuel Eliot Morison, in Three Centuries of Harvard, describes Eliot as a representative of "the best of his age--that forward-looking half-century before the World War, when democracy seemed capable of putting all crooked ways straight--the age of reason and of action, of accomplishment and of hope."
But already in 1936, when Morison wrote, Eliot's variety of optimism seemed sadly obsolete. Today we are proudly alert to the blind spots in Victorian notions of culture and progress. Three thinkers whose names appear nowhere in the Harvard Classics--Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud--have taught us a new, more suspicious kind of reading, in which an author's motives are to be questioned, probed, overturned.
The Classics, in particular, cry out for such questioning. The series is authorless--there is only an editor, conducting his chorus of texts. Yet the way those texts are selected and arranged speaks volumes--literally. To take an obvious example, the total exclusion of female authors would be impossible today; at the time, it would hardly have been noticed. But the series' more profound limitations can be found in its treatment of science, philosophy, and literature--the most interesting and substantial of Eliot's six "courses." In these areas, the Harvard Classics serve as an index to just how much the world really has changed since 1910.

Perhaps the most consequential difference between Eliot's time and our own has to do with science, a subject dear to Eliot, a chemist at MIT when he was called to the presidency of Harvard. In his inaugural lecture, he adamantly refused to make any choice between "mathematics or classics, science or metaphysics," and the series follows the same precept. It contains no textbooks; rather, in keeping with his policy of using unabridged original texts, Eliot included treatises in which major scientific discoveries were announced--Harvey on the circulation of the blood, Pasteur on the germ theory--or educational works by genuine scientists, like Faraday's The Forces of Matter. With laudable if excessive enthusiasm, Eliot gave two of his 50 volumes to Darwin, for The Origin of Species and The Voyage of the Beagle. And the volume of "Famous Prefaces" contains the forewords to Copernicus's Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies and Newton's Principia Mathematica.
Clearly, this is not a basis for a complete scientific education, nor was it intended to be. The Classics provide something smaller but rarer--a humanistic appreciation of science. They bring to life a period when science was still, in William Harvey's phrase, a "department of the republic of letters." In our own time, we see science victorious, the acknowledged ruler of human destiny; in the Harvard Classics we find the more inspiring spectacle of science militant, the proud, embattled rationality that fought against ignorance and superstition for centuries.
We can hear this note already, though tentatively, in Copernicus, who resolves that "I should no longer through fear refuse to give out my work for the common benefit of students of Mathematics." But the trumpet-call is sounded by Francis Bacon, in the preface to his Instauratio Magna. Bacon denies "that the inquisition of nature is in any part interdicted and forbidden....the divine philosopher declares that 'it is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but it is the glory of the King to find a thing out.' Even as though the divine nature took pleasure in the innocent and kindly sport of children playing at hide and seek, and vouchsafed of his kindness and goodness to admit the human spirit for his playfellow at that game."
Bacon's confidence in the power of human reason is authorized by a touching faith that science and religion go hand in hand. This view of science, so different from the secular positivism of the twentieth century, can be found everywhere in the Harvard Classics. Newton and Faraday were very religious men, and even Darwin writes respectfully about the divine. Yet as we approach 1910, we can already see this confidence souring into arrogance. T.H. Huxley, in his 1880 essay "Science and Culture," sounds the more familiar note of our own day: the overweening certainty that scientific knowledge is the only knowledge. He condescends to the Christian Middle Ages, gives a pat on the head to classical education, but admits no doubt about where the future lies: the modern "scientific 'criticism of life' presents itself to us with different credentials from any other."
At the same time, the language of science was growing completely estranged from that of "the republic of letters." Already in 1910, Eliot writes that "it was hard to make up an adequate representation of the scientific thought of the nineteenth century," because "the discoverers' original papers...have naturally been expressed in technical language." And it is inconceivable that the scientific advances of the twentieth century could be represented by original documents. We are condemned to live in the age of C.P. Snow's "two cultures."
Even more important, we are no longer so certain that science is purely a benefit to mankind. The hideous evils of the twentieth century--world wars, concentration camps, atomic bombs--were made possible by technological advance; the banality of modern culture is a product of miraculous technologies: radio and television. And it remains to be seen whether the frenzy of industry will make the earth uninhabitable through pollution and despoliation. In power and self-regard, science continues to progress. But in moral terms, the Harvard Classics may have caught science at the peak of its Icarus flight, a height never to be regained.

If time has made Eliot's notion of science seem doubtful, the limitations of the Harvard Classics in the area of philosophy must have been glaring even in 1910. Aristotle and Aquinas are entirely absent, thus leaving out the major intellectual influences of 1,500 years of Western history. Of modern philosophers, Leibniz and Hegel are absent; Descartes and Kant are each represented by a single short work. Only the English empiricists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are well-represented, and even here the choices are sometimes bewildering: Locke's Some Thoughts on Education, but not his major works on human understanding and on government; only one unrepresentative chapter of Hobbes's Leviathan.Berkeley and Hume fare best of all, and Mill is almost excessively favored--Eliot makes room not just for On Liberty but for his Autobiography.
The common theme in these selections and omissions is a settled distrust of abstract thought; in every case, Eliot prefers autobiography to speculation. It is not clear whether this reflects the editor's own disbelief in the value of metaphysics, epistemology, and theology, or simply a doubt in the capacity of the reader to understand such subjects. (It is worth remembering that the major philosophical contribution of Eliot's Harvard was pragmatism, the doctrine that whatever works, is right.) Whatever the reason, the idea of philosophy that one takes away from the Harvard Classics is direly limited. The intellectual wonder that Plato called the origin of philosophy has little place here. Instead, the series uses philosophy to teach a particular manly ethic, a stoical toughness in the conduct of life.
In a good example of the power of context, the editors manage to make Plato himself seem merely a teacher of stoicism. Volume 2 contains three Platonic works--the Apology, the Crito,and the Phaedo--along with the aphorisms of Epictetus and the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Together, the Platonic dialogues tell the story of Socrates' martyrdom: his condemnation by the assembly of Athens, his refusal to flee judgment, and his resolute drinking of the hemlock. It is one of the great moral legends of the West, and certainly deserves a place in the series.
Yet by choosing only these works, and placing them alongside the much narrower stoicism of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, the series encourages us to read it simply as a legend--to make Socrates an example of heroism, while ignoring what he heroically defended. It is like reading the parts of the Gospels dealing with the Passion, and ignoring the Sermon on the Mount. How different Plato would appear if, instead of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, this volume contained the Symposium, the Republic, and the Phaedrus, with their teachings about love and politics. Then we could see beyond Socrates the symbol to Plato the philosopher.
But Eliot values philosophy when it tells a real story with practical applications, providing symbols of manliness on which readers of the Harvard Classics could pattern themselves. (In his excellent book Manhood at Harvard, Kim Townsend has shown that the rhetoric of manliness dominated Eliot's Harvard, from the classroom to the football field [see "The Manly Ideal," November-December 1966, page 25].) Thus Augustine's Confessions is present, but not his City of God. Locke on education is well worth reading--it is marvelous to see how he applies his theory of the association of ideas to the problem of getting a child to have regular bowel movements--but not at the expense of his treatises on government and psychology. And the radically disturbing thinkers of the nineteenth century--Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche--were either unknown or unwelcome to Eliot. One begins to suspect, perhaps unfairly, that his ideal work of philosophy is Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography, included in the very first volume of the series: a book that shows a man overcoming obstacles, doing useful work, going to bed early, and rising healthy, wealthy, and wise.

Finally, there is the question of literature. Many of the literary selections in the Harvard Classics are indisputable--no one would put together such a series without including the Odyssey, the Aeneid, the Divine Comedy, and the plays of Shakespeare (though, in fact, Eliot selected only four of these). In the traditional genres of epic and verse drama, the Harvard Classics does an estimable job.
The problem begins in the eighteenth century, with the rise of the novel as the major literary form. Eliot stated quite reasonably that the series would include no fiction from the nineteenth century, "partly because of its great bulk, and partly because it is easily accessible." (This gap was partially remedied in 1917 when he edited a separate 20-volume supplement, the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction--a worthy but conventional and very limited selection.) Yet the effect of eliminating the novel from the Harvard Classics, while including other kinds of fiction, is to severely unbalance the whole series.
Indeed, it seems that imaginative literature, as a category, did not seem entirely reputable to Eliot. Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare are classics and therefore inevitable; but wherever there is more leeway in the selection, the series tends to favor childish works of adventure and fantasy. The Thousand and One Nights and a volume of fairy tales are fine reading, but they have the effect of making the imagination seem a juvenile thing, a holiday from the serious business of life. Perhaps it is for a similar reason that Eliot includes the Odyssey, the picaresque story of travels and monsters, and omits the Iliad, the brutal chronicle of vanity, ambition, and war.
Similarly, when Eliot is enthusiastic about poems it is because they have what might be called "real-world applications." Poetry, like philosophy, is valued mainly as another vehicle of uplift and toughness; it is a record of humanity's "gradually developed ethical means of purifying [the] sentiments and controlling [the] passions." As he writes in his introduction, "the poems of John Milton and Robert Burns are given in full; because the works of these two very unlike poets contain social, religious and governmental teachings of vital concern for modern democracies." But there is no volume for Chaucer, a far more democratic spirit than Milton, possibly because the Canterbury Tales offers fictional characters, not paraphrasable "teachings."
And what is genuinely vital in the literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is largely absent. The volume of "Modern English Drama" is composed largely of inert verse plays, such as Byron's Manfred, which were never intended for the stage; the only European novel in the series, rather inexplicably, is Manzoni's I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed)--a selection chalked up to "the taste of his youth" by Eliot's biographer. There is something obviously flawed about a criterion that admits Richard Henry Dana's moderately interesting memoir, Two Years Before the Mast, because it is "fact," but has no place for Moby Dick, because it is "fiction."

Thus it is in the field of literature that it becomes most tempting to play the game of re-editing the Harvard Classics. To replace Dana with Melville, Manzoni with Tolstoy, and "Modern English Drama" with Ibsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov; to find room for Lawrence, Proust, Joyce, Mann, and Kafka--this would be the most important step toward updating the series for 2001. A new Harvard Classics would have to recognize that literature is a part of education, and perhaps the most important part.
But immediately, other corrections and additions spring to mind. In 1910, the series included Adam Smith; in 2001 we would have to add Karl Marx. We would doubtless keep The Origin of Species, but perhaps The Voyage of the Beagle could be replaced by a twentieth-century equivalent like J.D. Watson's The Double Helix. Freud would be indispensable--if not as the successor to Harvey and Jenner, then as the heir of Plato and Goethe. Up from Slavery would make a good replacement for the journals of the Quakers John Woolman and William Penn; Thoreau could share space in the volume now devoted to Emerson. The sententious Cicero could make room for the disillusioned Tacitus.
And so on, endlessly, until we have inflated the five-foot shelf to the size of Widener Library. It would hardly be worthwhile simply to point to what's missing from the Harvard Classics of 1910, since a Harvard Classics of 2001 would soon look just as inadequate. And perhaps it would be impossible, today, to present any group of books as an essential library, when the very idea of cultural authority is so bitterly disputed--in the university as well as outside it. President Eliot's "five-foot-shelf" survives, not as a definitive canon, but as an inspiring testimony to his faith in the possibility of democratic education without the loss of high standards. If we scrutinize it today for its shortcomings, we are only paying it the tribute of applying our own standards, the products of a darker and more skeptical age.
Adam Kirsch '97 is a poet and critic living in New York City.

Your Harvard Classics

What books would you choose for a twenty-first century Harvard Classics? Harvard Magazine invites readers to submit lists of 10 books, excluding the following titles and authors, deemed likely consensus choices: Bible, Tao Te Ching, Bhagavad-Gita, Koran, Homer, Confucius, Plato, Aristotle, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Virgil, Dante, Machiavelli, Montaigne, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Hobbes, Locke, Voltaire, Adam Smith, Goethe, Hegel, Darwin, Emerson, Thoreau, Marx, Freud, Einstein. Submit responses via our website, www.harvard-magazine.com, or by mail or e-mail. A future issue will report results of this informal survey.

Thursday, October 11, 2018

如何閱讀一本書

我非常非常喜歡看書,這也是它變成職業的原因。但有一天,突然一個想法浮現心頭:「讀了這麼多書,我真的懂它們嗎?」
這個念頭一出現,就一發不可收拾。那些天我讀了非常多有關閱讀的書,但真正啟發我的,只有《如何閱讀一本書》。它在1940年出版,作者是莫提默.艾德勒 (Mortimer J. Adler),以指導第15版《大英百科全書》的編輯聞名於世。
他將閱讀分成四個層次,基礎閱讀、檢視閱讀、分析閱讀、主題閱讀。也是經由這四個層次,我才理解如何「速讀」、「精讀」、「評論」書籍。

「速讀」的目的,把整本書架構化

只要看得懂字句,就掌握了基礎閱讀的能力。不過,艾德勒發現,大部份人的閱讀能力也只停留在這個層次。要一直到碩、博士,做過論文,才有機會練習到四種不同層次的閱讀,真正做一回知識整合者。這也是為什麼他要特別撰書談論閱讀的原因。
檢視閱讀,其實就是坊間常說的速讀。艾德勒將其分成兩個步驟,第一階段的速讀,目的是為了「有系統」地瞭解書的內容。方式是逐步看書的名字、書封、目錄、序、最後一章、最後再挑幾個自己有興趣的章節,讀前幾頁。如此不用半個小時,你就能掌握這本書是哪種類型(像是歷史、管理,或是心理),作者想傳達的論點是什麼,作者的結論又是什麼。還有自己有沒有必要繼續唸下去。
速讀的第二階段,才是從頭到尾快速地翻一遍。重點訣竅是找出以下4個問題的答案,同時看到不會、不懂、需要想的地方,就略過。如此在完成第二階段的速讀後,你就能掌握這本書的「What」是什麼,也足以讓你跟一般人聊這本書了。
  1. 整體來說,這本書到底在談些什麼?(要傳達什麼?)
  2. 作者細部說了什麼,怎麼說?(有哪些論點?)
  3. 這本書說得有道理嗎?是全部有道理,還是部分有道理?
  4. 這本書跟我有什麼關係?

「精讀」的關鍵,與作者達成共識

分析閱讀與主題閱讀,屬於精讀的範疇。分析閱讀指的是,完全理解作者用字遣詞背後的意義,如此才能真正理解作者的「Why」是什麼。主題閱讀則是,如何自己制定知識架構與規則,並把相同概念的書籍、知識,放到自己的架構裡面。
所以在做分析閱讀的第一步,你要先找出作者的「關鍵字」,像是專有名詞,或是反覆提到、很常出現的字。如果你對這個字的理解,跟作者不同,那文章圍繞這個字所做出的結論,當然也會跟作者不同。
舉個例子來說,「閱讀」有的人認為是「吸收資訊」,有的人認為是「練習思辨」,有的人認為是「休息」。這些都對,但如果你對字的定義與作者不同,那自然會曲解作者的意思。
當你對關鍵字的理解與作者相同,自然就能緊緊跟著作者的推論。同時,圍繞關鍵字的論述,通常就是作者的重要論點。所以接下來你只需要把作者散佈在整本書的論點集合起來,自己做成筆記,最後就能生出「自己對這本書的理解」。
主題閱讀,則是分析閱讀的反過來。分析閱讀我們需要理解作者的關鍵字背後的意義,從而跟隨作者的角度去思考。但主題閱讀,卻是我們要針對想要闡述的概念、意義做出自己的「關鍵字」。然後把各種不同作者、書籍,資料來源中談到跟自己闡述的概念相同者,整合到自己的架構之下。
要知道,不同作者可能用不同的關鍵字,去闡述同樣一個概念。也可能同樣一個關鍵字,卻是完全不同意思。像是「領悟」、「知道」、「理解」都代表「懂」。但對某些作者而言,知道可能代表「只知其然,但不知其所以然」,而另一些作者則認為知道,代表「知其所以然」。
所以你需要跳脫「文字的束縛」,以「文字背後的意義」來統整資訊,如此才能做到真正的知識整合。

如何支持或「反對」作者的論點

有了自己對這本書的理解,才能判斷作者的論點是否正確,並回應作者的話。然而,艾德勒卻特別提到,如果不認同作者所言,起碼要提出以下四點的其中之一作為理由,否則就只是情緒性、主觀的偏頗而已。
作者知識不足(uninformed):就是指作者做推論時,引用資訊並不全面,或是有遺漏。當然,作者知識不足,只代表我們無法認同他的論點,不等於書不好。舉個例子來說,誰也不能否認《物種起源》的重要性,但這本書最大的缺點就是達爾文缺乏遺傳機能的知識。
作者知識有誤(Misinformed):知識有誤,可能是因為知識不足,也可能不只如此。多半出現在推論與事實不符。像史賓諾沙的一本政治論著中,就談到民主是比專制更原始的政治形態,明顯跟已證實的史實相反。
論述不合邏輯:不合邏輯有兩種型態,一種是結論與前面引用的理論連不起來,也就是前後不連貫。另一種則是作者引用的事實是前後矛盾的。這種書比較少,因為真正的好書很少在推論上出現錯誤。
真要舉例,馬基維利的《君主論》中曾提及,政府得以維持的基礎在於法律,但如果政府沒有足夠的武裝力量,就不會有良好的法律。也就是說政府要有很好的武裝力量,才會有好的法律。
聰明的你一定覺得哪裡怪怪的。沒錯,這個句子前後不連貫,因為「政府武裝力量不足,確實難以支撐法律的實施。」所以第一段的推論是對的。但反過來,卻是不能說「有良好的武裝力量,就有好的法律的。」也就是第二段是有疑慮的。
分析不夠完整:則是指作者沒有解決他在書中提出的所有問題。像是歐幾里德的《幾何原理》就是敘述不完整,因為歐幾里德沒想到平行線之間的其他公理。

作者: 阿德勒
Adler was born into a nonobservant Jewish family. In his early twenties, he discovered St. Thomas Aquinas, and in particular the Summa Theologica.[17]Many years later, he wrote that its "intellectual austerity, integrity, precision and brilliance... put the study of theology highest among all of my philosophical interests".[18] An enthusiastic Thomist, he was a frequent contributor to Catholic philosophical and educational journals, as well as a frequent speaker at Catholic institutions, so much so that some assumed he was a convert to Catholicism. But that was reserved for later.[17]

他是一位多馬斯主義哲學家。多瑪斯是一位連結基督教與亞理斯多德的大師,也可以說他是一位連結聖經與希臘文化的大師,中世紀的七藝就是當時的人文教育。

阿德勒於1902年12月28日出生在美國紐約市的一個猶太移民家庭。14歲從中學輟學後,成為紐約太陽報的送稿人員,他當時立志想要成為一名記者[1]。不久,阿德勒開始在夜間學習寫作課程,從中他發現以下作者堪稱英雄:柏拉圖、亞里斯多德、托馬斯·阿奎那、約翰·洛克、約翰·斯圖爾特·密爾等等[2]。之後,他進入哥倫比亞大學繼續學習,同時還向學生文藝雜誌投稿。儘管由於沒能通過必修的游泳測驗,而沒能獲得學士學位(1983年,哥倫比亞大學授予了他一個榮譽學位以作為補償),阿德勒還是留在了大學,最終得到了一個講師的位置,並獲得了心理學博士學位[3]。

1930年,阿德勒前往芝加哥大學,並由之前認識的朋友、新任校長羅伯特·梅納德·哈欽斯安排為芝加哥大學法學院的法律哲學教授。然而他受到了芝加哥的一些哲學家的質疑,這些人對他「能否勝任哲學教授這個職責懷有重大疑問」,並且抵制阿德勒成為該大學哲學系的一分子。而同時,阿德勒也是該學校法學院有史以來第一個非律師出身的教師。

<西方世界偉大名著>項目的發起人之一。<如何閱讀一本書>是閱讀方法論,<西方世界偉大名著>是芝加哥大學人文教育理想的體現。阿德勒是一個通識型的知識份子。<如何閱讀一本書>可以看做是西方世界偉大經典閱讀的方法論。他的主要目的其實是教導人如何去讀經典,來完成心靈自由的藝術,這是人文教育的本質。最高層次的主題閱讀,就是要利用他的第二卷與第三卷書,用主題將不同的書串聯起來。


1980年,梅耶輕鬆地問阿德勒,如果他去一個荒島,準備帶哪些書,阿德勒回答說是以下11本:
修昔底德的《伯羅奔尼撒戰爭史》 [1]
5到6篇柏拉圖的,《對話錄》[2]
亞里斯多德的《倫理學(亞里士多德)|倫理學]]》和《政治學》
希波的聖奧古斯丁的《懺悔錄》[3]
普魯塔克的《比較列傳》[4]
但丁的《神曲》
威廉·莎士比亞的一些戲劇
蒙田的《嘗試集》[5]
斯威夫特的《格列佛遊記》
約翰·洛克的《政府論》 [6]
列夫·托爾斯泰的《戰爭與和平》



該書列出了從古至今西方一百三十七位作家的幾百部經典作品。這些書大都已經收在<西方世界偉大名著>
  1. 荷馬伊利亞特奧德賽
  2. 舊約聖經
  3. 埃斯庫羅斯:悲劇 
  4. 索福克勒斯:悲劇 
  5. 希羅多德:《希臘波斯戰爭史》 
  6. 歐里庇得斯:悲劇 
  7. 修昔底德:《伯羅奔尼撒戰爭史》 
  8. 希波克拉底:醫學 
  9. 阿里斯托芬: 喜劇 
  10. 柏拉圖對話錄
  11. 亞里斯多德: 作品集 
  12. 伊壁鳩魯: Letter to Herodotus; Letter to Menoecus 
  13. 歐幾里得: 《幾何原本》 
  14. 阿基米德: 作品集 
  15. Apollonius of Perga: Conic Sections
  16. 西塞羅: 作品集 
  17. 盧克萊修: On the Nature of Things
  18. 維吉爾: 作品集 
  19. 賀拉斯: 作品集 
  20. 李維: History of Rome
  21. 奧維德: 作品集 
  22. 普魯塔克: Parallel Lives; Moralia
  23. 塔西佗: Histories; Annals; Agricola Germania
  24. Nicomachus of Gerasa: Introduction to Arithmetic
  25. Epictetus: Discourses; Encheiridion
  26. 克勞狄烏斯·托勒密: 天文學大成
  27. 琉善: 作品集 
  28. 馬可奧勒留: 《沉思錄》 
  29. 蓋倫: On the Natural Faculties 
  30. 新約》 
  31. Plotinus: The Enneads
  32. 聖奧古斯丁: On the Teacher; 懺悔錄; 《上帝之城》;On Christian Doctrine
  33. 羅蘭之歌》 
  34. 尼伯龍根之歌》 
  35. The Saga of Burnt Njál
  36. 托馬斯·阿奎那: 《神學大全》 
  37. 但丁: 神曲;The New Life; On Monarchy
  38. 喬叟: Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales
  39. 達文西: 筆記 
  40. 馬基雅弗利: 《君主論》; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy
  41. 伊拉斯謨: The Praise of Folly
  42. 哥白尼: On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
  43. 托馬斯·莫爾 : 《烏托邦》 
  44. 馬丁·路德: 圓桌會談; Three Treatises 
  45. 拉伯雷: 《巨人傳》 
  46. 約翰·加爾文: 基督教要義
  47. 蒙田: Essays
  48. William Gilbert: On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies
  49. 塞萬提斯: 《堂吉訶德》 
  50. Edmund Spenser: Prothalamion; The Faerie Queene
  51. 弗朗西斯·培根: Essays; Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum, New Atlantis
  52. 威廉·莎士比亞: Poetry and Plays
  53. 伽利略·伽利萊: Starry Messenger; Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences
  54. 克卜勒: Epitome of Copernican Astronomy; 世界的和諧
  55. 哈維: On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; On the Circulation of the Blood; On the Generation of Animals 
  56. 托馬斯·霍布斯: 《利維坦》 
  57. 笛卡爾: Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method; Geometry; Meditations on First Philosophy
  58. 約翰·米爾頓: 作品集 
  59. 莫里哀: 喜劇 
  60. 布萊茲·帕斯卡: The Provincial Letters; Pensees; Scientific Treatises 
  61. 克里斯蒂安·惠更斯: Treatise on Light 
  62. 斯賓諾莎: 《倫理學》 
  63. 約翰·洛克: Letter Concerning Toleration; Of Civil Government; Essay Concerning Human Understanding; Thoughts Concerning Education
  64. Jean Baptiste Racine: Tragedies 
  65. 艾薩克·牛頓: 《自然哲學的數學原理》;Optics
  66. 萊布尼茨: Discourse on Metaphysics; New Essays Concerning Human Understanding; Monadology
  67. 笛福: 《魯賓遜漂流記》 
  68. 斯威夫特: A Tale of a Tub; Journal to Stella;《格列佛遊記》; A Modest Proposal
  69. William Congreve: The Way of the World
  70. 柏克萊: Principles of Human Knowledge
  71. 亞歷山大·蒲柏: Essay on Criticism; Rape of the Lock; Essay on Man
  72. 孟德斯鳩: Persian Letters;《論法的精神》 
  73. 伏爾泰: Letters on the English; Candide; Philosophical Dictionary
  74. Henry Fielding: Joseph Andrews; Tom Jones
  75. 塞繆爾·詹森: The Vanity of Human Wishes; Dictionary; Rasselas; The Lives of the Poets
  76. 大衛·休謨: Treatise on Human Nature; Essays Moral and Political; An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
  77. 盧梭: On the Origin of Inequality; On the Political Economy; Emile, The Social Contract
  78. Laurence Sterne: Tristram Shandy; A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy
  79. 亞當斯密: The Theory of Moral Sentiments; The Wealth of Nations
  80. 康德: 《純粹理性的批判》;Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals; Critique of Practical Reason; The Science of Right; Critique of Judgment; Perpetual Peace
  81. 愛德華·吉本: 《羅馬帝國衰亡史》; Autobiography 
  82. James Boswell: Journal; Life of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D. 
  83. 拉瓦錫: Traité Élémentaire de Chimie (Elements of Chemistry) 
  84. 亞歷山大·漢密爾頓, 約翰·傑伊, and 詹姆斯·麥迪遜: 聯邦黨人文集
  85. 邊沁: Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation; Theory of Fictions 
  86. 歌德: 《浮士德》; Poetry and Truth
  87. 傅立葉: Analytical Theory of Heat 
  88. 黑格爾: 《精神現象學》; Philosophy of Right; 歷史哲學
  89. 華茲華斯: Poems 
  90. 柯勒律治: Poems; Biographia Literaria
  91. 簡·奧斯丁: 《傲慢與偏見》;《艾瑪》 
  92. 克勞塞維茨: 《戰爭論》 
  93. 司湯達: 《紅與黑》; The Charterhouse of Parma; On Love 
  94. 拜倫: 《唐璜》 
  95. 叔本華: Studies in Pessimism 
  96. 法拉第: Chemical History of a Candle; Experimental Researches in Electricity 
  97. Charles Lyell: Principles of Geology
  98. 孔德: The Positive Philosophy 
  99. 巴爾扎克: 《高老頭》; Eugenie Grandet
  100. 愛默生: Representative Men; Essays; Journal 
  101. 霍桑: The Scarlet Letter
  102. 托克維爾: 《論美國的民主》 
  103. 約翰米勒: A System of Logic; On Liberty; Representative Government; Utilitarianism; The Subjection of Women; Autobiography 
  104. 達爾文: 《物種起源》; The Descent of Man; Autobiography
  105. 狄更斯: 《彼得·維克》; 《大衛·克波菲爾》;《艱難時世》 
  106. Claude Bernard: Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine 
  107. 大衛·梭羅: 《論公民的不服從》;《瓦爾登湖》 
  108. 卡爾·馬克思: 《資本論》;《共產黨宣言》 
  109. George Eliot: Adam Bede; Middlemarch
  110. Herman Melville: Moby-Dick; Billy Budd
  111. 陀思妥耶夫斯基: 罪與罰; 白痴 (小說); 卡拉馬佐夫兄弟
  112. 福樓拜: Madame Bovary; Three Stories 
  113. 易普生: Plays 
  114. 托爾斯泰: 《戰爭與和平》;《安娜卡列尼娜》 ; What is Art?; Twenty-Three Tales 
  115. 馬克·吐溫: 頑童歷險記; The Mysterious Stranger
  116. 詹姆士: The Principles of Psychology; The Varieties of Religious Experience; Pragmatism; Essays in Radical Empiricism
  117. 亨利·詹姆斯: 美國人; 大使 
  118. 尼采: Thus Spoke Zarathustra; Beyond Good and Evil; The Genealogy of Morals; The Will to Power
  119. 龐加萊: Science and Hypothesis; Science and Method 
  120. 西格蒙德·佛洛伊德: The Interpretation of Dreams; Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis; Civilization and Its Discontents; New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis 
  121. 蕭伯納: Plays and Prefaces 
  122. 普朗克: Origin and Development of the Quantum Theory; Where Is Science Going?; Scientific Autobiography 
  123. 柏格森: Time and Free Will; Matter and Memory; Creative Evolution; The Two Sources of Morality and Religion 
  124. 杜伊: How We Think; Democracy and Education; Experience and Nature; Logic; the Theory of Inquiry 
  125. 懷特海德: An Introduction to Mathematics; Science and the Modern World; The Aims of Education and Other Essays; Adventures of Ideas 
  126. 桑塔亞那: The Life of Reason; Skepticism and Animal Faith; Persons and Places 
  127. 列寧: The State and Revolution
  128. 普魯斯特: Remembrance of Things Past
  129. 伯特蘭·羅素: The Problems of Philosophy; The Analysis of Mind; An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth; Human Knowledge, Its Scope and Limits 
  130. 托馬斯·曼: The Magic Mountain; Joseph and His Brothers
  131. 阿爾伯特·愛因斯坦: The Meaning of Relativity; On the Method of Theoretical Physics; 物理學的進化
  132. 喬伊斯: 'The Dead' in Dubliners; A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; 《尤利西斯》 
  133. Jacques Maritain: Art and Scholasticism; The Degrees of Knowledge; The Rights of Man and Natural Law; True Humanism 
  134. 卡夫卡: 《審判》;《城堡》 
  135. 湯因比: A Study of History; Civilization on Trial
  136. 薩特: 《噁心》; No Exit; 《存在與虛無》 
  137. 索忍尼辛: The First Circle; 《癌症房