TextbookIntensive English Reading Compiled by z.w.z.for Candidates Applying for Doctor’s Degree in the Art Academy of China September 1, 2010ContentsUnit 1 Text 1 The Paradox of Knowledge ---------------- Page 3Text 2 Tyranny of the Urgent ---------------------- Page 8Unit 2 Text 1 The Virtues of Ambition -------------------- Page 16Text 2 Three Days to See ---------------------------- Page 21Unit 3 Text 1 The West Unique, Not Universal --------Page 24Text 2 What I Have Lived For -------------------- Page 28Unit 4 Text 1 Philosophy and Art ---------------------------- Page 30Text 2 Chopin—The Beautiful Soul of Music---- Page 39 Art Theory------------------------------------------------Page 41 Translation Exercises-----------------------------------Page 46 Songs------------------------------------------------------- Page 48Unit 1 Text 1 The Paradox of KnowledgeSkeptical Inquirer, Sept-Oct, 1995 by Lee LoevingerMain theme: As knowledge about nature expands, so does ignorance, and ignorance may increase more than its related knowledge.1. The greatest achievement of humankind in its long evolution from ancient hominoid ancestors to its present status is the acquisition and accumulation of a vast body of knowledge about itself, the world, and the universe. The products of this knowledge are all those things that, in the aggregate, we call "civilization," including language, science, literature, art, all the physical mechanisms, instruments, and structures we use, and the physical infrastructures on which society relies. Most of us assume that in modern society knowledge of all kinds is continually increasing and the aggregation of new information into the corpus of our social or collective knowledge is steadily reducing the area o...
