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Philosophy in Real Life
Welcome to the "Philosophy in Real Life" podcast with your host Carlos Santos Aguirre (a philosophy Ph.D. candidate), where we analyze difficult topics in order to discover truth.
Philosophy in Real Life
Episode 6: Philosophy PhD student REVEALS his READING METHOD
In this episode of the Philosophy in Real Life podcast, I talk about my reading methodology. It really sucks to invest so much time and not remember the things you read or just finishing a book and come to the realization that you just ended up with a vague idea about a book that you found meaningful. Needless to say, not all the books have the same value to us. In this video I share my thought process from picking what book to read to how I go about keeping quotations and book summaries.
These are the main points I discuss in this episode 6:
1. How much do you know about the field?
2. What book should you pick? popular versus academic
3. My method: the three levels of reading
4. Bonus Segment: How I use Notion to keep my book summaries
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📖REFERENCES📖
James Clear, Atomic Habits
Thomas J. Stanley, Millionaire Next Door
Brian McLaren, Faith after Doubt
Kenneth Mathews, Genesis Commentary
Douglas Jacoby and Paul Copan, Origins
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how to read a book? that is the question people often ask me I am a philosophy PhD student from Spain and today I would like to share with you the methodology the practicals that I follow to be able to make the most of the books and hopefully that can be of some utility for your life Hola a todos hello everybody welcome to the Philosophy in Real Life podcast where we strive to live in the most truthful way possible while unmasking the wrong interpretations of the world I am your host Carlos Santos Aguirre a philosophy PhD student from Spain so I would like to apologize because today some of you are expecting the episode on Andrew Tate and the decline of masculinity but due to so many reasons I won't be able to actually release it this month so we are going to have the The "Andrew Tate episode" for the first week of September basically now something I was thinking because most of you are going to soon start university or college or start preparing for the new school cycle in Spain is a little bit different because we actually start in September mid September that's when most people actually start their classes but I was thinking that in preparation for this new school cycle I wanted to just touch a little bit about the methodology that I use to actually make the most of the books I read and hopefully that can help you also when reading either if you do it for fun or if you do it more like academically it doesn't really matter I think that what I'm going to share today will be you know applicable to to any person who actually likes reading books or maybe you don't like reading books but you have to read them so since you are in a situation that you have to read this book so maybe this will be helpful so today what I want to do is to walk you through this thought process that I follow when picking a book and then decide how I'm going to read the book so there are three main things that I do and then I'm going to share with you a bonus about something I use to actually make my work easier when reading a book summarizing it and all of that so the first thing to take into account is how much you know about the field the specific field so for example there are many books about self-help psychology philosophy science history and so on so depending depending on the field and the type of genre you might know more about it or less about that specific field and according to that you should adjust the expectations for example I have read a fair amount on philosophy and theology so I'm able to quickly judge what kind of book it is from what perspective the author is speaking and so on but the less I know the less I'm able to judge what kind of book I'm dealing with if it's going to be good if it's actually a good methodology or the type of terminology that author is using the less I know the more I should be aware that this book will serve me more as a survey as an introduction to this kind of field that I know very little about and so I adjust my expectations for example when I started reading psychology which I have read many books on psychology because I really like it I became really interested in a more deep type of book and so I was expecting more terminology harder reading more examples and so it was this book Schema Therapy by Jeffrey Young I really like this psychological treatment or framework to actually help people and I devour this book entirely and it's more for people giving therapy than receiving therapy but again I just wanted the real deal I wasn't as happy with the popular level book about this so I went for the academic type specialized type of book but right now it has become popular the whole concept of trauma trauma therapy and one of the most popular books about that topic is The Body Keeps the Score and I'm okay with that you know I haven't read it yet I started the first chapter but obviously I'm not pretending that I know a lot about the field or that I'm very familiar with the terminology that's why I adjust my expectation I just want to get familiar with the whole field of trauma and understand basic concepts so depending on how much you know about the field then you can have a higher expectation or lower expectation about the book you are picking because the more you know the more you will be capable of judging or discerning what kind of book you are dealing with and the less you know the more you should be okay with just getting familiar even if you don't like it as much just get familiar with the terminology of the different things and maybe a starting from that reading that reading will take you to better books which that is typically the case now the second thing that I do is to take it to account the continuity or the spectrum between popular level books and academic level books this is very important there's a continuity so there are books that are really initiation level very popular super accessible with many examples and is really really really nice for people who are actually starting and getting familiar with a type of field or knowledge or genre that you have no idea about that is the right type of book for that situation now there is then there are many other books obviously some of them are in between they are kind of like popular but they give you a lot of footnotes and references and that is kind of like the perfect for me mix when I'm trying to get more familiar with a specific field or topic that I don't know much about but then if I'm really interested then I go to the hardcore books you know like more academic scholarly almost the introduction is half of the book that's what typically happens sometimes I read philosophical books and the introduction or the preface is as long as the the rest of the book and I'm like what the heck why is the author doing that but it seems to be that that was a common practice at some point so a clear example of this is what happened to me with the whole thing of Genesis I wanted to read more about the book of Genesis about the Old Testament the first book of the Bible and so I remember I started reading more about the book and there were two books so the first book that I got was one that was titled Origins by Douglas Jacoby and Paul Copan Douglas Jacoby is a friend of mine teacher in the family of churches that I belong to and Paul Copan is a Christian philosopher I don't know him in person but I have read some of his books and this book is actually quite nice it's in between popular level and academic a lot of footnotes references and really well structured I really enjoyed it and then I got impatient and I was like oh I just want the real deal let me go to scholarly books and I saw there were two books actually on Genesis I bought by Kenneth Matthews which is a commentary on Genesis and is very thorough and long and then I ordered the two books there is one let me see I have them here so for the people listening I'm just showing the books so there is this book right so this is Genesis the first eleven chapters okay so book tedious reading very slow very academic and then there's the remaining of Genesis so it's a two-volume part type of books on Genesis and same thing and then I started reading it and I I think I finished the first chapter and I stopped'cause I needed to read more about the philosophy course that I was studying back then and so that was a mistake in my opinion because I jumped too quickly to something that would that would require a lot of time a lot of dedication to go through and it's not that the books these books are wrong or are badly written not at all you know these books are actually really good and hopefully at some point I will go through them when I do a seminary on Genesis or something like that in the future but it was a mistake in the sense that I jumped too quickly and I was I should have been okay with having a very good understanding of Genesis but maybe not being aware of the academic bibliography about Genesis Because again it requires a lot of dedication a lot of time and an emotional energy to go through that so that is why I'm saying is very important to take into account the popular level books and the academic level books and be able to appreciate the continuity of the kind of writing the kinds of examples I think that it is better to have a type get a popular level kind of book some of them are really well-written and you learn so much even though it's super accessible and very short and and that's okay maybe it's okay to have a that level of knowledge of a specific field because you don't you do not need to be a specialized in every single thing that you are interested in sometimes is enough with just having that type of popular level on a specific field alright so let's move to number 3 we are going to get into the practicals that I follow these are the three levels of reading and this is my method it is a method that I have developed throughout so many years of reading studying and making many mistakes and seeing what works for me and this is obviously my method I'm going to just share with you in case any of the things that I'm sharing today will help you in your journey of learning or in your degree or in your career in general now as I said before there are three levels of reading which is my method and so what do I mean by the three levels of reading? well the first level that I have is to assess to do an assessment or make an assessment through an easy and short duration format I repeat the first thing that I do is to assess or to evaluate through an easy and short duration format whether or not the author the book the topic is worth my time for example maybe I heard about you know Atomic Habits by James Clear and I'm not really sure I wanna pay money and then invest my time to actually go through the book so what I do is that I listen to a keynote presentation by James Clear or maybe I get the audiobook cause I have an audiobook audible subscription or so maybe I listen to the book instead of reading it while I'm running or walking or cooking or whatever or maybe I listen to a podcast where James Clear is a guest and I see how he speaks about it what he talks about and see if there is any good in that or maybe I read a blog post a review a critique a book summary or maybe I just check the index of the book and then the bibliography to see where these people are drawing inspiration from and then depending on that thing I ask myself did it pass? should I dedicate more time in in paying for this book and going through the reading and sometimes most of the times books don't pass so many times is just that I listen and I'm okay I'm good with what I Iearned from that podcast lecture book summary index blog post whatever something similar happened to me for example with the "Faith after Doubt" book by Brian McLaren which is the guy who developed the stage theory of simplicity complexity perplexity and harmony even though I adapted it from my own perspective and gave it a different a slightly different meaning and definitely different implications than the ones that he gave to these stages for example with faith after doubt it was a friend of mine Absaala if you're listening much love to you I'm grateful for the podcast she sent me this podcast and I listened to it I was like oh this is really fascinating it was resonating with me and then after that I actually listened to a podcast episode but a different one that it felt more like a lecture in which Brian McLaren was speaking about these stages and what he meant and he was a really short 20 minutes 30 minutes if you listen to the stages of moral growth I actually reference the talk and also the book so you can listen to that and and I was like wow this is really great and then I get I got the audiobook on Audible and I listened to it and then I realized that I actually only liked probably 20% of the book most of the book I was like it was weak on many areas I didn't like it as much in some implications but again I'm grateful that Brian McLaren wrote it I took away those ideas that have been a great blessing in my life to have this type of stage theory paradigm to make sense of our human and spiritual experience I think is useful but again it was only 20% of the book most of the book I actually I was like okay I disagree I agree it's okay it's not okay that it didn't pass this level per se you know I was just okay with listening to the book or listening to the talk and that's that I didn't get a physical copy nor a digital copy same thing happened with the 4-hour work week by Tim Ferris It didn't pass I listened to it and I was like I just don't like this outsourcing everything and optimizing everything to have more time for holidays per se cause I actually want to work in my craft and so for me that wasn't a good paradigm even though I do believe that there is more life after work okay and for example another book that I read was the Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley and that one passed I got a digital copy I thought it was really useful so in summary assess or evaluate the quality of the content or the book that you want to read through an easy and short duration format something that will not take away your precious time nor your money and that it is easy very digestible you know and so audiobooks podcast blog post book summary index watch lecture listen to it something and then you can see if this person is actually quite profound or this person is actually this is a good idea but I'm not willing to you know invest my time and money in getting a copy of their book alright so now if the book passes the first reading level this assessing or this assessment of the quality of the book or the person or the or the ideas if the book passes this first barrier so to speak then it passes to the second level of reading which is to actually read the book in a digital format or a physical a paperback type of format okay so now I have the book the physical copy and for example The Millionaire Next Door passes the test the first level of reading and then so what I do is that I use an iPad I don't use Kindle because I think it's too slow and I always underline or take notes all the time or write something on the margins if it's a paper type of version or format and if it's a digital one I underline and type quickly that's what I do and since I'm most of the time reading essays or academic journals or things like that I don't really get Kindle I have very little interaction and is slower than an iPad or a tablet now once I have the book what I do is that I read and then I underline the ideas and I usually use different colors I use yellow if the idea in general is good I use blue if it's an example about the idea or supporting evidence and if it is a quotation that I wanna keep for myself or something that I think is too meaty for the moment and I would like to reflect longer on that thing I underline it in pink so you can use a color system to differentiate that and if it is a physical copy this is on the iPad that I use these colors but if it's a physical copy I'm actually more lazy I don't like changing colors or anything like that and people won't like this but I know that there are some purists out there that they like having their books completely neat and super well-underlined no I don't do that'cause for me the book itself has no value if I don't absorb the information so for me it's actually the information that has value so for example you can see let me see so I'm showing here how I underline and write on the margins and it is horrible and is not beautiful at all let me just show it on camera and so yeah it's not beautiful at all it's horrible it's bad handwriting I don't care because I want to use that and I fold the pages every time I stop and so my books yeah they look ugly okay they look ugly but they've been read so that's important and they've been digested so I just use a pen or whatever I find in the moment and I just circle key terms underline write in the margins yeah whatever I just do many things and if it is a key page I fold the entire page inside of the book in the middle of the page I fold it and then I remember that oh wow this is a key page that I need to reread and if I don't understand something I basically make a bracket next to the paragraph and I put a question mark cause I was like I didn't get it or this is wrong or I don't I don't know you know my experience with this second level of reading is mix on the one hand I can feel like the book is just good in general it gave me a good gist or big idea about something and that is enough for me to remember that I don't need the details I don't need all the examples I don't need any of that like The Millionaire Next Door created a conviction in me about becoming more frugal and more conscientious about the decisions I make with my money and that was enough I was aware okay so usually people with regular salaries that manage well their money 80 or 90% is behavior so I was like okay so let me change my behaviors and then beliefs about that I have attached in that that produce this type of behaviors with money and so once I was aware of that and I reflected alone on that Then I implemented practices then I was good I implemented some practices I developed a new conviction about money and how I see the world and that was enough now sometimes the book is actually really really good and I wanna keep a short summary and so I use Notion which is a software its free you can pay for better plans but I have Notion so I make a short summary of the book the title of the book short summary and so with that short summary what I do is that I am very selective so it's not like I summarize every single chapter and include quotations or anything like that no I just you know go through the underlines and you know see if there was anything super important quickly or if I remember an idea that I wanna still remember or practice that I want to implement and I just write that so very selective just the parts that make sense to me and that's that now if the book is actually really really good then it goes to the third level of reading and the third level of reading is in-depth summary and study so I study the book I summarize the book thoroughly and these are typically great books that I will probably quote, reflect, and practice for a lifetime likes philosophical books they usually make it to the third category or the third level of reading and so what I do is that from the underlinings or the things that I marked or whatever I use with my pen or a color or on the iPad then I go through these underlinings per chapter and then I start to summarize and I usually include several quotations per chapter remember my pink underline underlining with the blue depending on the example if it's an example that makes me understand better the idea then I also keep that and then the practices or I usually add a critical comment a critical comment in the sense not critical in the sense of negative necessarily but just more so a reflection on my own life about this specific idea so I present or I summarize the idea with my own words I try to not copy just or type I use I always type I don't really use paper for this or I'm too slow and my handwriting is not beautiful so I use I use the keyboard for this and then I reflect on the ideas and the practices and I keep track of that so for example Atomic Habits by James Clear just passed this level I listened to it long time ago but I kind of like was halfway I became even more interested lately due to some teaching that I'm doing about how people how habit formation is attached to some degree to the identity that one adopts or believe believes and so that's why I became more interested and I I actually just ordered a physical copy and so my idea is to go again through the book underlying many things and then do a thorough summary and practice those chapters and I think James Clear is a fantastic writer very well-researched very implementable very practical so it's really really good I really find his book very accessible and very deep at the same time which is a tension very hard to achieve with that and Number 4 which is the bonus bonus segment for the people who have listened this far I just would like to share quickly how I use notion when I study a book thoroughly no this is not sponsored I wish that this episode were sponsored by Notion so it's not sponsored and I use Notion a very simple way so I use a database type of template is very easy to use I put name of the book author genre so 3 columns and then inside of the book once you exit cause it's like a web page it feels like a web page you just click on the thing and it opens a new page a blank page so once I click on the name of the book for example in the name of the book I have "Atomic Habits" then "author" James Clear"genre" I would say this is a tough one maybe productivity self-help whatever so I just put something as a genre there and so once I click on the name of "Atomic Habits" then you will take me to a blank page and then I will write introduction and so that I will create a page with the title and then I click again it will take me to like a blank page again and what I do there and this is a common practice that I have is that I turn ideas into questions so instead of just summarizing the information in affirmations or statements what I do is that I try to read the book the chapter and I try to turn the information into a question so that way it is my brain when I'm going through this is able to recall it faster or to identify what I need to find for example James Clear talks about the concept of "cues" what I could do is what is a cue? and an example of it and then I will just quickly respond that with information from the chapter that is just an example of how I use it so I usually turn ideas into questions and I do a short summary and then I include a quotation or an example if I think it is necessary to keep track of it and again I also I typically write a reflection or a criticism or an idea attached to this summary if I think it is necessary just to interact more with the content I don't have a photographic memory my working memory is super bad because I have ADHD and that's actually one of the worst parts about my ADHD my working memory is terrible and yes you could memorize you could grow all of that but I just don't think it's useful I think while I'm writing I think that writing is the highest form of thinking because you are able to keep a lot of information see your thoughts portray somewhere and we are linguistic beings so we use words to think or pictoral we could use pictures but then pictures also are but also pictures is a form of language but anyways I'm not gonna get into that so I learn as I write I write as I learn that is I think John Calvin said that I'm not sure and so I write cause that's the way I keep information that's the way I think that's the way many times if I want to know if I know about a specific topic I ask myself a question and I try to write something if I'm not able to write and I thought I knew I was just familiarized with the ideas but I didn't really understanding or know them that's why when I'm teaching something if there is somebody that doesn't understand me I usually blame myself hey if you're not understanding what I'm saying it's because I'm not explaining it in a simple way this complex idea and is it is because I don't have mastery over this idea I usually put myself to the test and making sure I'm able to explain succinctly what I'm learning or what the author is saying in that passage or that chapter so anyways that is kind like the methodology that I use so in summary No. 1 is the type of field and how much you know about it be aware of it adjust your expectation the less you know the harder you it will be for you to judge the quality of the book the more you know the faster you will be able to discern if the book is worth reading No. 2 take into account the tension or the continuity between popular level books and academic books and the books in between that's why we're talking about a continuum it's better to start with a popular level book than jump in too fast to an academic level book you have to be really motivated to actually want to read an academic level book because it will be more tedious it will require from you longer investment of time and No. 3 three levels of reading which is this is the practical part my method I have three levels of reading so to speak first level it's to assess or evaluate through an easy and short duration format the quality of the book or the ideas or the author so podcast a book summary index and so on and the second level if it passes if the book or the author passes the first critical level it goes to the second level of reading which is underlining and having a selective summary of the book and the third level finally is the in-depth summary and the study of the book based on the things that I underlined or wrote in the previous stage or the second level of reading and then I use that and put it into Notion and I keep the information there in a database I have all the books that actually passed the two levels and make it to the third level so that is what I do for those books that actually made it to the third level and so I hope this is helpful for you for this initial or this beginning in the school cycle university or maybe just for learning in general having these tips or advice or this thought process that I use to read books and keep learning and also be careful with the time I invest in reading a specific book so that will be pretty much everything for today tell me in the comments what topics you want me to cover sometimes um I'm ambivalent I don't know exactly what episode to do I have a list of episode already kind of like scheduled in my mind but I'm completely open to suggestions and changing my mind and maybe doing something different from what I planned if you really would like me to cover something specific write in the comments and also share with the community if you have any other tip about your method for reading that might be useful and people might find value in your advice so please do so also podcast available on video audio social media I post clips about different episodes I also let you know if there are any news so please follow me there TikTok Instagram Facebook and I also have a Spanish channel where I mostly post speaking engagement in Hispanic circles most of my speaking engagement in Spanish are usually in the context of a church either a teaching a sermon workshop or something like that so if you're interested in that link below or in my bio or linktree or wherever you are just check my links you will find it and that's that everybody adios