A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge by Alfred Klemmt
Published 1710 · 148 pages · 30,000 words · about 2 hours at an average pace · Nonfiction
How hard is A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge to read?
A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge scores 52 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 50 out of 100
- Berkeley writes in clear early-18th-century English with a limited stock of philosophical terms like substance, idea and spirit. It is plainer than Kant or Hume's contemporaries and far from the archaic density of Moby-Dick.
- Sentence structure: 55 out of 100
- Numbered sections keep sentences balanced and periodic but manageable. The syntax is more formal than the Great Gatsby's but well short of Henry James.
- Abstraction: 88 out of 100
- The whole work concerns perception, matter, and mind, with only a few homely examples like cherries, tables and trees. It is close to Notes from Underground in being ideas as plot.
- Information density: 60 out of 100
- Each section advances one step of the argument and answers an objection, so little is wasted. The work is compact and does not sprawl like an encyclopedic treatise.
How A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge is regarded
A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge holds a literary regard score of 85 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.