Analytical Reading: Pigeonholing a Book: Kinds of Theoretical Books

Kinds of Theoretical Books

The traditional subdivision of theoretical books classifies them as history, science, and philosophy. Everybody knows the differences here in a rough way. It is only when you try to refine the obvious, and give the distinctions greater precision, that you get into difficulties. For the moment, let us try to skirt that danger and let rough approximations suffice.

In the case of history, the title usually does the trick. If the word “history” does not appear in the title, the rest of the front matter is likely to inform us that this is a book about something that happened in the past—not necessarily in the far past, of course, because it may have happened only yesterday. The essence of history is narration. History is knowledge of particular events or things that not only existed in the past but also underwent a series of changes in the course of time. The historian narrates these happenings and often colors his narrative with comment on, or insight into, the significance of the events.

History is chronotopic. Chronos is the Greek word for time, topos the Greek word for place. History always deals with things that existed or events that occurred on a particular date and in a particular place. The word “chronotopic” can remind you of that.

Science is not concerned with the past as such. It treats of matters than can happen at any time or place. The scientist seeks laws or generalizations. He wants to find out how things happen for the most part or in every case, not, as the historian does, how some particular things happened at a given time and place in the past.

The title of a scientific work is usually less revealing than the title of a history book. The word “science” sometimes appears, but more often the name of the subject matter appears, such as psychology or geology or physics. Then we must know whether that subject matter belongs to the scientist, as geology clearly does, or to the philosopher, as metaphysics clearly does. The trouble comes with the cases that are not so clear, such as physics and psychology, which have been claimed, at various times, by both scientists and philosophers. There is even trouble with the very words “philosophy” and “science,” for they have been variously used. Aristotle called his book on Physics a scientific treatise, although according to current usage we should regard it as philosophical; and Newton titled his great work Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, though for us it is one of the masterpieces of science.

Philosophy is like science and unlike history in that it seeks general truths rather than an account of particular events, either in the near or distant past. But the philosopher does not ask the same questions as the scientist, nor does he employ the same kind of method to answer them.

Since titles and subject-matter names are not likely to help us determine whether a book is philosophical or scientific, how can we tell? There is one criterion that we think always works, although you may have to read a certain amount of the book before you can apply it. If a theoretical book emphasizes things that lie outside the scope of your normal, routine, daily experience, it is a scientific work. If not, it is philosophical.

The distinction may be surprising. Let us illustrate it. (Remember that it applies only to books that are either science or philosophy, not to books that are neither.) Galileo’s Two New Sciences requires you to imagine, or to repeat for yourself in a laboratory, certain experiments with inclined planes. Newton’s Opticks refers to experiences in dark rooms with prisms, mirrors, and specially controlled rays of light. The special experience to which the author refers may not have been obtained by him in a laboratory. The facts that Darwin reported in The Origin of Species he observed in the course of many years of work in the field. They are facts that can be and have been rechecked by other observers making a similar effort. But they are not facts that can be checked in terms of the ordinary daily experience of the average man.

In contrast, a philosophical book appeals to no facts or observations that lie outside the experience of the ordinary man. A philosopher refers the reader to his own normal and common experience for the verification or support of anything the writer has to say. Thus, Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding is a philosophical work in psychology, whereas many of Freud’s writings are scientific. Locke makes every point in terms of the experience all of us have of our own mental processes. Freud can make many of his points only by reporting what he observed under the clinical conditions of the psychoanalyst’s office.

William James, another great psychologist, took an interesting middle course. He reports many examples of the special experience that only the careful, trained observer can know about, but he also frequently asks the reader to judge whether what is being said is not true from his own experience. Thus James’ Principles of Psychology is both a scientific and a philosophical work, although it is primarily scientific.

The distinction proposed here is popularly recognized when we say that science is experimental or depends upon elaborate observational researches, whereas philosophy is merely armchair thinking. The contrast should not be invidious. There are certain problems, some of them very important, that can be solved in an armchair by a man who knows how to think about them in the light of common, human experience. There are other problems that no amount of the best armchair thinking can solve. What is needed to solve them is investigation of some sort—experiments in the laboratory or research in the field—extending experience beyond the normal, everyday routine. Special experience is required.

This does not mean that the philosopher is a pure thinker and the scientist merely an observer. Both have to observe and think, but they think about different sorts of observations. And however they may have arrived at the conclusions that they want to prove, they prove them in different ways, the scientist by pointing to the results of his special experiences, the philosopher by pointing to experiences that are common to all.

This difference in method always reveals itself in philosophical and scientific books, and that is how you can tell which sort of book you are reading. If you note the sort of experience that is being referred to as a condition of understanding what is being said, you will know whether the book is scientific or philosophical.

It is important to know this because, apart from the different kinds of experiences that they depend on, scientists and philosophers do not think in exactly the same way. Their styles in arguing are different. You must be able to find the terms and propositions—here we are getting a little ahead of ourselves—that constitute these different sorts of argumentation.

The same is true of history. Historical statements are different from scientific and philosophical ones. A historian argues differently and interprets facts differently. Furthermore, the typical history book is narrative in form. A narrative is a narrative, whether it be fact or fiction. The historian must write poetically, which means he must obey the rules for telling a good story. Whatever other excellences Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding or Newton’s Principia may have, neither is a good story.

You may object that we are making too much of the classification of books, at least before one has read them. Is it really all that important?

We may be able to meet the objections by calling your attention to one obvious fact. If you walked into a classroom in which a teacher was lecturing or otherwise instructing students, you could tell very soon whether the class was one in history, science, or philosophy. There would be something in the way the teacher proceeded, the kind of words he used, the type of arguments he employed, the sort of problems he proposed, and the kind of responses he expected from his students, that would give him away as belonging to one department or another. And it would make a difference to you to know this, if you were going to try to listen intelligently to what went on.

In short, the methods of teaching different kinds of subject matter are different. Any teacher knows this. Because of the difference in method and subject matter, the philosopher usually finds it easier to teach students who have not been previously taught by his colleagues, whereas the scientist prefers the student whom his colleagues have already prepared. And so forth and so on.

Now, just as there is a difference in the art of teaching in different fields, so there is a reciprocal difference in the art of being taught. The activity of the student must somehow be responsive to the activity of the instructor. The relation between books and their readers is the same as that between teachers and their students. Hence, as books differ in the kinds of knowledge they have to communicate, they proceed to instruct us differently; and, if we are to follow them, we must learn to read each kind in an appropriate manner.