GEEK ERA *STUDY* OF A WORK – HUNTING FOR NECESSARY ARGUMENTS. Reading is differe

GEEK ERA *STUDY* OF A WORK – HUNTING FOR NECESSARY ARGUMENTS.

Reading is different from studying. Studying means to me, not understanding the author’s arguments so much as understanding what his various arguments could imply.

0) I read the TOC and random paragraphs in the interesting chapters.

1) If it’s worth reading in depth, I read it once – really, just to understand the author’s theory.

2) I convert it to text – usually from pdf to text file. A couple chapters at a time. I can almost always find it on line. If I can’t then I literally scan it a chapter at a time by hand.

3) I edit the text file so that it’s suitable for spoken works.

4) I convert it to computer generated speech.

5) I listen to it, usually three or four times. Sometimes more.

I ‘study’ the work until I can’t find a single idea in there left to benefit from.

The truth is, that most authors’ theories can be deduced from the TOC and the book jacket. Just as most books are really better stated as a ‘paper’ than a book. They’re simple.

A lot of work is predicated upon theories that are nonsensical. And I simply can’t put up with reading them. Others are biased (Fukuyama’s) but I can see through the bias. Some are simply wrong, or failed attempts as pseudoscience (Mises praxeology and Rothbard’s ethics), some are obscurantist pseudo-scientific masks for ignorance (Freud), some obscurantist and fraudulent (Heidegger), some mystical (religion), and as such, I consider most of them ‘evil’ and I just ignore them.

History tends to be a little less victim of stupidity than philosophy. And as Durant said, the answers to questions of man are in history, not in philosophy. There are no answers there.

Very few works are substantial enough (like Hayek’s) to actually STUDY. Some works are just so large (histories) that I find I have to listen to them a few times before I’ve exhausted the possibilities that the author has made possible.

I guess one of the things that helps us study others is that, we write to understand and communicate to others our understanding. Books are experiments. I know some people seem to have much higher reading comprehension to me, because they’re trying to understand the author’s point of view. And I sort of don’t work that way. Instead, I simply am looking for theories. For arguments. Not justifications. But NECESSARY arguments.

NECESSARY is very different from JUSTIFICATIONARY.

And if you HUNT for NECESSARY arguments you will find very few of them. And when you do, it’s like finding buried treasure.

There are very few necessary arguments.

And fully informed, warrantied, voluntary exchange is one of them.