Active Reading
Arthur O. Lovejoy:
The student of the history of ideas must approach his historical sources certainly with an open but not with a passive mind. The profitable reading of a text which includes any but the simplest ideas is always a process of cross-examination — of putting relevant questions to the author; and the reader must therefore know in advance what questions need to be asked. To ask the right questions, the reader must first of all consider what distinctions — between concepts and therefore between terms — are pertinent and important in relation to the topics or issues with which the author is concerned. Many — most, I am inclined to think — of the terms which have historically been used in the expression of more or less abstract ideas have been ambiguous terms, and a great many of the propositions which have played influential parts in the history of thought have been equivocal propositions. For this reason, if you wish to know what an author means by his terms or propositions, it is desirable to have in mind in advance, as far as possible, what different things he might conceivably mean by the words he uses. You may then sometimes, by analysis and comparison of different passages, discover which of these distinguishable things he does mean; but if the precaution of making such distinctions beforehand is neglected, there is always the risk that you will impose a wrong, or an oversimple, meaning on his words from the outset, and thus more or less completely misinterpret him.
Reflections on Human Nature, pp. 67f