Reading to Reconcile
I admit to being puzzled at people who refuse to learn from those with whom they disagree. Since refusal to learn goes hand-in-hand with refusal to engage, these people reject ideas they have not even heard from their sources. Thus, they reject Aristotle's (or another such thinker's) thought, not because they have read, contemplated, reflected, understood, and been unpersuaded. Rather, they reject it because, having heard negative references, they presume it to be without value and, thus, do not engage his thought at all. A.G. Sertillanges wrote that it is an essential condition for profiting by our reading that we "tend always to reconcile our authors instead of setting one against another." His point was not that critical analysis has no place, particularly in an academic context. But, when the aim is formation of the intellect, or personal profit from reading and study, a critical spirit is a hindrance to learning. As Sertillanges notes, in such situations, it is not the thoughts, but the truths, that interest us. If truth is a whole (and it is), it is not the disagreements we have with thinkers that should occupy us; it is the agreement any thinker (writer) has with reality that is our search. As Sertillanges says, "the fruitful research is to look for points of contact." So, it is quite possible that although an Aristotelian, one may lean toward Plato in some things, just as it is possible that, without being an Augustinian, a Thomist might feed his mind constantly on the truths found in Augustine. One might even see Descartes as a corrupter of epistemology (as I do), and yet profit from some aspects of truth found in his writings (as I have). The person who wants to acquire from authors, not fodder for derision, but truth and reflection, must bring to his reading a spirit of conciliation as well as a grasp of the universal.



