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.
I beg to differ because some people have a very good foundation which means they don’t have to read the actual book to have a deep understanding . Also, some are good thinkers and creative . I say we should read a few good and hard books then go ahead and write and talk /debate about them . As opposed to trying to consume as much as possible. The friend he talks about seems to be such kind of guy .
@@Beny123 That strategy will only work if you've already read a bunch and are able to get the general philosophical idea the writer is explaining semi-intuively by using other books as reference points. But if you haven't read the original book you won't be able to understand the logic behind the argument. You might know the general conclusions, but you won't understand the minute details that resulted in the conclusion, and those are the really important parts because without them you won't be able think about it critically.
@@georgepantzikis7988 I agree with the general idea of your argument. But the way I think about it is that once one is introduced to some ways of thinking/frameworks, the rest i.e. details can be filled from intuition, experience, and observation. And trust me a first-hand experience has so much more value than reading a Proust. Not that I have anything against our French friend. Most books repeat themselves without adding a whole lot that can justify their lengths. I feel they are trying to make us see the whole picture and yet forget that we should also be allowed to fill the details ourselves. What I am saying is that if books were to the point we could read a lot more. In my opinion, being allowed to draw from our experiences, then think, and sort of fill in the nitty-gritty details is the whole point of education- formal or otherwise. Did you know that Charles Dickens got paid by the page or word count - no wonder he has a very winded approach to prose. Then again unless it is to get a very high level of understanding RUclips videos don't even come close to thinking about the topic for a period of time let alone reading the original work.
@george... agreed - this guy doing the vid admits he doesn't know the philosophy/ marxism/ ideologies being espoused... so how does he know the guy who 'got his info from youtube' is not talking BS? someone who has read the original text would have pulled him to pieces.
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.
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.
what do you think about practical knowledge? there's a tendency of intellectuals to think less highly of their practically-intelligent counterparts (businessmen, artisans, etc.). books are incredible, but sometimes we forget that the reality in our heads maybe different from the reality outside of it. this is not an attack or anything, it's just that i read nassim taleb and i'm playing with his ideas.
I agree, I've learned so much through online lectures it's disgusting. I will say though, eventually you get to a point where you have to read, but you can get VERY VERY VERY educated in a specific area on RUclips watching documentaries & lectures. Only for very specific things do you have to read usually, though it is always nice.
I tend to dislike the academic agent. If you get your infos from youtube videos make sure they themselves at least got their information from books, which the academic agent to be honest hasnt. He is talking on many things he just did a quick google search on which is really sad
@@MarviRafaelMontecillo i mean, practical experiences inform the ways in which we experience in general. You need something to fill in these structures. It all depends on what you're aiming for, why care about abstract knowledge if "your individual manifold of understanding is oriented toward that of the practical", and vice versa. And of course there is going to an infinity of the permutations of understanding, these are simply opposite poles of one set of characteristics of the understanding, so it's kind of a wash. Just my 2cents though
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?
Just because you don’t like teenagers doesn’t mean they’re stupid or immature. Teenagers are just busy and they have to take shortcuts to get things done “on time” according to the school. Their teachers expect them to do something that should take weeks in a few hours, and they’re already sleep deprived, so they use cliff notes to get the assignment done.
@@emmanarotzky6565 I wasn't a teen anymore back then, but I really depend on CliffNotes for my study (I was an English Literature student). English isn't my first language and as for reading "difficult" books, I read CliffNotes most of the time for my assignment. The funny thing is I am able to read books (in English) after I graduated from university. But it's OK, nowadays I am enjoying reading and studying more than I was in college.
I pass AP CALCULUS AB with a 95 in School. I don't even know how to add or subtract negative numbers. In my opinion, arithmetic is tougher than Calculus. I have a learning disability. I got a 5 on the AP Exam. Everything is possible.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 RUclips 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.
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.
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.
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.
From my experience, you can get VERY educated in many areas on RUclips 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 RUclips, 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 RUclips, but not always. Interesting discussion! :)
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.
"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.
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.
A great book to read on this subject (not really knowing things but getting a surface level and convincing yourself that you know what your talking about) is Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman. One of my all time favorites.
hey im new to your channel, liked it, cheers. i studied lit. and language in grad school and came to a conclusion about difficult books. im believe i am well read, but im also tired of stretching my limits of understanding, specially philosophy. if i dont get, its not for me. we speak many languages within the same language, if i dont get it, its not for me. ;). when i started passing on books, i felt much better. because i didnt belittle my own experience and ways of seeing things. poetry got better, because i demanded less of it. well everything got more chill. cheers from brazil.
I heard J.P talking about audiobooks and this, that and the thrid. And i completely agree with you. As you said, pop culture has a certain concept that thru tech life gets easier. But what they be missing is the biggest pic, "tech makes your lige easier" is a marketing strategy or whatever. And thru that we have to give up a big part of life, living.
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.
Method makes a specialist. You won't become one if you only take half-digested overviews, but by learning the intricacies of the subject by reading, deep reflection, written works about it plus others... Of course, interest has a big role, therefore you can only be truly knowledgeable if you have the drive to do all that. That's what universities are for, they will make you go through the sifters of all (usually) parts of the field and give you a title that proves you've gone through it all. You don't get that experience and knowledge by watching youtube, even full lectures, because you don't have the academical methods. You may even dare to say that if you can't write an article about a topic you are not a specialist. Broad knowledge is great, but it's better to go deep into least one subject and, though the method you've exercised to get there, acquire transferable skills.
Alan Bloom who wrote "The Closing of the American Mind" would have completely agreed with you. He was a professor at Columbia and an expert on Plato. He advised choosing one subject and going deep.
You make some very valid points. Additionally, I would argue that some books are better for different periods in your life. For example, I would not have appreciated the complexity of Middlemarch as a teenager. And, some of these classics, aren't really meant to be binged. There is value is going slowly, writing out quotes and thoughts.
0:40 A related question that pops to my mind is why do we idealise being well read & well educated? If it no longer possesses the same prestige or economic worthiness then why do we crave getting there in the first place? Are we simply being victimised by the capitalist regimes that operate underneath the “education & learning industries”? It’s all about money to many involved in the book publishing & education and couldn’t care less about learning. Or do we do it for a perceived ‘intrinsic value’ that by the way not many of us can really identify properly?
It took me a long time to learn that writing in your own words is a creative process that is stronger than just reading. And the key is boiling each idea down to its essence and making notes. (Sönke Ahrens - how to take smart notes) And then link each idea to another idea, and the same idea in a different context is powerful. You won't be able to write about snapshot ideas in your own words unless you have the context of the original writer.
If you haven't read the source document, you are always vulnerable to the charge: have you even read X? If you haven't, you're immediately on the argumentation back foot - and probably rightly so.
I believe, it is still important to read difficult books as it improves your ability of critical thinking. To form a new idea, one still has to learn the basics, the beginning, the core thoughts that were previously delivered. And we cannot ignore the importance of writing, as it is still the most effective way of keeping your thoughts on track. then again, not many of us will generate new ideas. so we can just watch more yt videos and listen to podcasts, get a generalized view of things, hear the common interpretation and then find at least some reasons and meanings in our daily events.
13:36 This the one point where I disagree. It's not secondary literature that creates misreadings most of the time but rather the more dificult primary literature. But I would still see this as an advantage of primary literature. Since it is often by mis-interpreting that one can be creative and inspired to "repaint the painting"(to use your own metaphor) and make original thoughts.
In my experience, information sources such as RUclips or Online Articles are sufficient for an informal conversation, but not so much in terms of serious writing. Books provide a formal, clear and robust foundation upon which you can rest deep and exact thoughts. Knowledge enough for a fruitful conversation can be relatively shallow and inexact. I recall Donald Knuth (a renowned computer scientist) saying that sometimes he needs to read several articles and books to construct a single sentence.
i think, that the is some kind of a golden middle to be found. For example i like to start of by getting the picture of hard philosopher from youtube/internet and then dive into works that were made after, getting the missing parts from context and not wasting my whole life reading hegel, when i really want to read some other postmodernist philosopher that uses basic hegelian concepts
Online lecture are good because you are usually learning from same with 20 experience , and then select what's important, they can give you the skeleten. You then read afterwards.
agreed. tbh i kind of feel like awful shit everytime i write comments with critisism like that so i mostly gag on in and keep it to my myself problem is i dont know much of youtube channels on the subject that are better than this one
@@SP-qi8ur on Kant's philosophy of pure reason, for starters (which reflected upon me) Others here, have picked up his argument, and expanded on C Dickens (insane word count, by the penny) & ofcourse M. Proust, who has also made xtrmely lengthy (series of) books 🙄 Let me be clear on that one, the YTer here, simply said how intimidating Kant is, for him at this point
Tbh i do both - the main thing i'm learning/teaching myself is literature/poetry, so of course i read a lot of books, including difficult books. And so i spend a lot of time reading those books. I also want to learn about philosophy and political theory and that's when i turn to RUclips videos, podcasts, articles etc - so i get to know some basics. And sometimes literature and philosophy intertwine, but i think i read more about philosophy than actual "pure" philosophy.
The best method is to read challenging books and use RUclips and other resources like online lectures as supplements to the reading. But reading is the true meat of ones' study and will give you all of the minute details of knowledge that you will need to fully understand the subject matter.
I tend to agree with you. Great Courses seems to hire lecturers with very good credentials, and I consider them a great introduction or overview. But I would be very suspicious of everything I found online or in a book unless I knew about the writer. Knowing the publisher also helps. I would tend to trust a book from Oxford University Press over something self-published. Just bite the bullet and actually read the book! That's why I would never argue with anybody on Heidegger, just listen. I just couldn't grasp him in the original well enough. I consider I have to give up discussion and arguing rights because I've never "been fluent" in his writings. If I were trying to discuss a particular philosopher and discovered that the other person had never actually read them, that would end the conversation right there. It's the difference between scholarship and pretention unless you make clear that your knowledge is second hand. It's just hearsay. Thank you for another thought-provoking and interesting video!
I think you're still wrong in your rightous manner. Discussing ideas is what matters. It doesnt change the argument if you have read every tiny detail of a book as long as you get the principle ideas or theories right and know about said authors' limitations on them. If but only if it is obvious that the knowledge of your partner is shallow or distorted about the argument one should have the excuse to not engage. Else you're only gonna sit on your Ivory Tower lacking deeper analytic comprehenson of said author by dismissing every critique of someone who hasnt read the whole bibliography. And thats just fandom disguised as intellectualism.
@@minzblatt I guess we will just have to agree to disagree. Let me ask you a question: if you had read various critiques of Moby Dick, but not the book itself, what answer would you give someone if they just casually asked you, "Have you read Moby Dick?" How can anyone pose as a well-read person if their brain is stuffed with Cliff Notes and book reviews by people who are not half as smart as the writer? Those are all secondary sources and you should have read the book first. If you read the book yourself you might decide that they were wrong, that they missed something, or that the writer may be completely over-hyped. I'm sorry if that makes me sound self righteous or like I'm posing as an intellectual, but at least I will have read the book. Your time is much better spent reading the thing itself. What if someone asks you in a discussion why you believe something? Will you be able to name the reviewer or writer of the synopsis and defend them as a source? I still say you have either read the book or you haven't. It's not fandom, either. There are a lot of great books out there that I just didn't like. But at least I can tell you why, and it will be my own opinion. There is a word for discussions where NO firsthand knowledge is exchanged: Gossip.
In my mind , i think you can gain very deep knowledge on youtube and even very faster but after you had learned some important information , you will realise that you have that knowledge but you not able to convey it , process it , i think by learning from another person you can learn it but cant gain it and yes RUclips is the most cool way to take knowledge in different things or learning the basics and i love to use yourube to do side study like if i am reading Carl , then i continue reading it from the book and after i had read the book i go to youtube in my breakfast time or dinner time and watch some videos about it , it really really helps to make my notes on the topic I think there are 3 ways 1) only youtube ---> not so cool 2) only book -----> cool enough 3) book and after that yt ----> best way to learn long things
For what it's worth, I don't read many books even if I have a huge interest in philosophical concepts. The one book on philosophy I have read so far is Descartes's Discourse on the Method. I am extremely grateful to have read it before watching a lecture on it because most online summaries of him boil down to "Cogito ergo sum, Ontological argument for God, substance dualism". While it is true that those are probably the major themes in the book, there is so much more going it on it inside the book that I think boiling Descartes to those points is a huge disservice. After all, it's not like Descartes just wrote "I think therefore I am, God exists because by definition God exists, matter is separate from mind, THE END" Also, for what it's worth, I have found many online analyses with which I disagree and because I have also read the same primary source, I have evidence to support my counterarguments. I agree with the video 100%, if what you want is to have is vague familiarity with the concepts so that you don't get lost when someone talks about them, then by all means find a good analysis on him; but if you want to understand why is it that Descartes is so influential in European thought and why is it that universities are still teaching from his books, I suggest reading the primary material for yourself.
What do you about taking the big book itself and explaining it in a simpler and more in depth way and making courses out of that? So not just courses or classes of the subject of the book but rather taking the whole book chapter by chapter and paragraph by paragraph and even line by line and explaining everything, yes it may make a 100 session for a course of books like Kant’s or Hegel’s but it’s going to be easier than reading the book by yourself and maybe struggling to understand it
Secondary literature: easy and allows you to replicate and communicate surface concepts Primary literature: Hard and allows you to alter and play with multi-faceted concepts The question is one of am I gonna create something with this, or am I gonna leave it be?
I was taking a break, from my active military duty, inside a hospitalized environment, that was more or less boring for me. So I picked up 1tome of American literature (custom made, w/ extracts for Lit students) It was rather weird for me to find out, that most major figures writing style, was reduced to a couple of pages (for poetical style, yeah I would agree, but for an 800 page book?) In any case, I found out that most students, had to simply browse through this superficial understanding, in order to get a 'glimpse' of their narrative / prose-writng style /and fc their own wording employed in the process, there were quite a few novel words, in te for an EU student. But what I am getting at here is, there are more than a few people who, are ready to succumb, in a tailor made educational pattern for them, and this will certainly lead to peril, Just imagine a mind, who is trained in 17/18th cn prose, and on his free time, engages in PNR/teen lit, without any another pursue. I think I am pretty critical here, but if the only way a It student, af graduation, has any chance, of grasping, the works of major writers, is another course /for instance of classic tragedies in the ancient works. Then it's pretty much easier to comprehend, the connection of Influencers¥/ YTbers, writers who make a wave of success on 'how to read' this writer /or this title of his/thematic in particular, has come to the spotlight in the modern age.
about reading philosophical text, we should constrain ourselves from reading too much since philosophical endaver is more about thinking yourself, on yourself and your life instead of taking on as much as other's philosophies as you can.
It's called "The power of perspective". It means that it's better to read some modern SUMMERY of older stuff, than the actual source, because it put that stuff in perspective. And there's a lot that needed to be put.
Learning from online videos is fine as long as it is from legitimate sources. The great courses are taught by top tier professors. Cambridge and other Ivy league schools have youtube channels where they put courses. These are great learning resources. The problem is that with every course there should be supplementary reading. With humanities, there is also a lot of personal biases of the prof. Take a course on Plato? great!, but read his dialogues as well. For a lot of the source material, especially in the humanities, I listen to the audio book. I do have to disagree with what you call 'subtle nuances' of a text. A book often speaks to you based upon your personal experience, cultural background, influences, etc... I guarantee that if you read these same books in 20-25 years from now you will have a completely different take upon what you read. Your 'subtle nuances' are nothing more than a persons personal opinion / biases.
oh i have that one friend too, i think this type of people is develop his own idea from a shallow and shaterred information from the internet, give him another perspective and of course he will think about it again
When you sit with a difficult book, you need to sit with for some length of time and basically fight with it. It’s like Jacob’s fight with the angel. You have to wrest the blessing of knowledge from the book. Such knowledge then becomes a part of you. It informs the way you behave both with yourself and with the world. If that’s what you want, then sit with the original book and wrestle with it. There’s nothing wrong with RUclips summaries. But they won’t have that transformative effect since someone else has wrestled with the book and not you.
For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding.
I’m reminded of an episode of “The Prisoner”. The citizens of The Village sit in front of their television sets and the Speed-Learn announcer says, “The course is ‘Europe Since Napoleon’, a hard, complicated six-month study. Sit back. Watch the screen. We’re going to cover it in fifteen seconds flat!”
Now the real question, though, is: in a book that is a primary source, yes, but what if the primary source is a RUclips video? Is that the painting or the snapshot?
thing is; anyone can share something online, is better to read the material yourself and get your own ideas from it, instead of having someone else tell you what the author meant
So if I want to seem or actually be more smart than most of the people I casually meet I don't have to read.But if I want to understand in more of an entertaining and efficient way I should read and study.
the absolute state of teenagers these days. "He's very well versed, very well read, a very great man, umm he's very well versed with marx's ideologies, and other political thinkers." either you are an illiterate or he is.
@@Tex_Killer someone’s gotta explain it to them that diverse terminology does not increase the intellectual depth of a subject, it only might make you look cool to other people who are out there trynna look cool in the same manner. Lol who tf even wears these kinds of clothes anymore?
It depends on * why * they're difficult. If it's because they're high concept or because they were written over a century ago, I see no reason to forgo them. I've enjoyed lots of challenging books, philosophical and otherwise, written from the classical period to today. But if a book is just steeped in deliberate obfuscation, then no, I don't bother. A lot of second- and third-tier postmodernists write like this and it's annoying. Yeah, I can slog through their sesquipedalian essays and get their meaning but the return on investment is not at all like the rewards of making the effort to read 18th century literature. One comes away feeling like they've tried to make up for the thinness of their offerings with alienating verbiage. By the way, The Great Courses Plus (now Wondrium) is a great place for information. All it is is college lectures on video or audio - all very legit. Nothing wrong with learning through them at all, though I personally would recommend reading at least excerpts from the books recommended in each of the courses' guidebooks. Or read at least parts of the books explained on RUclips, because you don't know if you'll end up agreeing with the interpretations you were given in the videos.
Hear me out on this but this argument is similar to the “calisthenics versus weight lifting” debate. The actual answer is there is no “versus.” Do both calisthenics and weightlifting as you will achieve functionality from calisthenics and the filling out of your muscles from weight lifting. So with books and watching videos. Do both of them. What you don’t get from RUclips videos that you get from reading is, well pretty much everything you listed from the lamp analogy regarding the subtleties and layers of concepts. My wife and I are currently debating about Critical Race Theory because my understanding of it only comes from RUclips videos while she is actually doing detailed research from the reading and writing. I find my viewpoint to be more biased.
To be honest, it sounds more like your friend is just a reflection of the opinions he absorbs through RUclips and articles. However, without a proper way of analyzing the info you fail to have your own opinion. Here's an example, most people will read a book that introduces them to a subject. The opinion of that author becomes the opinion of the reader simply because it's the first time the reader is exposed to that information. As humans, we tend to be biased towards the person that taught us about a subject. While I'm sure your friend has memorized quite a bit of knowledge and can regurgitate the opinions they have absorbed on various subjects, I'd be curious to see how they hold their own in a logical conversation. Understanding the methodology behind analytical thinking and logical reasoning, with a sprinkle of knowledge about how we, as humans, are influenced is a better way to measure a well-rounded, well read, polymath. I also believe the metrics you are using to measure excellence, as an educated or Renaissance person, needs to be re-evaluated. Granted, this argument only holds water on various assumptions i have taken, given the information at hand, which is not much. However, willingness to entertain a thought without having it challenge your own opinions is a sign of an educated person. Anyone who considers themselves open minded should be open to points I've made and willing to see if it (possibly) applies to you and your friend. TL: DR - It is quite simple to have shallow, introductory knowledge on several topics, especially when you're simply regurgitating the opinions of others. Probability wise, it is far more likely that you simply don't have enough knowledge to cross check most of what your friend says, and just accept what they say as correct, rather than your friend being as smart as you think they are.
ATLAS SHRUGGED - OH MY GAWD AND JD SALINGER' s S SEPARATE PEACE ----- AND ANYTHING, ANYTHING BY ERNEST HEMINGWAY -PLULEEZE.....................................!!!!!!!!!!!!
Literature is still it’s own thing. Sentence structure, style, emotional impact. It’s not just about raw information. Perhaps your friend is missing out in some ways.
How many hamburgers and McNuggets did you actually eat to have a 3 hour conversation in McDonald's? It kind of throws the concept of FAST FOOD out the window, doesn't it?
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.
George Pantzikis well said
I beg to differ because some people have a very good foundation which means they don’t have to read the actual book to have a deep understanding . Also, some are good thinkers and creative . I say we should read a few good and hard books then go ahead and write and talk /debate about them . As opposed to trying to consume as much as possible. The friend he talks about seems to be such kind of guy .
@@Beny123 That strategy will only work if you've already read a bunch and are able to get the general philosophical idea the writer is explaining semi-intuively by using other books as reference points. But if you haven't read the original book you won't be able to understand the logic behind the argument. You might know the general conclusions, but you won't understand the minute details that resulted in the conclusion, and those are the really important parts because without them you won't be able think about it critically.
@@georgepantzikis7988 I agree with the general idea of your argument. But the way I think about it is that once one is introduced to some ways of thinking/frameworks, the rest i.e. details can be filled from intuition, experience, and observation. And trust me a first-hand experience has so much more value than reading a Proust. Not that I have anything against our French friend. Most books repeat themselves without adding a whole lot that can justify their lengths. I feel they are trying to make us see the whole picture and yet forget that we should also be allowed to fill the details ourselves. What I am saying is that if books were to the point we could read a lot more. In my opinion, being allowed to draw from our experiences, then think, and sort of fill in the nitty-gritty details is the whole point of education- formal or otherwise. Did you know that Charles Dickens got paid by the page or word count - no wonder he has a very winded approach to prose. Then again unless it is to get a very high level of understanding RUclips videos don't even come close to thinking about the topic for a period of time let alone reading the original work.
@george... agreed - this guy doing the vid admits he doesn't know the philosophy/ marxism/ ideologies being espoused... so how does he know the guy who 'got his info from youtube' is not talking BS? someone who has read the original text would have pulled him to pieces.
Man, I need a friend like you with whom I can talk about philosophy 😞
I review philosophical books and discuss them if you are interested. Peace.
Me. I am a philosophy major and I write essays on ethics on my free time.
@@jordanlazaro1676 Feel free to chat with me on my insta if you want @Ahead.of_the.curve
@@jordanlazaro1676 can you please message me on insta - @ric_clicks
@@AheadOfTheCurveVideos please message me on instagram- @ric_clicks
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.
you got a hart from me to
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.
what do you think about practical knowledge? there's a tendency of intellectuals to think less highly of their practically-intelligent counterparts (businessmen, artisans, etc.). books are incredible, but sometimes we forget that the reality in our heads maybe different from the reality outside of it. this is not an attack or anything, it's just that i read nassim taleb and i'm playing with his ideas.
I agree, I've learned so much through online lectures it's disgusting. I will say though, eventually you get to a point where you have to read, but you can get VERY VERY VERY educated in a specific area on RUclips watching documentaries & lectures. Only for very specific things do you have to read usually, though it is always nice.
"The Academic Agent" lol
I tend to dislike the academic agent. If you get your infos from youtube videos make sure they themselves at least got their information from books, which the academic agent to be honest hasnt. He is talking on many things he just did a quick google search on which is really sad
@@MarviRafaelMontecillo i mean, practical experiences inform the ways in which we experience in general. You need something to fill in these structures. It all depends on what you're aiming for, why care about abstract knowledge if "your individual manifold of understanding is oriented toward that of the practical", and vice versa. And of course there is going to an infinity of the permutations of understanding, these are simply opposite poles of one set of characteristics of the understanding, so it's kind of a wash. Just my 2cents though
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?
Just because you don’t like teenagers doesn’t mean they’re stupid or immature. Teenagers are just busy and they have to take shortcuts to get things done “on time” according to the school. Their teachers expect them to do something that should take weeks in a few hours, and they’re already sleep deprived, so they use cliff notes to get the assignment done.
@@emmanarotzky6565 I wasn't a teen anymore back then, but I really depend on CliffNotes for my study (I was an English Literature student). English isn't my first language and as for reading "difficult" books, I read CliffNotes most of the time for my assignment. The funny thing is I am able to read books (in English) after I graduated from university. But it's OK, nowadays I am enjoying reading and studying more than I was in college.
I pass AP CALCULUS AB with a 95 in School. I don't even know how to add or subtract negative numbers. In my opinion, arithmetic is tougher than Calculus. I have a learning disability. I got a 5 on the AP Exam. Everything is possible.
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.
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.
I get all of my philosophy from Facebook memes.
LMAO
not funny
@@martinsFILMS13 that's your opinion dawg.. plus your reply has got 0 likes whereas he has above 50
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.
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.
No, in fact I am glad that you've pointed this out. Valid criticisms and observations are always welcome :)
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 RUclips 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.
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.
Your friend is close to genius?
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.
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.
From my experience, you can get VERY educated in many areas on RUclips 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 RUclips, 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 RUclips, but not always.
Interesting discussion! :)
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.
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.
"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.
I agreeeeee
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.
A great book to read on this subject (not really knowing things but getting a surface level and convincing yourself that you know what your talking about) is Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman. One of my all time favorites.
hey im new to your channel, liked it, cheers. i studied lit. and language in grad school and came to a conclusion about difficult books. im believe i am well read, but im also tired of stretching my limits of understanding, specially philosophy. if i dont get, its not for me. we speak many languages within the same language, if i dont get it, its not for me. ;). when i started passing on books, i felt much better. because i didnt belittle my own experience and ways of seeing things. poetry got better, because i demanded less of it. well everything got more chill. cheers from brazil.
I heard J.P talking about audiobooks and this, that and the thrid. And i completely agree with you. As you said, pop culture has a certain concept that thru tech life gets easier. But what they be missing is the biggest pic, "tech makes your lige easier" is a marketing strategy or whatever. And thru that we have to give up a big part of life, living.
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.
Method makes a specialist. You won't become one if you only take half-digested overviews, but by learning the intricacies of the subject by reading, deep reflection, written works about it plus others... Of course, interest has a big role, therefore you can only be truly knowledgeable if you have the drive to do all that. That's what universities are for, they will make you go through the sifters of all (usually) parts of the field and give you a title that proves you've gone through it all. You don't get that experience and knowledge by watching youtube, even full lectures, because you don't have the academical methods.
You may even dare to say that if you can't write an article about a topic you are not a specialist. Broad knowledge is great, but it's better to go deep into least one subject and, though the method you've exercised to get there, acquire transferable skills.
Alan Bloom who wrote "The Closing of the American Mind" would have completely agreed with you. He was a professor at Columbia and an expert on Plato. He advised choosing one subject and going deep.
You make some very valid points. Additionally, I would argue that some books are better for different periods in your life. For example, I would not have appreciated the complexity of Middlemarch as a teenager. And, some of these classics, aren't really meant to be binged. There is value is going slowly, writing out quotes and thoughts.
Your understanding of the art of reading is scientific. I can totally relate with what you're saying.
very interesting analogy with the picture of a lamp
you are standing out!
0:40 A related question that pops to my mind is why do we idealise being well read & well educated? If it no longer possesses the same prestige or economic worthiness then why do we crave getting there in the first place? Are we simply being victimised by the capitalist regimes that operate underneath the “education & learning industries”? It’s all about money to many involved in the book publishing & education and couldn’t care less about learning. Or do we do it for a perceived ‘intrinsic value’ that by the way not many of us can really identify properly?
It took me a long time to learn that writing in your own words is a creative process that is stronger than just reading. And the key is boiling each idea down to its essence and making notes. (Sönke Ahrens - how to take smart notes) And then link each idea to another idea, and the same idea in a different context is powerful. You won't be able to write about snapshot ideas in your own words unless you have the context of the original writer.
If you haven't read the source document, you are always vulnerable to the charge: have you even read X? If you haven't, you're immediately on the argumentation back foot - and probably rightly so.
4:33 "understand at the surface". No need to dig deeper. That sentence says it all.
I believe, it is still important to read difficult books as it improves your ability of critical thinking. To form a new idea, one still has to learn the basics, the beginning, the core thoughts that were previously delivered. And we cannot ignore the importance of writing, as it is still the most effective way of keeping your thoughts on track.
then again, not many of us will generate new ideas. so we can just watch more yt videos and listen to podcasts, get a generalized view of things, hear the common interpretation and then find at least some reasons and meanings in our daily events.
13:36
This the one point where I disagree. It's not secondary literature that creates misreadings most of the time but rather the more dificult primary literature. But I would still see this as an advantage of primary literature. Since it is often by mis-interpreting that one can be creative and inspired to "repaint the painting"(to use your own metaphor) and make original thoughts.
In my experience, information sources such as RUclips or Online Articles are sufficient for an informal conversation, but not so much in terms of serious writing. Books provide a formal, clear and robust foundation upon which you can rest deep and exact thoughts. Knowledge enough for a fruitful conversation can be relatively shallow and inexact. I recall Donald Knuth (a renowned computer scientist) saying that sometimes he needs to read several articles and books to construct a single sentence.
i think, that the is some kind of a golden middle to be found. For example i like to start of by getting the picture of hard philosopher from youtube/internet and then dive into works that were made after, getting the missing parts from context and not wasting my whole life reading hegel, when i really want to read some other postmodernist philosopher that uses basic hegelian concepts
Online lecture are good because you are usually learning from same with 20 experience , and then select what's important, they can give you the skeleten. You then read afterwards.
I feel like you tend to generalize a bit much.
agreed.
tbh i kind of feel like awful shit everytime i write comments with critisism like that so i mostly gag on in and keep it to my myself
problem is i dont know much of youtube channels on the subject that are better than this one
Yea, but the problem is that in order to give an interesting video, you sorta have to generalize to make a stronger point
Can you give examples of generalizations he made?
@@SP-qi8ur on Kant's philosophy of pure reason, for starters (which reflected upon me)
Others here, have picked up his argument, and expanded on C Dickens (insane word count, by the penny) & ofcourse M. Proust, who has also made xtrmely lengthy (series of) books
🙄 Let me be clear on that one, the YTer here, simply said how intimidating Kant is, for him at this point
Tbh i do both - the main thing i'm learning/teaching myself is literature/poetry, so of course i read a lot of books, including difficult books. And so i spend a lot of time reading those books. I also want to learn about philosophy and political theory and that's when i turn to RUclips videos, podcasts, articles etc - so i get to know some basics. And sometimes literature and philosophy intertwine, but i think i read more about philosophy than actual "pure" philosophy.
The best method is to read challenging books and use RUclips and other resources like online lectures as supplements to the reading. But reading is the true meat of ones' study and will give you all of the minute details of knowledge that you will need to fully understand the subject matter.
I tend to agree with you. Great Courses seems to hire lecturers with very good credentials, and I consider them a great introduction or overview. But I would be very suspicious of everything I found online or in a book unless I knew about the writer.
Knowing the publisher also helps. I would tend to trust a book from Oxford University Press over something self-published.
Just bite the bullet and actually read the book!
That's why I would never argue with anybody on Heidegger, just listen. I just couldn't grasp him in the original well enough. I consider I have to give up discussion and arguing rights because I've never "been fluent" in his writings.
If I were trying to discuss a particular philosopher and discovered that the other person had never actually read them, that would end the conversation right there. It's the difference between scholarship and pretention unless you make clear that your knowledge is second hand. It's just hearsay.
Thank you for another thought-provoking and interesting video!
I think you're still wrong in your rightous manner. Discussing ideas is what matters. It doesnt change the argument if you have read every tiny detail of a book as long as you get the principle ideas or theories right and know about said authors' limitations on them. If but only if it is obvious that the knowledge of your partner is shallow or distorted about the argument one should have the excuse to not engage. Else you're only gonna sit on your Ivory Tower lacking deeper analytic comprehenson of said author by dismissing every critique of someone who hasnt read the whole bibliography. And thats just fandom disguised as intellectualism.
@@minzblatt I guess we will just have to agree to disagree. Let me ask you a question: if you had read various critiques of Moby Dick, but not the book itself, what answer would you give someone if they just casually asked you, "Have you read Moby Dick?" How can anyone pose as a well-read person if their brain is stuffed with Cliff Notes and book reviews by people who are not half as smart as the writer? Those are all secondary sources and you should have read the book first.
If you read the book yourself you might decide that they were wrong, that they missed something, or that the writer may be completely over-hyped. I'm sorry if that makes me sound self righteous or like I'm posing as an intellectual, but at least I will have read the book. Your time is much better spent reading the thing itself.
What if someone asks you in a discussion why you believe something? Will you be able to name the reviewer or writer of the synopsis and defend them as a source? I still say you have either read the book or you haven't. It's not fandom, either. There are a lot of great books out there that I just didn't like. But at least I can tell you why, and it will be my own opinion.
There is a word for discussions where NO firsthand knowledge is exchanged: Gossip.
Do a video of audiobooks vs written books
In my mind , i think you can gain very deep knowledge on youtube and even very faster but after you had learned some important information , you will realise that you have that knowledge but you not able to convey it , process it , i think by learning from another person you can learn it but cant gain it and yes RUclips is the most cool way to take knowledge in different things or learning the basics and i love to use yourube to do side study like if i am reading Carl , then i continue reading it from the book and after i had read the book i go to youtube in my breakfast time or dinner time and watch some videos about it , it really really helps to make my notes on the topic
I think there are 3 ways
1) only youtube ---> not so cool
2) only book -----> cool enough
3) book and after that yt ----> best way to learn long things
you know nhat you have incredible voice
Great video! I have also watched Jordan Peterson say that and it's really true
I love hearing your voice 🥰
For what it's worth, I don't read many books even if I have a huge interest in philosophical concepts. The one book on philosophy I have read so far is Descartes's Discourse on the Method. I am extremely grateful to have read it before watching a lecture on it because most online summaries of him boil down to "Cogito ergo sum, Ontological argument for God, substance dualism". While it is true that those are probably the major themes in the book, there is so much more going it on it inside the book that I think boiling Descartes to those points is a huge disservice. After all, it's not like Descartes just wrote "I think therefore I am, God exists because by definition God exists, matter is separate from mind, THE END" Also, for what it's worth, I have found many online analyses with which I disagree and because I have also read the same primary source, I have evidence to support my counterarguments.
I agree with the video 100%, if what you want is to have is vague familiarity with the concepts so that you don't get lost when someone talks about them, then by all means find a good analysis on him; but if you want to understand why is it that Descartes is so influential in European thought and why is it that universities are still teaching from his books, I suggest reading the primary material for yourself.
Qué interesante canal tienes. Te acabo de descubrir e inmersos me gustó tu contenido.
Saludos desde Perú.
What do you about taking the big book itself and explaining it in a simpler and more in depth way and making courses out of that?
So not just courses or classes of the subject of the book but rather taking the whole book chapter by chapter and paragraph by paragraph and even line by line and explaining everything, yes it may make a 100 session for a course of books like Kant’s or Hegel’s but it’s going to be easier than reading the book by yourself and maybe struggling to understand it
Secondary literature: easy and allows you to replicate and communicate surface concepts
Primary literature: Hard and allows you to alter and play with multi-faceted concepts
The question is one of am I gonna create something with this, or am I gonna leave it be?
I was taking a break, from my active military duty, inside a hospitalized environment, that was more or less boring for me. So I picked up 1tome of American literature (custom made, w/ extracts for Lit students)
It was rather weird for me to find out, that most major figures writing style, was reduced to a couple of pages
(for poetical style, yeah I would agree, but for an 800 page book?)
In any case, I found out that most students, had to simply browse through this superficial understanding, in order to get a 'glimpse' of their narrative / prose-writng style /and fc their own wording employed in the process, there were quite a few novel words, in te for an EU student.
But what I am getting at here is, there are more than a few people who, are ready to succumb, in a tailor made educational pattern for them, and this will certainly lead to peril, Just imagine a mind, who is trained in 17/18th cn prose, and on his free time, engages in PNR/teen lit, without any another pursue. I think I am pretty critical here, but if the only way a It student, af graduation, has any chance, of grasping, the works of major writers, is another course /for instance of classic tragedies in the ancient works.
Then it's pretty much easier to comprehend, the connection of Influencers¥/ YTbers, writers who make a wave of success on 'how to read' this writer /or this title of his/thematic in particular, has come to the spotlight in the modern age.
about reading philosophical text, we should constrain ourselves from reading too much since philosophical endaver is more about thinking yourself, on yourself and your life instead of taking on as much as other's philosophies as you can.
It's called "The power of perspective". It means that it's better to read some modern SUMMERY of older stuff, than the actual source, because it put that stuff in perspective.
And there's a lot that needed to be put.
Can't the snapshot be the inspectional reading?
I like all the friends I have, but man, I'd love to have one that could talk to me about deep stuff.
By the way - the link to the Exclusive essays does not work.
They're moved to: www.litpublication.com/
Learning from online videos is fine as long as it is from legitimate sources. The great courses are taught by top tier professors. Cambridge and other Ivy league schools have youtube channels where they put courses. These are great learning resources. The problem is that with every course there should be supplementary reading. With humanities, there is also a lot of personal biases of the prof. Take a course on Plato? great!, but read his dialogues as well. For a lot of the source material, especially in the humanities, I listen to the audio book.
I do have to disagree with what you call 'subtle nuances' of a text. A book often speaks to you based upon your personal experience, cultural background, influences, etc... I guarantee that if you read these same books in 20-25 years from now you will have a completely different take upon what you read. Your 'subtle nuances' are nothing more than a persons personal opinion / biases.
oh i have that one friend too, i think this type of people is develop his own idea from a shallow and shaterred information from the internet, give him another perspective and of course he will think about it again
When you sit with a difficult book, you need to sit with for some length of time and basically fight with it. It’s like Jacob’s fight with the angel. You have to wrest the blessing of knowledge from the book. Such knowledge then becomes a part of you. It informs the way you behave both with yourself and with the world. If that’s what you want, then sit with the original book and wrestle with it. There’s nothing wrong with RUclips summaries. But they won’t have that transformative effect since someone else has wrestled with the book and not you.
"Well versed in Marxist ideology"
If he read Hengel without getting frustrated, he can read anything.
Yes but tto get even. nearer to the philosophy, perhaps you have to know the language in which the philosopher wrote.
Its like knowing the answer of 1 +1 = 2 , yet don't know how could that even happen
We're living in a different time now, I wonder if books will become obsolete?
For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.
Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding.
I’m reminded of an episode of “The Prisoner”. The citizens of The Village sit in front of their television sets and the Speed-Learn announcer says, “The course is ‘Europe Since Napoleon’, a hard, complicated six-month study. Sit back. Watch the screen. We’re going to cover it in fifteen seconds flat!”
Online content = 'lecture slides'
Books = deep learning (also, books have a way of teaching frameworks based on how a book is structured)
Use BOTH.
the hamburger example is just beautiful.
Now the real question, though, is: in a book that is a primary source, yes, but what if the primary source is a RUclips video? Is that the painting or the snapshot?
thing is; anyone can share something online, is better to read the material yourself and get your own ideas from it, instead of having someone else tell you what the author meant
CRP isn't a difficult book. Actually Kant goes repeating himself to make sure the reader gets it
Reading a cook book wont quell your hunger.
So if I want to seem or actually be more smart than most of the people I casually meet I don't have to read.But if I want to understand in more of an entertaining and efficient way I should read and study.
Most Great courses are thorough and in great depth. Separately, reading Nietzsche in anything except the original is a fool's game.
Tell me you went to Harvard without telling me you went to Harvard
This man:
I guess Immanuel kouldn't this time for me..
We don't have an eternal life. And why either/or? Why not both?
The funny thing is that the video showed a McDonalds ad.
the absolute state of teenagers these days. "He's very well versed, very well read, a very great man, umm he's very well versed with marx's ideologies, and other political thinkers." either you are an illiterate or he is.
Youngsters love the asthetics of knowledge instead of knoledge in itself. That is what online "geek" trends are, those such as Dark Academia etc.
@@Tex_Killer someone’s gotta explain it to them that diverse terminology does not increase the intellectual depth of a subject, it only might make you look cool to other people who are out there trynna look cool in the same manner. Lol who tf even wears these kinds of clothes anymore?
I get my understanding of sociology from South Park.
thanks waldun, but i still need to read scientific journal articles :')
the McReading Club and the The University of RUclips :)
It depends on * why * they're difficult. If it's because they're high concept or because they were written over a century ago, I see no reason to forgo them. I've enjoyed lots of challenging books, philosophical and otherwise, written from the classical period to today.
But if a book is just steeped in deliberate obfuscation, then no, I don't bother. A lot of second- and third-tier postmodernists write like this and it's annoying. Yeah, I can slog through their sesquipedalian essays and get their meaning but the return on investment is not at all like the rewards of making the effort to read 18th century literature. One comes away feeling like they've tried to make up for the thinness of their offerings with alienating verbiage.
By the way, The Great Courses Plus (now Wondrium) is a great place for information. All it is is college lectures on video or audio - all very legit. Nothing wrong with learning through them at all, though I personally would recommend reading at least excerpts from the books recommended in each of the courses' guidebooks. Or read at least parts of the books explained on RUclips, because you don't know if you'll end up agreeing with the interpretations you were given in the videos.
Well what if I what to be the man who makes ideas, I want to come to conclusions with a little bit of help
ship mulch and a gin flavoured broom.
Hear me out on this but this argument is similar to the “calisthenics versus weight lifting” debate. The actual answer is there is no “versus.” Do both calisthenics and weightlifting as you will achieve functionality from calisthenics and the filling out of your muscles from weight lifting.
So with books and watching videos. Do both of them. What you don’t get from RUclips videos that you get from reading is, well pretty much everything you listed from the lamp analogy regarding the subtleties and layers of concepts. My wife and I are currently debating about Critical Race Theory because my understanding of it only comes from RUclips videos while she is actually doing detailed research from the reading and writing. I find my viewpoint to be more biased.
Hegel has taken more souls than any other writers, either by hanging, jumping off bridges or slashing their wrists...😂
I get my philosophy from dank ifunny memes
genetics and IQ
To be honest, it sounds more like your friend is just a reflection of the opinions he absorbs through RUclips and articles. However, without a proper way of analyzing the info you fail to have your own opinion. Here's an example, most people will read a book that introduces them to a subject. The opinion of that author becomes the opinion of the reader simply because it's the first time the reader is exposed to that information. As humans, we tend to be biased towards the person that taught us about a subject. While I'm sure your friend has memorized quite a bit of knowledge and can regurgitate the opinions they have absorbed on various subjects, I'd be curious to see how they hold their own in a logical conversation. Understanding the methodology behind analytical thinking and logical reasoning, with a sprinkle of knowledge about how we, as humans, are influenced is a better way to measure a well-rounded, well read, polymath. I also believe the metrics you are using to measure excellence, as an educated or Renaissance person, needs to be re-evaluated. Granted, this argument only holds water on various assumptions i have taken, given the information at hand, which is not much. However, willingness to entertain a thought without having it challenge your own opinions is a sign of an educated person. Anyone who considers themselves open minded should be open to points I've made and willing to see if it (possibly) applies to you and your friend.
TL: DR - It is quite simple to have shallow, introductory knowledge on several topics, especially when you're simply regurgitating the opinions of others. Probability wise, it is far more likely that you simply don't have enough knowledge to cross check most of what your friend says, and just accept what they say as correct, rather than your friend being as smart as you think they are.
iT BETTER TO READ THE BOOKS
ATLAS SHRUGGED - OH MY GAWD AND JD SALINGER' s S SEPARATE PEACE ----- AND ANYTHING, ANYTHING BY ERNEST HEMINGWAY -PLULEEZE.....................................!!!!!!!!!!!!
In my opinion learning from books and RUclips is fine, but you still need to engage with the physical world it's all theory and no experience.
As tht guy grows older people will notice his deficiencies. A lot that is forgiven in youngsters will be see as a hole later on
2:07 you're describing my father. He was living his life on the streets and he knows that history.
I know more in the fields like feminism though.
Literature is still it’s own thing. Sentence structure, style, emotional impact. It’s not just about raw information. Perhaps your friend is missing out in some ways.
I *Kant* be bothered about this
Please do review on Islam answers atheism by shaikh asarar rashid
Jordan Peterson confuses me like probably no other..
All my philosophy videos are from RUclips videos.
How many hamburgers and McNuggets did you actually eat to have a 3 hour conversation in McDonald's? It kind of throws the concept of FAST FOOD out the window, doesn't it?