Reading

Literary Minds

关于小说、诗歌和戏剧,神经科学能告诉我们什么?小说能帮助我们发展现实世界中的认知技能吗?作家们能为了我们自己的利益利用我们精神上的弱点吗?这是我们在本周的节目“你的文学大脑”中要问的一些问题。

Proust and Social Distance

马塞尔·普鲁斯特(Marcel Proust)曾经写过一个假想的“精神抑郁症”患者,他没有身体上的缺陷,但缺乏行动的意志。如果你在家呆了几个星期,你可能会患上这种精神倦怠。一本好书可能是你需要的震动,刺激你进入新的和创造性的想法。

我们应该放弃正典吗?

Should we still be venerating works by Plato, Shakespeare, Woolf, and company as “great books”? Should we still be reading them at all? Or should we simply abandon the "Western canon"? These are the questions we're asking in this week's show.

Reader’s Block and Bad Philosophy

“Reader’s block” might refer to anxiety about reading some intimidating book; reluctance to read at all; or that special frustrating phenomenon where you drag your eyes over the lines of a page without taking anything in. Sometimes it's the result of a philosophical mistake about reading.

What Is Reading?

Reading. We all do it, every day, whether it be reading books, text messages, street signs, or cereal boxes. But what is reading? This is an important question, but there is a surprising lack of research in analytic philosophy on this topic. How hard can it be to say what reading is?