The second general maxim of critical reading is as obvious as the first, but it needs explicit statement, nevertheless, and for the same reason. It is RULE 10, and it can be expressed thus: WHEN YOU DISAGREE, DO SO REASONABLY, AND NOT DISPUTATIOUSLY OR CONTENTIOUSLY . There is no point in winning an argument if you know or suspect you are wrong. Practically, of course, it may get you ahead in the world for a short time. But honesty is the better policy in the slightly longer run.
We learned this maxim first from Plato and Aristotle. In a passage in the Symposium, this interchange occurs:
I cannot refute you, Socrates, said Agathon: Let us assume that what you say is true.
Say rather, Agathon, that you cannot refute the truth; for Socrates is easily refuted.
The passage is echoed in a remark of Aristotle’s in the Ethics. “It would be thought to be better,” he says,
indeed to be our duty, for the sake of maintaining the truth even to destroy what touches us closely, especially as we are philosophers or lovers of wisdom; for, while
both are dear, piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.
Plato and Aristotle here give us advice that most people ignore. Most people think that winning the argument is what matters, not learning the truth.
He who regards conversation as a battle can win only by being an antagonist, only by disagreeing successfully, whether he is right or wrong. The reader who approaches a book in this spirit reads it only to find something he can disagree with. For the disputatious and the contentious, a bone can always be found to pick a quarrel over. It makes no difference whether the bone is really a chip on your own shoulder.
In a conversation that a reader has with a book in the privacy of his own study, there is nothing to prevent the reader from seeming to win the argument. He can dominate the situation. The author is not there to defend himself. If all he wants is the empty satisfaction of seeming to show the author up, the reader can get it readily. He scarcely has to read the book through to get it. Glancing at the first few pages will suffice.
But if he realizes that the only profit in conversation, with living or dead teachers, is what one can learn from them, if he realizes that you win only by gaining knowledge, not by knocking the other fellow down, he may see the futility of mere contentiousness. We are not saying that a reader should not ultimately disagree and try to show where the author is wrong. We are saying only that he should be as prepared to agree as to disagree. Whichever he does should be motivated by one consideration alone—the facts, the truth about the case.
More than honesty is required here. It goes without saying that a reader should admit a point when he sees it. But he also should not feel whipped by having to agree with an author, instead of dissenting. If he feels that way, he is inveterately disputatious. In the light of this second maxim, his problem is seen to be emotional rather than intellectual.