Paired Reads
Dear Reader,
Paired reads are those in which no order is specified, but the works are still selected to be read together. Indeed, not only is no order specified, but their reader can flit from piece to piece as desired—as mood or chapter’s end inspire.
Monday’s suggested readings very nearly make up a paired read. And I’m frankly not that interested in fighting anyone over fine-tuned details. The categories are not binding; they are intended to be suggestive, to offer another way of considering the types of reads we do. Still, those essays really need to be read in order for them to work well. That’s what makes them sequential or in series. Paired reads, on the other hand, are chosen specifically for their intersection, but the order doesn’t matter.
There can be a joy in works paired intentionally, knowing which ones you want to interact with each other. A while back, I read two philosophers in tandem: Trudy Govier’s Problems in Argument Analysis and Evaluation and Douglas Walton’s Interpreting Straw Man Argumentation (technically co-authored with Fabrizio Macagno, but his name didn’t inspire the book’s purchase or subsequent pairing). In fact, I placed my notes from both books in the exact same notebook, one that has now added a third book to the group, Govier’s The Philosophy of Argument. That notebook has become its own repository of paired reads—a few stray notes aside, everything I need from those three books is contained within that notebook.
One of my favorite pairs of reads to teach and share with others is “Escape the Echo Chamber” and “Tired of Winning.” The two seem an unlikely pair. The first takes as its central example a certain Republican commentator; the second takes as its central example a certain Democratic think tank. And yet they are splendid in conversation with each other, not least because those central examples are really peripheral to each essay’s larger points.
One of the reasons I use them together is that with students and almost anyone else, I don’t wish to be partisan. (In fact, I almost didn’t finish the first essay the first time I read it because I was annoyed to see the same “case study” cited that I’d read about one too many times. Fortunately, the essay moved beyond its initial and unexciting example into far more interesting territory.) Using two essays that critique different parts of the political spectrum also helps to balance out concerns that I might be trying to guide anyone to vote in a particular way.
The most important reason I use them together, though, is that they reflect each other’s theses so well. And they do so in vastly different styles. The first essay is a pop philosophy work that’s better than most of the peer-reviewed junk I see in philosophy journals (for the snobs, a version of it also exists in the peer-reviewed realm); the second essay is a kind of memoir that slides into a rationale for why its hosting publication even exists.
If you’re wanting to dabble in philosophy, or you’re wondering what contribution philosophy has ever made to society, this is as decent a place to start outside of a history book as you’ll find.
While I generally suggest reading “Escape the Echo Chamber” first, the order with it and “Tired of Winning” doesn’t particularly matter. What matters is their conjunction, how they interact with each other.
As I think these make for excellent dinner conversation—messaging and who we trust being important considerations in any age—I have some questions you might use to initiate further conversation with yourself and others:
Nguyen distinguishes two concepts, using the terms “epistemic bubbles” and “echo chambers.” What matters more, the concepts or the terms?
If you were told that most people today use the term “echo chambers” to imply both concepts and often use “echo chambers” to more narrowly describe what Nguyen terms “epistemic bubbles,” how does this influence how you might discuss this piece with others who haven’t read it?
When Nguyen writes that “in many ways, echo-chamber members are following reasonable and rational procedures of enquiry,” how does that accord with your understanding of those in an echo chamber? As he further explores that reasonableness, what do you make of the idea of trust? What is social trust and social epistemology? (For those interested in Twitter and epidemiology, what might we make of this consideration from a well-respected technologist?)
When Baskin writes, “[W]e believe there are still readers who… know from their own experience that the mind has not only principles and positions but also, as the old cliché goes, a life,” what does he mean? And if we were to consider his phrasing for ourselves, what would it be, to have a life? What is it to have a life right now? What will it be to have a life two years from now, such as we can plan for it?
In the context of Baskin’s essay, how might we consider the following quote: “In our eagerness to advance what we see as the common good, we rush to cover over what we share in common with those who disagree with us, including the facts of our mutual vulnerability and ignorance, our incapacity to ever truly know what is right or good ‘in the last analysis.’”? How often do we trade in certainty when our knowledge is actually limited or absent?
While the above are enjoyable paired reads, I’ve shared several reads before that could be read in paired fashion. I’ve often listed a specific order for reading them, making them better suited as serial or sequential reads, but you as the reader can take those pairings and re-order them as interests you.
Have you ever tried paired reading? If so, what inspired you to do so? It could be as mundane as a school assignment or as interesting as research for a new intellectual or business venture. Or, I suppose, it could be instigated by a certain newsletter on reading…
Happy reading to you all,
Kreigh
P.S. I read “Avoiding the Trap of Sacrificial Math” after publishing yesterday’s newsletter, and I kind of wish I’d read it before, as it loosely connects to the math theme and I could have included there. It’s the best thing I’ve read on ethical theories, practical reasoning, uncertainty, and our present deliberations about the economy and public health. It would also pair well with today’s suggested reads, though it stands well enough on its own.
P.P.S. For those interested, among a few media mentions recently, I have a brief quote in this piece on TODAY about building “adulting skills for teens.”