C.S. Lewis on the Reading of Old Books
reasonabletheology.org
C.S. Lewis on the Reading of Old Books
1–10 of 179 posts
Re: C.S. Lewis on the Reading of Old Books
#2I believe that Tolkien is one of the folks he read Old Books with.
Re: C.S. Lewis on the Reading of Old Books
#3If we were to apply this idea to computer science or software engineering, where would we draw the line between old and new books?
Re: C.S. Lewis on the Reading of Old Books
#4I can entirely relate to what Lewis writes about reading Plato. I was interested in philosophy but found myself gravitating to reading and listening to podcasts about philosophy rather than reading it directly.
Once I actually picked up a volume of Plato's works I was surprised how approachable it was to me, a complete layman of philosophy.
Re: C.S. Lewis on the Reading of Old Books
#5If we were to apply this idea to computer science or software engineering, where would we draw the line between old and new books?
Technological books do not age as well, because technical knowledge is predominantly cumulative.
It's for fields where thoughts are evergreen (basically, anything to do with being human, literature, poetry, philosophy, etc) where this advice matters.
A good modern book on math, or chemistry, or compiler construction has more knowledge than any old one.
A good modern poet is not better than Shakespeare or Homer (and in many eras the poets are way worse than previous eras).
Re: C.S. Lewis on the Reading of Old Books
#6If we were to apply this idea to computer science or software engineering, where would we draw the line between old and new books?
There haven't been as many technical books passed down through the ages, has there? Do they just end up obsolete, or do people just not talk about them and I've been missing out?
Re: C.S. Lewis on the Reading of Old Books
#7If we were to apply this idea to computer science or software engineering, where would we draw the line between old and new books?
would old be something like: implementation is no longer relevant (the software itself is obsoleted), but the idea is seminal -- a basic conceptual building block upon which current systems are implemented? Example: Lambda Papers (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Lambda_Papers)
Re: C.S. Lewis on the Reading of Old Books
#8If we were to apply this idea to computer science or software engineering, where would we draw the line between old and new books?
I prefer to interpret this as "Classic" vs "New"/"Green" content; it depends a lot on the depth of stack for a given subject and how much is in the "old generation" of garbage collection.
Some fields would entirely lack classic books and thus must be viewed with a wider net that includes the precursors. In that case it's obvious that the classic work of the precursors to the new language/field/idea contrast to all of the current works.
In other fields there may have been sufficient refinement to include well regarded works among the classics.
As a brief note: this article is the first time that I've come across the idea and I find it a refreshing proposal for expanding perspective of thought and having a rigorous world view. I do worry that in the rushed modern era there is not enough time afforded to do things the correct way.
Re: C.S. Lewis on the Reading of Old Books
#9If we were to apply this idea to computer science or software engineering, where would we draw the line between old and new books?
There are no old books in computer science, because it is a new field, but already the effect that Lewis talks about can be seen...
I think we know what the classics are. If someone's name is in all the textbooks, it's probably worth looking up their original works. Turing and Shannon come immediately to mind as people who are more often read about than read, despite being quite approachable.
Re: C.S. Lewis on the Reading of Old Books
#10This was life-changing for me. I wanted to learn about spirituality through a different lens than the Catholic upbringing that constrained my mind and the rampant "spirituality is synonymous with Christianity" that I find in the U.S. I went out and read a handful of ancient religious texts from all of the world. This led me to see that throughout the course of human history, tribes from all over the world have espoused the same truths about the nature of reality (non-duality). I don't believe I could have reached this knowledge by reading derivative works alone.