Mortimer J. Adler | |
|---|---|
 Adler while presiding over the Center for the Study of The Great Ideas | |
| Born | Mortimer Jerome Adler (1902-12-28)December 28, 1902 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | June 28, 2001(2001-06-28) (aged 98) San Mateo, California, U.S. |
| Spouses | |
| Education | |
| Education | Columbia University (PhD) |
| Philosophical work | |
| Era | 20th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | |
| Main interests | Philosophical theology,metaphysics, ethics |
| Notable works | Aristotle for Everybody,How to Read a Book,A Syntopicon |
Mortimer Jerome Adler (/ˈædlər/; December 28, 1902 – June 28, 2001) was an Americanphilosopher, educator,encyclopedist, author, andlay theologian.[1] His philosophical work was situated within theAristotelian andThomistic traditions. Adler taught atColumbia University and theUniversity of Chicago, served as chairman of the board of editors ofEncyclopædia Britannica, and founded the Institute for Philosophical Research.
He resided for extended periods inNew York City,Chicago,San Francisco, andSan Mateo, California.[2]
Adler was born inManhattan, New York City, on December 28, 1902, toJewish immigrants fromGermany: Clarissa (née Manheim), a schoolteacher, and Ignatz Adler, ajewelry salesman.[3][4]
Adler left school at age 14 to work as acopy boy forThe New York Sun, with the ultimate aspiration of becoming a journalist.[5] He soon returned to education to takenight classes in writing, during which he became acquainted withWestern philosophy.
Adler subsequently studied atColumbia University, where he contributed to the student literary magazineThe Morningside. One of his contributions was the poemChoice, published in 1922, when Charles A. Wagner[6] was editor-in-chief andWhittaker Chambers was an associate editor.[7] Adler refused to take a swimming test required for abachelor’s degree; Columbia awarded him an honorary degree in 1983. He remained at Columbia, where he held an instructorship and later earned a doctorate inpsychology.[8] During this period, he wrote his first book,Dialectic, published in 1927.[9]
Adler later worked withScott Buchanan at thePeople's Institute and collaborated with him for many years on their respectiveGreat Books projects.[10]
While working in journalism and attending night classes during his adolescence, Adler encountered writings by philosophers includingPlato,Aristotle,Thomas Aquinas,John Locke,John Stuart Mill.[11] These figures became central reference points in his intellectual development. Adler’s philosophical views developed toward what he described as the identification and correction of errors in contemporary philosophy, a position he articulated in his 1985 bookTen Philosophical Mistakes: Basic Errors in Modern Thought.[12]
In this work, Adler argued that certain foundational problems inmodern philosophy originated withRené Descartes incontinental philosophy and withThomas Hobbes andDavid Hume inBritish philosophy. He attributed these problems to what he characterized as insufficient engagement with Aristotle by thinkers who rejected classical philosophical frameworks. Adler further contended that these errors were extended by later philosophical movements, includingKantianidealism andexistentialism, as well as by utilitarian andanalytic philosophy associated with figures such asJohn Stuart Mill,Jeremy Bentham, andBertrand Russell. Adler maintained that his own philosophical approach addressed these issues through concepts and distinctions derived fromAristotelianism.
In 1930,Robert Maynard Hutchins, the recently appointed president of theUniversity of Chicago and an earlier acquaintance of Adler, arranged for Adler to be hired by theUniversity of Chicago Law School as a professor of thephilosophy of law. Members of the University of Chicago philosophy faculty, includingJames Hayden Tufts,Edwin Arthur Burtt, andGeorge Herbert Mead, expressed "grave doubts" about Adler’s qualifications in philosophy and opposed his appointment to the university's Department of Philosophy.[13][14][15] Adler became the first individual without a formal legal background to join the law school faculty.[16]
Following the success of a Great Books seminar that influenced University of Chicago trustee and businessmanWalter Paepcke, Paepcke founded theAspen Institute. Adler subsequently taught philosophy to business executives at the institute.[9][17]
Adler sought to present philosophy to a general audience, and several of his works, includingHow to Read a Book, achieved wide circulation. He also supported the concept ofeconomic democracy and wrote the preface toLouis O. Kelso's 1958 bookThe Capitalist Manifesto.[18] Adler frequently collaborated with Arthur Rubin, a longtime associate from his undergraduate years at Columbia University, who assisted him in his research and writing.
In Adler's own words:
Unlike many of my contemporaries, I never write books for my fellow professors to read. I have no interest in the academic audience at all. I'm interested in Joe Doakes. A general audience can read any book I write – and they do.
Dwight Macdonald once criticized Adler's literary style by saying "Mr. Adler once wrote a book calledHow to Read a Book. He should now read a book calledHow to Write a Book."[19]
Adler and Robert Hutchins jointly founded theGreat Books of the Western World program and theGreat Books Foundation. In 1952, Adler established the Institute for Philosophical Research and served as its director. He served on the Board of Editors ofEncyclopædia Britannica, where he compiledA Syntopicon and later thePropaedia. Adler succeeded Hutchins as chairman of the Board of Editors in 1974.
As director of editorial planning for the fifteenth edition ofEncyclopædia Britannica, beginning in 1965, Adler played a central role in the reorganization of the encyclopedia's structure and presentation of knowledge.[20] He also developed thePaideia Proposal, which led to the creation of the Paideia Program, a school curriculum focused on guided reading and discussion of selected texts at each grade level. In 1990, Adler and Max Weismann founded the Center for the Study of the Great Ideas in Chicago.
Great Books of the Western World is a series of books originally published in theUnited States in 1952, byEncyclopædia Britannica, Inc., to present thegreat books in 54 volumes.
The original editors had three criteria for including a book in the series drawn fromWestern Civilization: the book must be relevant to contemporary matters, and not only important in its historical context; it must be rewarding to re-read repeatedly with respect toliberal education; and it must be a part of "thegreat conversation about the great ideas", relevant to at least 25 of the 102 "Great Ideas" as identified by the editor of the series's comprehensive index, theSyntopicon, to which they belonged. The books were chosen not on the basis of ethnic and cultural inclusiveness (historical influence being seen as sufficient for inclusion), nor on whether the editors agreed with the authors' views.[21]
A second edition was published in 1990, in 60 volumes. Some translations were updated; some works were removed; and there were additions from the 20th century, in six new volumes.
Adler was born into asecular Jewish family. In his early twenties, he became interested in the work ofThomas Aquinas, particularly theSumma Theologica.[22] He later wrote that its intellectual rigor and clarity led him to rank theology among his principal philosophical interests.[23] Adler became strongly associated withThomism and frequently contributed to Catholic philosophical and educational journals, as well as lecturing at Catholic institutions. As a result, he was sometimes assumed to be a Catholic convert, though this was not the case at the time.[22]
In 1940,James T. Farrell described Adler as "the leading Americanfellow-traveller of the Roman Catholic Church", comparing his views to those of prominent Catholic philosophers such asÉtienne Gilson,Jacques Maritain, andMartin D'Arcy. Adler also admiredHenri Bergson.[22]
Despite his affinity, Adler delayed formal conversion to Catholicism. Farrell attributed Adler's delay in joining the Church to his being among those Christians who "wanted their cake and ... wanted to eat it too" and compared him to the EmperorConstantine, who waited until he was on his deathbed to formally become a Catholic.[24] Adler continued to reflect on theological questions for several decades and described himself in 1980, inHow to Think About God: A Guide for the Twentieth-Century Pagan, as identifying with the "pagan" referenced in the subtitle.
In a 1980 interview conducted by Ken Myers, Adler stated that moral rather than intellectual considerations had prevented his conversion to Christianity.[25] Myers noted that Adler was baptized as anEpiscopalian in 1984. Offering insight into Adler's conversion, Myers quotes him from a subsequent 1990 article inChristianity magazine: "My chief reason for choosing Christianity was because the mysteries were incomprehensible. What's the point of revelation if we could figure it out ourselves? If it were wholly comprehensible, then it would just be another philosophy."[25]
According to his friendDeal Hudson, Adler "had been attracted to Catholicism for many years" and "wanted to be a Roman Catholic, but issues like abortion and the resistance of his family and friends" kept him away. Many thought he was baptized as an Episcopalian rather than a Catholic solely because of his "wonderful – and ardently Episcopal – wife" Caroline. Hudson suggests it is no coincidence that it was only after her death in 1998 that he took the final step.[26] In December 1999, in San Mateo, where he had moved to spend his last years, Adler was formally received into the Catholic Church by a long-time friend and admirer, BishopPierre DuMaine.[22] "Finally," wrote another friend,Ralph McInerny, "he became the Roman Catholic he had been training to be all his life".[5]
Despite not being a Catholic for most of his life, on account of his lifelong participation in theNeo-Thomist movement[25] and his almost equally long membership in theAmerican Catholic Philosophical Association, this latter, according to McInerny[5] is willing to consider Adler "a Catholic philosopher".
Adler referred toAristotle'sNicomachean Ethics as the "ethics ofcommon sense" and also as "the only moral philosophy that is sound, practical, and undogmatic."[27] Thus, it is the only ethical doctrine that answers all the questions that moral philosophy should and can attempt to answer, neither more nor less, and that has answers that are true by the standard of truth that is appropriate and applicable tonormative judgments. In contrast, Adler believed that other theories or doctrines try to answer more questions than they can or fewer than they should, and their answers are mixtures of truth and error, particularly the moral philosophy ofImmanuel Kant.
Adler was a self-proclaimed "moderatedualist" and viewed the positions ofpsychophysicaldualism andmaterialisticmonism to be opposite sides of two extremes. Regarding dualism, he dismissed the extreme form ofdualism that stemmed from such philosophers asPlato (body andsoul) andDescartes (mind and matter), as well as the theory of extrememonism and themind–brain identity theory. After eliminating the extremes, Adler subscribed to a more moderate form of dualism. He believed that the brain is only anecessary, but not asufficient, condition for conceptual thought; that an "immaterial intellect" is also requisite as a condition;[28] and that the difference between human and animal behavior is a radical difference in kind. Adler defended this position against many challenges to dualistic theories.
The meanings of "freedom" and "free will" have been and are under debate, and the debate is confused because there is no generally accepted definition of either term.[29][30][31] Adler's "Institute for Philosophical Research" spent ten years studying the "idea of freedom" as the word was used by hundreds of authors who have discussed and disputed freedom.[32] The study was published in 1958 as Volume One ofThe Idea of Freedom, subtitledA Dialectical Examination of the Idea of Freedom with subsequent comments inAdler's Philosophical Dictionary. Adler's study concluded that a delineation of three kinds of freedom – circumstantial, natural, and acquired – is necessary for clarity on the subject.[33][34]
As Adler's interest in religion and theology increased, he made references to the Bible and the need to test articles of faith for compatibility with the conclusions of the science of nature and of philosophers.[35] In his 1981 bookHow to Think About God, Adler attempts to demonstrate God as theexnihilator (the creator of something from nothing).[11] Adler stressed that even with this conclusion,God's existence cannot be proven or demonstrated, but only established as truebeyond a reasonable doubt. However, in a recent re-review of the argument, John Cramer concluded that recent developments incosmology appear to converge with and support Adler's argument, and that in light of such theories as themultiverse, the argument is no worse for wear and may, indeed, now be judged somewhat more probable than it was originally.[36]
Adler believed that, if theology and religion are living things, there is nothing intrinsically wrong about efforts to modernize them. They must be open to change and growth like everything else. Furthermore, there is no reason to be surprised when discussions such as those about the "death of God" – a concept drawn fromFriedrich Nietzsche – stir popular excitement as they did in the recent past and could do so again today. According to Adler, of all the great ideas, the idea of God has always been and continues to be the one that evokes the greatest concern among the widest group of men and women. However, he was opposed to the idea of convertingatheism into a new form of religion or theology.
Mortimer Adler was married twice and had four children.[37] He married Helen Boynton in 1927. Together they adopted two children, Mark and Michael, in 1938 and 1940, respectively. They divorced in 1960. In 1963, Adler married Caroline Pring, his junior by thirty-four years; they had two children, Douglas and Philip.[38][39][40][41]
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)The Great Ideas Program is a ten volume companion toGreat Books of the Western World. [...] This set was published between 1959 and 1963 due to demand for an organized program of reading that was lacking in theGreat Books set itself. [...] The editors prepared this set "to provide a way into theGreat Books for readers who would like help in their first reading of them." Each volume contains fifteen readings that are designed to take a typical adult approximately two weeks to read, understand, and contemplate. Introductory material is provided for each reading and elements that might pose difficulties are highlighted. This material does not attempt to "spoon feed" the reader but does provide useful information to get started. [...] Each reading is supposed to account for two weeks since the goal is not to speed read these selections but to reallyread them, perhaps more than once, and then to write about them using prompts that the editors provide.
Media from Commons
Quotations from Wikiquote
Texts from Wikisource
Data from Wikidata| Overview | |||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ideas and interests |
| ||||||||||||||||||
| Corpus Aristotelicum |
| ||||||||||||||||||
| Followers |
| ||||||||||||||||||
| Related topics | |||||||||||||||||||
