Chapter 9 Determining an Author’s Message
In this chapter the authors discuss the propositions that a book’s author makes in the course of their writing. What is a proposition, and describe briefly. (p. 113)
A proposition is a declaration, an expression of an author’s judgment about something. The author affirms something they think to be true, or denies something they believe to be false. The author asserts this or that to be fact. In light of this, a proposition is a declaration of knowledge, not intentions. What is meant by this distinction? The author may state his intentions at the beginning of a book or in the preface. To see if the author carries out this promise, we must look at the propositions made by the author.
Discuss what is meant by the word argument. What leads from an argument? Does having a valid argument always mean the conclusion is true? (p. 114)
An argument is always a set of statements which provide grounds or reasons for what is to be concluded. The argument is the source of the conclusion – even if the premises or principles of the argument are not stated first. If an argument is valid, the conclusion follows from the premises. However, this does not mean that the conclusion is true, since all or part of the premises may be false.
Describe the development of terms to arguments. (p. 115)
We go from terms to propositions to arguments, by going from words (or phrases) to sentences to paragraphs. We are going from simple to complex.
Discuss the differences between sentences and propositions – do all sentences express a proposition? If not, why? Do all declarative sentences express a single proposition? (p. 116-118)
Not all sentences express a proposition. Some sentences express questions, stating problems rather than answers. Propositions are answers to those questions. Other sentences express wishes or intentions – giving some knowledge of the author’s purpose, but not any knowledge the author is actually trying to convey.
Because some words are ambiguous, it is possible for one sentence to express different propositions depending on if there is a shift in the term that a particular word expresses.
Additionally, there are compound sentences, which are really just a collection of sentence, and each of these can express propositions.
What is Rule 6 of reading? How does one go about finding the key sentences in a book? How does one go about finding the propositions? (p. 119, p. 120 -122)
Rule 6: Mark the most important sentences in a book and discover the propositions that they contain.
Similar to how we find key words, when looking for key sentences we look for sentences that may give us difficulty. As the reader, the sentences that are going to be important to you are those that are require effort to interpret, because they are not perfectly intelligible at first reading. These are the sentenced that you as the reader read much slower than the rest.
From the author’s perspective, the important sentences are the ones in which they are expressing the judgments on which their whole argument rests. Some authors will help the reader see these key sentences, either with pointing it out directly or with some typographical device. One other way in which key sentences may be determined is to find the sentences that contain the key words that were determined earlier (Rule 5).
The second part of Rule 6 has the reader finding the propositions in the key sentences that were identified. What this means is that you the reader must know what the sentence means. Similar to how we discover what a word means by in a given usage to discover term, in the same way we discover propositions by reading and understanding the sentences.
One of the best ways to determine if we know what an author means in a particular sentence is if we are able to explain what the author means, stating in our own words (not repeating what the author has written) what the sentence means. If you are unable to restate the sentence in your own words, it is evidence that only the author’s words, and not their thought or knowledge, has been transmitted to you, the reader.
What is Rule 7? What are arguments, and how does the reader go about finding them? (p. 119, 127-129)
Rule 7: Locate or construct the basic arguments in the book by finding them in the connection of sentences. Arguments are a sequences of propositions, some of which give reasons for another. And where terms are related to words and phrases, and propositions are related to sentences, arguments are not related to any recognizable unit. What this means is that arguments can be expressed in a single complicated sentence, or in a number of sentences, or even over several paragraphs.
When finding the argument, remember that every argument must involve a number of statements. Of these statements, some of these statements will give the reasons why you should accept the author’s conclusions. A second thing to consider is discriminating between inductive and deductive reasoning in arguments. With inductive reasoning, the argument points to one or more particular facts as evidence for some generalizations, and in deductive reasoning the argument offers a series of general statements that prove some further generalizations.
Finally, take note of what the author is telling us must be assumed, what can be proved or evidenced, and what does not require proof because it is self-evident. Essentially, every argument needs to start somewhere – assumptions that are agreed on between author and reader, or self-evident propositions which do not require evidence to be supported (termed tautologies).
What is Rule 8? Summarize the second stage of analytical reading, comprised of rules 5 through 8. (p. 134)
Rule 8: Fund out what the author’s solutions are. The second basic question that is asked about a book is What is being said in detail, and how? Rules 5 through 8 can be summarized as coming to terms with the author, find the author’s key propositions and arguments, and identified their solutions to the problems addressed in the book. Working through rules 5 through 8, the reader will know what the author is saying in their book.
** Note – assume much of the content following each discussion question is a paraphrase and comes from the book How to Read a Book.
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