Bigraphy Adler's Profile

Mortimer J.
Adler
CONTENTS
Introduction Biography Basic Tenets of Alder's Philosophy Knowledge and Philosophy The Six Great Ideas Common Philosophical Mistakes The Paideia Proposal References
Introduction
Mortimer J. Adler is a chairman of the Board of Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. He is the director for the Institute for Philosophical Research in Chicago and a senior associate at the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. He is a modern day philosopher and the author of more than 50 books. His method in several of these books is Socratic underpinning his familiarity with a wide range of works of ancient and contemporary philosophers. His philosophy has touched a broad spectrum of society including education.
Basic Tenets of Alder's Philosophy

Adler believes that philosophy is for everyman. He believes that becoming, "a generally educated human being also involves some grasp of the history of history and of philosophy, and some understanding of the philosophy of history and of philosophy." (Adler, Four Dimensions of Philosophy, pgs. viii-ix) Because Adler feels that philosophy is something that everyone should do he has made several proposals, to return philosophical dialogue about the "great ideas " into current thinking and modern educational
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curriculums. In Conditions of Philosophy, Adler laid out six conditions for philosophy to reacquire its former prominence in society. They are: 1. Philosophy must be recognized as an autonomous branch of knowledge 2. Philosophical knowledge should be knowledge of the first order 3. Philosophical theories should be judged by the same standards of objective truth that are applied to the natural sciences. 4. Philosophy should be a public undertaking. 5. Philosophy must develop a method distinctly its own. 6. Philosophy must not be esoteric and out of touch with the real world.
Knowldege And Philosophy

To Adler knowledge is truth beyond the shadow of a doubt. It is "doxa " a well founded opinion, based upon evidence and reason that is testable, falsifiable and corrigible. Philosophy is like mathematics to Adler, in that it is non-investigative. In other words math can be developed without special equipment to conduct investigations. Philosophy is also like math because it deals with ideal objects, objects of thought. However; unlike math, philosophy is empirical. This is because philosophy is based on synthetic judgments in contrast to analytical judgments. This type of judgment is testable by "sense experiences ", because all human beings have "common experiences " that include the knowledge acquired without ever asking a single question. It is possible for anyone to verify or reject a synthetic judgment; therefore, it is possible for every man and woman to be a philosopher. Philosophy is like common sense it is acquired by intellectual insights and rational thought processes. "It cannot be too often repeated that philosophy is everbody's business. To be a human being is to be endowed with he proclivity to philosophize." (Six great Ideas, pg.3 ) Adler believes new philosophy must be knowledge of the first order. This means knowledge about reality. Knowledge of the second order is knowledge about knowledge itself. However, Adler notes that philosophy is the only branch of knowledge that
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Mortimer J. Adler
exists in a number of different dimensions. In fact he breaks philosophy up into four distinct dimensions. Metaphysics and moral philosophy would be examples of philosophy that is first order knowledge. The understanding of ideas and subjects would be examples of philosophy that is second order knowledge. Note that in these four dimensions Adler refers to philosophy as both knowledge and as understanding. We know metaphysics and moral philosophy. We only understand ideas and subjects. One way to test our "knowledge" of philosophy is by applying the tests of truth. These include: the pragmatic test which analyzes if a judgment which led to an action had a successful outcome and the test of generalizations which analyzes if perception is altered by one or more negative instances, but perhaps the most important test of truth to Adler is the test of coherence. This test shows whether or not a philosophy is consistent with reality, "only a coherent theory or doctrine can correspond with reality." (Four Dimensions, pg. 32)
The Six Great Ideas

To Adler, philosophy is about ideas, especially "great ideas ". Adler believes that Plato was right in, "holding that ideas are objects that the human mind can think about." (Six Great Ideas, pg. 9) Adler narrowed the great ideas to six. He argues that a philosopher should begin with these six because of our common call to be good citizens and thoughtful human beings. He notes that five of the six ideas are prominent in the three documents that are the prime source of the American testament; the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Gettysburg Address. According to Adler three of these ideas we judge by truth, goodness and beauty and three of these ideas we live by and act on liberty, equality and justice. About truth, Adler says that it has both objective and subjective elements and that we should incorporate a mild form of skepticism that questions not its objective aspect but its subjective aspect. "The objective truth of a statement may be immutable, but not our subjective judgment about whether it is true. there are no degrees of objective truth. ...But when, subjectively, we judge a statement to be true or false, we may do so with more or less assurance, and accordingly, we may speak of it as being more or less true...." (Six great Ideas, pg.45)
Mortimer J. Adler
According to Adler the pursuit of truth in all branches of knowledge involves: 1. The addition of new truths to our existing body of knowledge. 2. The replacement of less accurate or comprehensive forms with better ones. 3. The discover and rectification of errors. Return to Top 4. The discarding of generalizations that have been falsified by negative instances.
"The sphere of truth, in short, is the sphere of those matters about which we think disagreement is profitable precisely because we think that these are matters about which it is possible to resolve differences." (Six Great Ideas, pg. 58) According to Adler, the difference between truth and goodness is found in the relationships that they both pose. "When we talk about the pursuit of truth, we are regarding truth as an object of desire and, in doing so, we are in effect attributing goodness to truth." (Six Great Ideas, pg. 67) According to Adler, we can determine what is good if we can discriminate between our natural and acquired desires, our wants and needs if you will. this distinction allows us to draw a line between real and apparent goods. Those things which fulfill are natural desires our good for us. Goodness allows us to express three degrees of evaluation, the positive, the comparative and the superlative. While Adler acknowledges the skepticism that would say that truth, goodness and beauty are all subjective. He effectively argues that there are elements of each which are objective. Beauty is intimately related to goodness because it too so based upon it relationship with us. The whole idea of beauty and how it is defined and perceived Adler further explores in Arts, the arts, and the Great Ideas. Adler notes that of the three great ideas we act upon justice is sovereign to liberty and equality, much as truth is sovereign to goodness and beauty. He also believes that all three ideas fall into the domain of goodness. for instance, to act rightly or justly is to do good. According to Adler all three are "real goods" that are
Mortimer J. Adler
needed in the pursuit of happiness. Of these three only justice is an unlimited good. Regarding freedom Adler says there are three forms. They are: 1. natural freedom, the freedom that we are born with, freedom of our wills, 2. liberty, the freedom associated with wisdom and moral virtue and 3. circumstantial freedom which is contingent upon conditions and can change frequently in the course of a lifetime. Regarding equality Adler says, "The equalities to which we are entitled, by virtue of being human, are circumstantial, no personal. They are equalities of condition-of status, treatment and opportunity." (Six Great Ideas, pg.165)
Ten Philosophical Mistakes

Finally, Adler in Ten Philosophical Mistakes discusses the errors that plague modern philosophy. He identifies: 1. the mistake about consciousness Return to Top 2. the mistake about the human mind 3. the failure to recognize that ideas are meanings 4. the mistake of not acknowledging the contributions of philosophy are as important as those of the sciences. 5. the mistake that makes good and evil subjective 6. the mistake in the identification of happiness 7. the misunderstanding between freedom of choice and determinism 8. the denial of human nature 9. failure to understand how the basic forms of human association are both natural and conventional 10. the fallacy of reductionism
To renew philosophy in this century we must remove many of the mistakes that have beomce all too common in modern philosophy. Many of these mistakes are small to Adler, theideas that fix them are simple. Many of these moder mistakes have roots that lie in
Mortimer J. Adler
antiquity. The two most significant philosophical mistakes though, are the first two. The first mistake is based upon Locke's view of consciousness, which said that all ideas are that which we apprehend when we are conscious of anything. In contrast, Adler says that a cognitive idea cannot be that which and that by which I apprehend something. That this view defies common sense. The second mistake, the mistaken view of the human mind is based upon Hobbes, Berkeley and Hume who believed that the mind was entirely a sensitive faculty, with no trace of intellectuality. Adler's counter argument is based upon Locke's argument which differentiated between perceptual and conceptual thought based upon man's reflective ability. How is all of this realized? Below is a diagram of the Paidea Program Adler's idea of what contemporary schools should look like. Return to Top
The Paideia Curricular Framework

Column One Acquisition of organized knowledge by means of didactic instruction, lectures & responses in three areas of subject matter language, literature and the fine arts, mathematics and natural science, history, geograpahy and social studies Column Two Development of intellectual skills skills of learning by means of coaching exercises, and supervised practice in the operations of reading, writing, speaking, listening, calculating and problem-solving, observing, estimating, exercising critical judgement Column Three Enlarged understanding of ideas and values by means of Maieutic or Socratic questioning and active participation in the discussion of books (not textbooks) and other works of art and involvement in artistic activities (e.g., music, drama and visual arts
Goals
Means
Areas
Mortimer J. Adler
Web Links
Biography A brief biography of Adler Center for the Study of The Great Ideas Philosophical research center founded by Adler Bibliography Writings of Adler and other noted educators
Mortimer Adler has given a resonding response to positivism and reductionism which find all their answers only in the empirical sciences. He has quieted radical skepticism and provided a contextual framework for both the subjective and the objective in philosophy, but probably his greatest contribution is as a spokesperson for philosophy a forgotten art.
References
Adler, M.J. (1994). Art, the arts, and the great ideas. New York, New York. Touchstone Books. Adler, M.J. (1993). The four dimensions of philosophy. New York, New York. MacMillan Publishing. Adler, M.J. (1981). The great ideas. New York, New York. MacMillan Publishing. Adler, M.J. (1985). Ten philosophical mistakes. New York, New York. MacMillan Publishing.
Welcome to the Mortimer J. Adler Archives
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"The only standard we have for judging all of our social, economic, and political institutions and arrangements as just or unjust, as good or bad, as better or worse, derives from our conception of the good life for man on earth, and from our conviction that, given certain external conditions, it is possible for men to make good lives for themselves by their own efforts." Mortimer J. Adler Join us in The Radical Academy Forum FEATURED BOOK
The Archive Directory

Dr. Adler's Briefing Room
Brief remarks by Dr. Adler on various topics and responses to questions that he has been asked.
A Short Biography of Dr. Adler

A portrait of Dr. Adler with some brief information about his life and work.
Books by Dr. Adler

Information about many of Dr. Adler's books and how you can order them from this website.
Adler Anecdotes
Interesting and sometimes humorous stories surrounding Dr. Adler's life.
Dr. Adler's Audio and Video Cassettes

A list of audio and video cassettes of Dr. Adler's lectures and information about ordering them.
A Bibliography of Work by Dr. Adler

How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading, by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren Many of Dr. Adler's books are available through The Radical Academy Bookstore. A photograph of Dr. Adler with Max Weismann, and a list of works Dr. Adler has written or edited.
Book Review by Max Weismann

A review of Adler's Philosophical Dictionary: 125 Key Terms for the Philosopher's Lexicon.
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Books by Mortimer J. Adler
Dr. Mortimer J. Adler on . . . G What every person "needs" in order to live a whole good life (happiness)
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Ten Rules and Recommendations for Achieving Both Success and Happiness
Capsule Comment: Max Weismann and Mortimer Adler on Natural & Civil Rights
New & Used College Textbooks at Discount Prices College Education Directories & Study Resources Education Resources & Study Help
Essays and Discussions Currently Online Philosophy in General G Why Philosophy is Everybody's Business
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Metaphysics and Epistemology G Knowledge and Opinion

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With Respect to Philosophy Philosophy's Past About Philosophy in Relation to Common Sense What is an Idea? The Truth and the Good - Is and Ought Some Questions About Language
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Appearance and Reality: A Tale of Two Tables and a Chair (A Philosophical Problem Concerning Human Existence with a Solution by Mortimer Adler - Part One Appearance and Reality: A Tale of Two Tables and a Chair (A Philosophical Problem Concerning Human Existence with a Solution by Mortimer Adler - Part Two The Nature of Man - Part One Human Nature The Nature of Man - Part Two Human Nurture The Great Idea of God
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Moral Philosophy and Ethics G Aristotle's Ethics: The Theory of Happiness I

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Aristotle's Ethics: The Theory of Happiness II The Ethics of Common Sense: The Only Moral Philosophy That Is Sound, Practical, and Undogmatic On Moral Philosophy The Ethics of Enough Does the End Justify the Means? On the Mistake of Giving Primacy of the Right Over
Education G Only Adults Can Be Educated

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The Joy of Learning Our Goal for the Next Century: A Moral and an Educational Revolution Critical Thinking Programs: Why They Won't Work Schooling is Not Enough
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the Good
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On Law: Are You a Naturalist or a Positivist? Habits, Good and Bad Medicine and Morals On Romantic Love On The Relativity of Values The Nature of Natural Law A Dialectic of Morals: Part 1 - Introduction, The Dialectical Task A Dialectic of Morals: Part 2 - Preference and Pleasure, Induction of a Principle A Dialectic of Morals: Part 3 - Pleasure and the Order of Goods A Dialectic of Morals: Part 4 - The Order of Goods and Happiness A Dialectic of Morals: Part 5 - Psychological Presuppositions: Limitations of the Dialectic On Inalienable Rights (and comments on capital punishment) Love as an Object of Right Desire Why Strength of Character is Needed to Lead a Good LIfe Virtue as an End and as a Means Virtue and the Pursuit of Happiness Human Equality
A Moral and an Educational Revolution Teaching, Learning, and Their Counterfeits The Great Books, the Great Ideas, and a Lifetime of Learning Phony Tolerance Mortimer Adler on Multiculturalism - Part I: Introduction Mortimer Adler on Multiculturalism - Part II: Instructional Aims The Art of Teaching General Education vs. Vocational Education Understanding the U.S.A.
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Adler on Salesmanship G The Art of Persuasion - I

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The Art of Persuasion - II The Art of Persuasion - III
The Ideas of Work and Leisure G Part 1 - - (Introduction; The Six Parts
of Life)
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Part 2 - - (Categorizing Human

Activities; Sleep or Sleeping; Work or Working that is Toil or Labor; Work or Working that is Leisuring Rather than Toiling; Playing or Amusing One's Self)
Part 3 - - (Is a Particular Activity

Sleep, Toil, Leisure, Play, or Some Mixture of These?)
Part 4 - - (The Spectrum of Work,

Compensated and Uncompensated; Idling and Rest)
Part 5 - - (The Options Open to Us for

the Use of Our Free Time)
Miscellaneous
Equality and Inequality G Part I: The Dimensions of Equality

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Some Rules for Good Conversation Among All the Arts, Three Stand Out from All the Rest The American Testament Every Citizen - Young and Old A Twentieth-Century Delusion Manifesto of the Center for the Study of The Great Ideas That Campbell Fellow How to Answer Questions The Use of Free Time
Part II: The Equalities to Which We Are Entitled Part III: The Inequalities That Justice Also Requires
G G G G
Aesthetics G Some Thoughts on Beauty On Reading G How to Read a Difficult Book

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How to Mark a Book How to Keep Awake While Reading Reading as Learning by Discovery
On The Great Books G Why Read Great Books?

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Good Books vs Great Books The Syntopicon as an Instrument of Liberal Education - A The Syntopicon as an Instrument of Liberal Education - B Two Approaches to the Authors of the Great Books
Dr. Adler's essays, discussions, and other items are copyrighted material. They are reproduced here by permission of Mortimer J. Adler, Max Weismann, and the Center for the Study of The Great Ideas. The Center for the Study of The Great Ideas is a non-profit educational organization based in Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Mortimer J. Adler and Max Weismann, Founders The Radical Academy is a project of The Center for Applied Philosophy and its office is located in Port Orford, Oregon. Dr. Jonathan Dolhenty, Executive Director
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Adler On
Center for the Study of The Great Ideas
Adler On
Topical Index to the Works of Mortimer J. Adler
Preface | Terms | Recommended Readings
Preface My purpose in writing the entries is to establish a precise meaning for the words of common, everyday speech. In the last thirty years or so I have written thirty or more philosophical books, intended for the general public, men and women whose special vocation is not philosophy but who nevertheless regard philosophizing to be everybody's business. Unlike the works of professors of philosophy who write books and journal articles for other professors to read, these books have been written for everyone to read. In writing them, I have tried to avoid all technical jargon, all words not in the vocabulary of everyday speech. Unfortunately, many of the words in that vocabulary are used in many senses, most of them imprecise, wrong, or inadequate. It becomes necessary to give these ordinary words the precision they should have when they are used for philosophical purposes. I refer, wherever necessary, to the books I have written that at greater length make the points under consideration. The lists of Recommended Readings refer first to selections from Great Books of the Western World. The authors and books recommended are set down in the chronological order in which they appear in the volumes of that set of books. In addition, I have recommended in each case the reading of other works--works not included in the set, but of great relevance to the problems being considered in the particular section. --Mortimer J. Adler
Terms A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
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Absolute and Relative | Abstract and Concrete | Analogical Speech | Analytic and Synthetic Judgments | Anarchy | Angels | Appearance, see Reality and Appearance | Art | Autonomy | Beatitude | Beauty | Being | Belief | Capitalism and Socialism, see also Communism and Socialism | Casuistry | Cause, see Certainty and Probability | Certainty and Probability | Chance, see Certainty and Probability | Change | Charity, see Faith, Hope, and Charity | Choice, see Certainty and Probability | Citizen | Civil Disobedience | Civil Rights, see Rights, Natural and Civil | Classes, Kinds | Coercion and Duress | Cognition | Common Good | Communism and Socialism, see also Capitalism and Socialism | Concrete, see Abstract and Concrete | Constitution | Contemplation | Continence and Incontinence | Custom and Convention | Democracy | Dogmatism | Duress, see Coercion and Duress | Duty | Education | Emotion | Ends and Means | Equality and Inequality | Equivocal Speech, see Analogical Speech | Eternity | Evolution | Expediency, see Justice and Expediency | Faith, Hope, and Charity | Fraternity | Friendship, see Fraternity | God | Good and Evil | Government | Happiness | Heaven and Hell | Hierarchy | History | Honor | Hope, see Faith, Hope, and Charity | Human Nature and Nurture | Idea | Imagination, see Memory and Imagination | Immortality | Inequality, see Equality and Inequality | Infinity | Justice and Expediency | Kinds, see Classes, Kinds | Knowledge | Labor | Language | Law | Leisure | Liberal Arts | Liberty | Love | Machine | Man | Matter | Medicine | Memory and Imagination | Metaphysics | Natural Rights, see Rights, Natural and Civil | Nature, Human, see Human Nature and Nurture | Nominalism | Nurture, see Human Nature and Nurture | Objective and Subjective | Opinion | Peace, see War and Peace | Philosophy | Pleasure and Pain | Poetry | Private Property | Progress | Property, see Private Property | Punishment | Reality and Appearance | Relative, see Absolute and Relative | Religion | Representation | Rights, Natural and Civil | Science | Sense | Sin | Socialism, see Capitalism and Socialism, and see Communism and Socialism | Soul | Speech, see Analogical Speech | Spirit | State | Subjective, see Objective and Subjective | Synthetic Judgments, see Analytic and Synthetic Judgments | Taste, see Truth and Taste | Theology | Time | Totalitarianism | Truth and Taste | Univocal Speech, see Analogical Speech | Vice, see Virtue and Vice | Virtue and Vice | War and Peace | Will | World | World Government, see War and Peace Recommended Readings Philosophy, Science, and Religion Politics: Man and the State Moral Problems Liberal Education and the Great Books Theology and Metaphysics
Adler On
Social Problems Economic Institutions Art and Beauty Love and Friendship Man and His World
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The Great Ideas Today, Index
Center for the Study of the Great Ideas
The Great Ideas Today

1961-1998
Index Title. Author. Volume: pages. Abode of the Modern Muse: The Science Museum. Thomas K. Simpson. 1998: 2-67. The Abolition of Man. C. S. Lewis. 1968: 496-536. The Acquisitive Society R.H. Tawney. 1962: 403-483. On Action at A Distance. James Clerk Maxwell. 1986: 426-434. Adam Smith and The Spirit of Capitalism. Irving Kristol. 1976: 274-308. Address and Declaration at The Seneca Falls Convention of 1848. Elizabeth Cady Stanton. 1998: 334-341. Advancement and Obsolescence In Science. Theodosius Dobzhansky. 1974: 51-61. The Aethereal Sky: Man's Search for A Plenum Universe. Owen Gingerich. 1979: 68-87. On The Aims and Instruments of Scientific Thought. William Kingdon Clifford. 1981: 454-470. The Ambiguities of Don Quixote. Otto Bird. 1984: 94-122. The Ambiguity of Nationalism. Maurice Cranston. 1993: 214-251. America From Far and Near. Alexei Adzhubei. 1964: 4-29. American Art Since Mid-Century. Donald B. Kuspit. 1986: 2-61. The American Economy. Lester C. Thurow. 1987: 2-51.
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The Americanization of Europe. Milton Mayer. 1964: 118-161. The Americanization of Europe. A Review In Pictures. 1964: 162-178. The Analects. Confucius. 1984: 236-290. Anarchism and Revolution. Paul Goodman. 1970: 44-65. The Anatomy of Justice In Taxation. Walter J. Blum and Harry Kalven, Jr. 1973: 130-153. Animals and Men. Anthony Quinton. 1986: 94-153. Applied Anthropology: The State of the Art. Margaret Mead. 1998: 404-434. Archaeology. Leonard Cottrell. 1968: 170-249. The Varieties of Metaphysical Poetry. Reviewed By John Bayley. 1996: 436-441. Why History Matters. Reviewed By Paulette Roeske. 1998: 436-440. Architectural Papers. Louis H. Sullivan. 1993: 392-431. Are There Real Analogies In Nature? James Clerk Maxwell. 1986: 421-425. Aristotle On The Emotions. Jon Elster. 1998: 230-271. Art and Utility. Horatio Greenough. 1984: 292-357. Ashley Montagu (Ed.): Sociobiology Examined. John Van Doren . 1981: 219-234. Aspects of Induced Language In Chimpanzees. David Mcneill. 1975: 25-39. Astronomia Nova (Selections). Johannes Kepler. 1983: 306-341. The Autobiography of Edward Gibbon. Edward Gibbon. 1981: 276-367. Automation. Milton Mayer. 1962: 82-104. Automation and Jobs. Yale Brozen. 1965: 4-27. The Awakening. Kate Chopin. 1992: 350-435. Ball-Of-Fat. Guy De Maupassant. 1993: 435-457. The Battle of the Books. Jonathan Swift. 1971: 380-401. Beethoven 1770-1827. Robert Mann. 1970: 85-90. On Beginnings. George Anastaplo. 1998: 138-173. Benito Cereno. Herman Melville. 1972: 416473. Bentham. John Stuart Mill. 1993: 334-363.
Beyond Narrative: The Future of the Feature Film. Roger Ebert. 1978: 176-215. Bhagavad Gqto. Anonymous. 1985: 290-337. Biological Sciences and Medicine, The Year's Developments In. 1961 - Gilbert Cant 290-335. 1962 - Earl Ubell 272-313. 1963 - Leonard Engel & Kenneth Brodney 180-225. 1964 - Rene Dubos 224-271. 1965 - George Gaylord Simpson 286-319. 1966 - Warren S. Mcculloch &Warren M. Brodey 288-334. 1967 - Theodore Puck 196-237. The Biology of Immune Responses, Michael Edidin. 1991: 2-59. The Birth of Tragedy. Friedrich Nietzsche. 1983: 396-469. Brandel's Mediterranean. Charles Van Doren. 1983: 266-288. Candide. Voltaire. 1981: 368-435. The Canterbury Tales. Mark Van Doren. 1973: 180229. A Catechism For Our Times. Mortimer J. Adler. 1969: 79-97. The Challenge of Democracy. John Strachey. 1965: 520-589. Changing Conceptions of the Police. Jerome H. Skolnick. 1972: 40-57. The Changing Role of Woman: A Biosocial Interpretation. Lucius F. Cervantes. 1966: 28-43. Changing Views of Natural Catastrophe. David M. Raup. 1988: 54-77. Chaos: A View of Complexity in the Physical Sciences. Leo P. Kadanoff. 1986: 62-92. The Child As Reader. Clifton Fadiman. 1983: 236-264. The Christian Skepticism of Montaigne. Otto Bird. 1985: 120-149. The Church and Women. James A. Pike. 1966: 56-71. Civil Disobedience. Marshall Cohen. 1971: 238-278. The Civil Police. A Symposium (Ramsey Clark. Norval Morris, Jerome H. Skolnick, James F Ahern, Casamayor). 1972: 1-102. Climate: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. F. Kenneth Hare. 1982: 51-103. Commentaries On The Laws of England (Selections). Sir William Blackstone. 1989: 286-315.
A Commentary On Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Mortimer J. Adler. 1988: 290-311. Common Sense. Thomas Paine. 1976: 310-335. The Comparison of Related Forms. D'arcy Wentworth Thompson. 1977: 320-367. Concerning Liberal Education. William Whewell. 1991: 376-431. The Condition of Knowledge. Charles Van Doren. 1996: 156-178. The Confusion of the Animalists. Mortimer J. Adler. 1975: 72-89. The Consolation of Philosophy. Boethius. 1982: 296-379. The Constitution Revisited. Scott Buchanan. 1975: 432-461. Contemporary Poetry. A Symposium (Louis Simpson, James Dickey, Stephen Spender). 1968: 78-119. Contemporary Poetry's Mother Tongues. Alfred Corn. 1995: 2-33. Contemporary Views of Happiness. Deal W. Hudson. 1992: 170-216. On Crimes and Punishments. Cesare Beccaria. 1974: 352-407. Crowley Castle. Elizabeth Gaskell. 1996: 382-409. Culture and Society. A Symposium (Waldemar A. Nielsen, Jacques Rigaud, Arnold Goodman, Michael Straight, Philipp Fehl). 1977: 3-90. Cybernation, Unemployment, and Freedom. Robert Theobald. 1964: 48-69. Daisy Miller. Henry James. 1964: 366-413. Dante The Thinker: Poetry and Philosophy. Otto Bird. 1983: 204-235. The Dead. James Joyce. 1962: 523-552. On Death. Milton Mayer. 1965: 106-149. On Death. A Review in Pictures. 1965: 150-164. Death In Venice. Thomas Mann. 1963: 395-441. In Defense of Socrates. Xenophon. 1973: 302-313. Democracy In America (Selections). Alexis De Tocqueville. 1964: 414-475. Democratic Control and Professional Restraint. James F Ahern. 1972: 58-71. Democratic Vistas. Walt Whitman. 1984: 428-469. Determinism and Reality. Stanley L. Jaki. 1990: 276-302.
The Developing Countries. Jagdish Bhagwati. 1976: 56-74. The Development of Human Linguistic Behaviors In Chimpanzees. Roger S. Fouts. 1975: 9-24, 90-93. "On The Development of Ideas" From Essay On The Development of Christian Doctrine. John Henry Newman. 1966: 406-453. Developments In Contemporary Architecture 19451990. Kenneth Frampton. 1990: 2-67. The Difference of Woman and The Difference It Makes. A Symposium (Elisabeth Mann Boryese, Lucius F. Cervantes, Anna Rosenberg Hoffman, James A. Pike). 1966: 1-98. The Discipline of History. Henry Steele Commager. 1972: 228-297. Discontinuities & Discoveries: Innovation In Recent American Fiction. Albert J. Guerard. 1976: 108-151. Discourses On Art (Selections). Sir Joshua Reynolds. 1976: 336-427. A Disputation on the Future of Democracy. (Mortimer J. Adler, Maurice Cranston, Anthony Quinton: Moderator: Bill Moyers). 1978: 3-70. The Divided World. Milton Mayer. 1962: 54-82. Does America's Best Hope For The Future Lie In Political Conservatism? The Great Debate of the Year (Barry Goldwater, Jacob K. Javits). 1962: 1-52. Does Secular Theology Have A Future? Martin E. Marty. 1967: 38-53. A Dolls House. Henrik Ibsen. 1980: 399-451. Don Quixote's Profession. Mark Van Doren. 1976: 428-473. A Dream of Red Mansions. C.T. Hsia. 1987: 277-284. The Duration of Life. August Weismann. 1972: 394-415. "The Dynamo and The Virgin" From The Education of Henry Adams. Henry Adams. 1980: 452-460. Early Writings On Labour, Property, and Communism. Karl Marx. 1989: 386-405. Eclipse of God. Martin Buber. 1967: 310-371. Ecology: A World Concern. Henry J. Kellermann 1971: 16-39. Economic Growth: Some Pessimistic Reflections. E.J. Mishan. 1971: 52-71. Economic Stabilization Policies In The United States. James Tobin. 1976: 39-55. Eddington's Two Tables. A. Brian Pippard. 1990: 311-317.
Education and The State: Learning Community. Joseph J. Schwab. 1976: 234-272. Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Hugh Trevor-Roper. 1981: 116-158. Egonomics: The Economics of Personal Conflict. Jon Elster. 1993: 87-135. Einstein's General Theory of Relativity and Cosmology. S. Chandrasekhar. 1979: 90-138. Electing The U.S. President. Douglass Cater. 1982: 16-50. The Emergence of Post-Modern Science. Stephen Toulmin. 1981: 68-114. The End of the Conflict Between Capitalism and Communism. Mortimer J. Adler. 1990: 224-275. Energy: The International Economic Implications. Ragaei El Mallakh. 1980: 72-83. The Energy Crisis and Foreign Policy: The Diplomacy of Transition. Franklin Tugwell. 1980: 52-71. Enfranchisement of Women. Harriet Taylor Mill. 1998: 352-381. English Traits. Ralph Waldo Emerson. 1994: 274-345. The Epic of Gilgamesh. Anonymous. 1996: 318-347. An Essay On Criticism. Alexander Pope. 1981: 256-275. Essay On Locke's Two Treatises of Government. Richard Ashcraft. 1989: 123-161. Essay On Population. Robert Malthus. 1963: 463-554. An Essay On Time: The Tempo of History (An Analysis). Milton Mayer. 1963: 83-131. The Essence of Mathematics. Charles Sanders Peirce. 1975: 462-473. Ethan Frome. Edith Wharton. 1988: 406-467. Ether. James Clerk Maxwell. 1986: 435-443. Ethics: Fourth Century B.C. and Twentieth Century A.D. Mortimer J. Adler. 1988: 274-287. Ethics In A Permissive Society: The Controversy Regarding The Objectivity of Moral Values. Otto Bird. 1981: 160-186. A European View of American Science. Ritchie Calder. 1964: 74-95.
Evolution and Permanence of Type. Louis Agassiz. 1998: 382-403. The Evolution of Homo Sapiens. Christopher B. Stringer. 1992: 42-94. Evolution of Life: Evidence For A New Pattern. Steven M. Stanley. 1983: 2-54. Existentialism. Jean-Paul Sartre. 1963: 443-462. Experience and Education. John Dewey. 1961: 379-419. The Explosion of Biological Information. Francis Crick. 1980: 144-183. The Federalist. Rexford G. Tugwell. 1975: 256-300. Fellowship of Reason: The American Association For The Advancement of Science At 150. Thomas K. Simpson. 1998: 68-73. Film, Attention, and Communication. No6 Carroll. 1996: 2-49. On The Formation of Coral-Reefs. Charles Darwin. 1971: 364-379. The Freedom of A Christian. Martin Luther. 1962: 375-402. A Fresh Look At Copernicus. Owen Gingerich. 1973: 154-178. The Function of Criticism At The Present Time. Matthew Arnold. 1982: 412-430. The Function of the University In A Time of Crisis. Noarn Chomsky. 1969: 40-61. Future Relations Between Europe and The United States. Raymond Aron. 1964: 96-111. Gender and Science: 1990. Evelyn Fox Keller. 1990: 68-93. A German Historian Looks At America. Golo Mann. 1964: 30-57. God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Joe Sachs. 1988: 224-251. On Goethe's Scientific Researches. Hermann Von Helmholtz. 1996: 282-297. The Golden Flower Pot. E.T.A. Hoffmann. 1977: 426-473. Good Housekeeping: The Real Economics of the Caribbean. Thomas K. Simpson. 1997: 124-182. Goods In Common: Efficiency and Community. James O'toole. 1995: 80-115. The Great Anti-School Campaign. Robert M. Hutchins. 1972: 154-227. Great Books and Liberal Arts. Otto Bird. 1991: 200-226. Great Books of Science In The Twentieth Century: Physics. Gerald Holton and Katherine Sopka. 1979: 224-277. The Great Books of the East. William Theodore De Bary. 1987: 222-244.
Great Books of the Twentieth Century In Literature. Mark Van Doren. 1969: 276-314. The Great Didactic (Selections). John Amos Comenius. 1988: 312-381. The Great Game-America Elects A President. Milton Mayer. 1961: 101-124. The Great Instauration. Francis Bacon. 1981: 436-452. On Greek Tragedy. Seth Benardete. 1980: 102-143. The Growth of Public Patronage. Waldemar A. Nielsen. 1977: 7-27. Hans Kting: Does God Exist? Mortimer J. Adler and Wayne F Moquin. 1981: 188-203. Has Man's Conquest of Space Increased Or Diminished His Stature? A Symposium (Herbert J. Muller, Aldous Huxley, Hannah Arendt, Paul Tillich, Harrison Brown). 1963: 1-82. The Hero and The Heroic Ideal. A Symposium (S.L.A. Marshall, Ron Dorfman, Josef Pieper, Jay Gould Boyum, Sidney Hook, Chaim Potok). 1973: 1-76. The Hero and The Heroic Ideal In Great Books of the Western World. Editors (John Van Doren and Otto Bird). 1973: 5-36. The Hero As A World Figure. Sidney Hook. 1973: 63-69. Heroes For An Ordinary World. Chaim Potok. 1973: 70-76. Heroes In Black and White. Joy Gould Boymn. 1973: 57-62. Heroism and Fortitude. Josef Pieper. 1973: 50-56. History and Tradition. J.H. Plumb. 1974: 62-76. >From The History of the Russian Revolution. Leon Trotsky. 1994: 346-381. How Things Seem and What They Are: A Philosophical-Scientific Discussion (Sir Arthur S. Eddington, A. Brian Pippard, Mortimer J. Adler). 1990: 304-323. How Woman Differs From Man: The Facts. Lucius F Cervantes. 1966: 4-13. Human Fossils: The New Revolution. Charles E. Oxnard. 1977: 92-153. Human Nature, Gender, and Ethnicity (Part One). Deal W. Hudson. 1994: 127-167. Human Nature, Gender, and Ethnicity (Part Two). Deal W. Hudson. 1995: 116-144. Human Rights Since 1945: An Appraisal. Ren6 Cassin. 1971: 4-15.
The Idea of A Modem Museum. Roy Mcmullen. 1977: 154-202. The Idea of A University. John Henry Newman. 1969: 356-383. On The Idea of Beauty. Donald Metric. 1979: 184-222. The Idea of Civil Police. (John Van Doren). 1983: 182-202. The Idea of Dialectic. Mortimer J. Adler. 1986: 154-177. The Idea of Equality. Editors (Otto Bird). 1968: 301-350. The Idea of Freedom-Part One. Charles Van Doren. 1972: 300-392. The Idea of Freedom-Part Two. Charles Van Doren. 1973: 232-300. The Idea of God and The Difficulties of Atheism. Ttienne Gilson. 1969: 237-274. The Idea of Happiness. V. J. Mcgill. 1967: 272-308. The Idea of Justice. Otto Bird. 1974: 166-209. The Idea of Nature, East and West. Hajime Nakamura. 1980: 234-304. The Idea of Religion In Great Books of the Western World. Editors. 1967: 70-80. The Idea of Religion-Part One. John Edward Sullivan. 1977: 204-276. The Idea of Religion-Part Two. John Edward Sullivan. 1978: 218-312. The Idea of Revolution. A Symposium (Arnold J. Toynbee, Ivan Illich, Paul Goodman, William F. Buckley, Jr.). 1970: 1-84. The Idea of Revolution In Great Books of the Western World. Editors (William Gorman). 1970: 79-84. The Idea of Tradition In Great Books of the Western World. Editors (William Gorman). 1974: 77-90. The Idea of World Community In Great Books of the Western World. Editors (William Gorman). 1971: 89-120. Ideas and Politics. A Symposium (Eugene J. Mccarthy, Theodore C. Sorensen, Richard H. Rovere, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.). 1968: 1-76. Impasse For The Elementary-Particle Concept. Geoffrey Chew. 1974: 92-125. Inaugural Address At St. Andrews. John Stuart Mill. 1969: 384-417. The Inefficacy of the Good: On Reading Thucydides. Douglas Allanbrook. 1985: 150-175. Infinity and Controversy. Otto Bird. 1993: 138-163. Inflation. Arnold C. Harberger. 1976: 94-106.
In Re Allan Bloom: A Respectful Dissent. George Anastaplo. 1988: 252-273. On Instinct. Charles Darwin. 1984: 358-376. Intellectuals In American Politics. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. 1968: 48-76. International Corporations and The World Economy. Grant L. Reuber. 1976: 21-38. An Introduction To "Ancient" African Thought. George Anastaplo. 1995: 146-177. An Introduction To Buddhist Thought. George Anastaplo. 1992: 218-247. An Introduction To Confucian Thought. George Anastaplo. 1984: 124-170. An Introduction To Hindu Thought: The Bhagavad Git). George Anastaplo. 1985: 258-285. An Introduction To Islamic Thought: The Koran. George Anastaplo. 1989: 234-282. An Introduction To Mesopotamian Thought: The Gilgamesh Epic. George Anastaplo. 1986: 288-313. An Introduction To North American Indian Thought. George Anastaplo. 1993: 252-286. An Introduction To The Study of Experimental Medicine. Claude Bernard. 1978: 340-473. Introduction To The Study of Practical Wisdom. Yves R. Simon. 1988: 382-405. The Invention of the Presidency. Marcus Cunliffe. 1987: 156-221. The Invincible Ignorance of Science. A. Brian Pippard. 1990: 324-337. Is Democracy The Best Form of Government For The Newly Formed Nations? The Great Debate of the Year (William 0. Douglas, Peregrine Worsthorne). 1961: 1-76. An Italian Novelist Looks At America. Guido Piovene. 1964: 58-73. The Jeffersonian City. Peter D. Paul. 1993: 287-328. Jobs For The Displaced: A Public Responsibility. Adolf A. Berle, Jr. 1965: 28-47. K)Iid)Sa's ,Akuntal). Barbara Stoler Miller. 1987: 244-253. Kepler's Anguish and Hawking's Queries: Reflections On Natural Theology. Owen Gingerich. 1992: 271-286. Language. Sydney M. Lamb. 1975: 58-71, 94-97.
Language and Communication. A Symposium (Roger S. Fouts, David Mcneill, Frank E.X. Dance, Sydney M. Lamb, Mortimer J. Adler). 1975: 1-100. Language and Science: Genetics, Embryology, and The Discourse of Gene Action. Evelyn Fox Keller. 1994: 2-29. Laocoon. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. 1985: 380-469. The Last Days of Immanuel Kant. Thomas De Quincey. 1989: 354-385. Latin-American Literature Today Part One: Background To The "Boom." Ren6 De Costa. 1992: 2-41. Latin-American Literature Today Part Two: Beyond The "Boom." Ren6 De Costa. 1993: 50-86. Law, Authority, and The Limits of Law Enforcement In Great Books of the Western World. Editors (William Gorman). 1972: 90-102. On Legal Practice and Education At The Present Time. William T. Braithwaite. 1989: 44-100. The Liberal Arts of Words and Numbers. Otto Bird. 1997: 46-76. The Limits of Space and Time. Stephen W. Hawking. 1979: 33-42. Linguistics. R.H. Robins. 1970: 178-227. Literature. Kenneth Rexroth. 1970: 138-177. Literature, The Year's Developments In. 1961 - Mark Van Doren 142-187. 1962 - Alfred Kazin 114-161. 1963 - Saul Bellow 134-179. 1964 - Stanley Kauffmann 180-223. 1965 - Stephen Spender 166-211. 1966 - Susan Sontag 146-193. Lives of the Poets (Selections). Samuel Johnson. 1979: 336-386. Machine Thinking and Thinking Machines. Charles Van Doren. 1982: 256-279. Mach's Principle, 1879-1979. Dennis W. Sciama. 1979: 56-67. Mademoiselle Fifi. Guy De Maupassant. 1993: 458-465. The Madonna of the Future. Henry James. 1986: 444-469. The Making of the Bill of Rights, 1791. Arranged By George Anastaplo. 1991: 318-375. Management Medicine: The Doctor's Job Today. Franz J. Ingelfinger. 1978: 104-175.
Man A Machine. Julien De La Mettrie. 1982: 380-411. The Manchester Marriage. Elizabeth Gaskell. 1996: 410-433. Mathematics In Our Time. Felix E. Browder. 1983: 55-110. Matter and Motion. James Clerk Maxwell. 1986: 348-418. Maxwell's Treatise and The Restoration of the Cosmos. Thomas K. Simpson. 1986: 218-267. The Meaning of Quantum Theory. Richard Healey. 1998: 74-105. Mental Images In Cognitive Psychology. Eva T.H. Brann. 1990: 94-137. The Metamorphoses (Selections). Ovid. 1966: 336-405. Mind and Brain: The Genius of Fortune. Robert H. Kohn. 1994: 260-272. Minds and Brains: Angels, Humans, and Brutes. Mortimer J. Adler. 1982: 2-14. Modern Cosmology. A Symposium (James E. Gunn, Stephen W. Hawking, P.C.W. Davies, Dennis W. Sciama, Owen Gingerich). 1979: 3-87. The Modem Interaction of Science and Theology. John Polkinghorne. 1995: 34-54. Modem Philosophies of Law. Shirley Robin Letwin. 1972: 104-153. Monkey. Folk Novel of China (In Part). Wu Ch'8ng-6n. 1992: 306-349. Montaigne's Psychology. Jon Elster. 1996: 108-155. Morris Kline: Mathematics-The Loss of Certainty. Charles Van Doren. 1981: 204-218. Mr. Harrison's Confessions. Elizabeth Gaskell. 1996: 322-381. Music As A Liberal Art. Bruce Venable. 1991: 287316. Music, Painting, and Sculpture, The Year's Developments In. Roy Mcmullen. 1967: 82-157. My Kinsman, Major Molineux. Nathaniel Hawthorne. 1997: 422-441. Natural Rights. James O'toole. 1998: 174-206. Natural Theology, Chance, and God. Mortimer J. Adler. 1992: 287-301. The Nature of the Physical World (Introduction). Sir Arthur S. Eddington. 1990: 307-310. The Need For A Comprehensive Cultural Policy. Jacques Rigaud. 1977: 28-40. The Need For Cultural Revolution. Ivan Illich. 1970: 28-43.
The Need For A Theology of the World. M.D. Chenu. 1967: 54-69. The New American Poetry. Louis Simpson. 1968: 80-89, 114-117 (Poems). The New Biology: Decline of the Baconian Creed. Gunther S. Stent. 1976: 152-193. The New Biology and Its Human Implications. Theodore T. Puck. 1985: 52-78. The New Biology and The Shaping of the Future. John R. Platt. 1968: 120-169. New Developments In Classical Studies. M.I. Finley. 1971: 122-167. New Europe and The U.S.A. A Symposium (William Benton, Alexci Adzhubei, Golo Mann, Guido Piovene, Ritchie Calder, Raymond Aron). 1964: Ix-116. A New Look At Woman's Work. Anna Rosenberg Hoffman. 1966: 44-55. The New Man. Milton Mayer. 1966: 100-144. The New Pythagoreans: Reflections On The Idea of Science In Our Time. Part 1: The Physicists. Thomas K. Simpson. 1988: 162-221. The New Pythagoreans 11: The Scientists of Life and The World Food Problem. Thomas K. Simpson. 1989: 162-232. The New Pythagoreans Iii: The Scientists of the Mind (Part One). Thomas K. Simpson. 1990: 174-221. The New Pythagoreans Iii: The Scientists of the Mind (Part Two). Thomas K. Simpson. 1991: 142-199. The New Rhetoric: A Theory of Practical Reasoning. Chaim Perelman. 1970: 272-312. Newton's Path To The Principia. Curtis Wilson. 1985: 178-229. No More Heroes. Ron Dorfman. 1973: 45-49. A Note On The Mencius. Irene Bloom. 1987: 259-267. "Notes From Yon Exaltations Caught": Church Singing and The Fathers. Bruce Venable. 1993: 164-212. The Novel In Europe Today: Experiment and Regression. John Bayley. 1989: 2-43. Observations In Cosmology: The Shape of Space and The Totality of Time. James E. Gunn. 1979: 7-32. Odlyssey Variations. Mark Perlberg. 1984: 171-177. Old Problems and New In International Relations. David E. and Philip M. Kaiser.
1976: 194-231. On Discovery, The Healing Power of Nature, and The Value of Poetry. Diane Ackerman. 1998: 272-292. Order and Disorder In The Universe. Pcw. Davies. 1979: 43-55. On The Organization of Institutions of Higher Learning In Berlin. Wilhelm Von Humboldt. 1969: 348-355. Our Political Situation: Good Government, Selfgovernment, and American Democracy. Laurence Berns. 1997: 78-123. Patronage Through The Ages. Philipp Fehl. 1977: 74-90. Persuasion. Jane Austen. 1975: 302-431. Phaedra. Jean Racine. 1983: 342-395. Phases of Matter. Scott Desjardins. 1984: 43-92. A Philosophical Problem To Be Solved. Mortimer J. Adler. 1993: 329-332. Philosophy and Ethics. M.S. Gram and H.B. Veatch. 1970: 228-270. Philosophy In Our Time. Mortimer J. Adler. 1982: 238-255. The Philosophy of Kant. Anthony Quinton. 1977: 278-317. The Philosophy of Science. Herbert Feigl. 1969: 146-189. Philosophy, Religion, and Theology, The Year's Developments In. 1961 - George P Grant 336-376. 1962 - James Collins 314-372. 1963 - John Herman Randall, Jr. 226-277. 1965 - John E. Smith 212-253. 1967 - Langdon B. Gilkey 238-270. Physical Sciences, Technology, and Astronomy, The Year's Developments In. 1961 - Walter Sullivan 188-243. 1962 - George Gamow 162-219. 1963 - Edward U. Condon 278-357. 1964 - Melba Phillips 272-313. 1965 - Jeremy Bernstein 320-370. 1966 - Hermann Bondi 240-287. 1967 - Stephen Toulmin 158-195. The Physician In Spite of Himself. Moliere. 1978: 314-339. Physics and Politics. Walter Bagehot. 1968: 406-495. The Pilgrim's Progress. John Bunyan. 1994: 382-471; 1995: 230-333.
The Planets Today: The New View From Space. Nicholas M. Short. 1975: 146-203. The Planning of the Future. Bertrand De Jouvenel. 1974: 126-164. A Plea For John Brown. Henry David Thoreau. 1997: 400-421. The Pluralistic University In The Pluralistic Society. Clark Kerr, 1969: 4-29. Poetic Justice. John Van Doren. 1996: 258-276. Poetry and Mathematics. Scott Buchanan. 1974: 408-473. The Poetry of Self-Creation. John Bayley. 1975: 204-254. Police That Serve Society. Ramsey Clark. 1972: 4-21. Political Ideas In The United States. Richard H. Rovere. 1968: 36-47. Political Philosophy In Our Time. Maurice Cranston. 1975: 102-145. Politics and Dissent. Theodore C. Sorensen. 1968: 20-35. Popular Scientific Lectures (Selections). Ernst Mach. 1979: 388-443. Postmodernism: A Critical Diagnosis. Alex Callinicos. 1997: 206-256. Post-Political and Elegiac Poetry. Stephen Spender. 1985: 2-51. Pragmatism. William James. 1964: 492-579. The Praise of Folly. Desiderius Erasmus. 1970: 314-385. Preliminary Draft of A World Constitution. Robert M. Hutchins Et Al. 1971: 328-345. The President of the United States. Woodrow Wilson. 1982: 450-469. The Problem of Power. Casamayor. 1972: 72-89. The Problem of World Government. Jacques Maritain. 1971: 346-363. Progress Sharing: Key To A Private Property Economy. Arthur Larson. 1964: 70-89. The Proper Role of the Criminal Law. Norval Morris. 1972: 22-39. Proslogion, Gaunilo's Criticism, and Anselm's Reply. Anselm of Canterbury. 1969: 316-343. The Prospects For World Government. Joseph S. Clark. 1971: 72-88. The Psychology of Tocqueville's Democracy In America. Jon Elster. 1994: 86-126.
Ptolemy, Copernicus, and Kepler. Owen Gingerich. 1983: 137-180. Public Funding of the Arts In America. Michael Straight. 1977: 53-73. On Reading Euclid. Otto Bird. 1986: 184-216. On Reading The Summa: An Introduction To Saint Thomas Aquinas. Otto Bird. 1987: 126-154. "Reality and Appearances" From Ten Philosophical Mistakes. Mortimer J. Adler. 1990: 318-323. The Real Thing. Henry James. 1982: 432-449. Reassessment. Eguene J. Mccarthy. 1968: 4-19. Recent Contributions To Our Knowledge of the Bible. Raymond E. Brown. 1982: 104-157. Rediscovering Natural Law. Scott Buchanan. 1992: 436-470. Reflections On Galen. Douglas Buchanan. 1983: 112-136. Regarding The End of Medicine and The Pursuit of Health. Leon R. Kass. 1978: 72-103. Relativity: The Special and General Theory. Albert Einstein. 1961: 421-477. Religio Medici. Sir Thomas Browne. 1973: 372-423. Religion Within The Limits of Reason Alone. Immanuel Kant. 1977: 368-403. Response To Mortimer J. Adler. Owen Gingerich. 1992: 302-304. Rethinking The Art of Medicine. Mark Swaim and Galen Wagner. 1996: 50-84. Rethinking The Pense_Es of Pascal. Otto Bird. 1982: 212-236. A Review of Tocqueville. John Stuart Mill. 1964: 476-491. Reviews of Recent Books: The Life of the Mind, By Hannah Arendt, and On Human Nature, By Edward 0. Wilson. William Gorman. 1979: 280-303. A Revolution In Music: Rousseau, Rameau, and The War of the Opera Houses In Paris In 1752. Maurice Cranston. 1986: 268-287. Revolution In The Earth Sciences. Peter J. Wyllie. 1971: 168-237. Revolutionary Change. Arnold J. Toynbee. 1970: 4-27. The Rights of Man. Thomas Paine. 1987: 300-405.
On Robert's Rules of Order. George Anastaplo. 1996: 232-257. The Romantic Imagination. Maurice Cranston. 1992: 248-270. Saint Augustine On Reading. Otto Bird. 1988: 132-161. St. Thomas Aquinas. G.K. Chesterton. 1974: 274-351. >>Akuntalo and The Ring of Recollection. K)Iid)Sa. 1987: 406-469. The School and Society. John Dewey. 1989: 432-469. The School For Wives. Moliere. 1961: 479-527. Schooling and Education. John 1. Goodlad. 1969: 100-145. Science and Religion In The Work of Lucretius. Otto Bird. 1994: 60-85. Science As Mystery: A Speculative Reading of Newton's Principia. Thomas K. Simpson. 1992: 96169. Scott Buchanan's So Reason Can Rule. Ramsey Clark. 1983: 289-301. Selected Essays. Ralph Waldo Emerson. 1993: 364-391. Selected Essays. Arthur Schopenhauer. 1980: 306-397. Selected Prose and Poetry. William Wordsworth. 1968: 352-405. The Self As Agent. James Dickey. 1968: 90-97, 108-113 (Poems). The Settlement House. Jane Addams. 1989: 406-431. Seventeen New Nations-Colonialism Comes To An End. Milton Mayer. 1961: 79-101. Shakespeare's Fairy Tales: Cordelia As Cinderella. Cynthia L. Rutz. 1996: 86-107. Shakespeare's Fairy Tales: Is All Well That Ends Well In Shakespeare's Comedies? Cynthia L. Rutz. 1998: 208-229. Shakespeare's Fairy Tales: The Origin of the Merchant of Venice. Cynthia L. Rutz. 1997: 184-205. She Stoops To Conquer. Oliver Goldsmith. 1973: 424-473. Should Christianity Be Secularized? A Symposium (Harvey Cox, E.L. Mascall, Martin E. Marty, M.D. Chenu). 1967: 1-80. A Simple Heart. Gustave Flaubert. 1990: 422-447. Sir Gawain and The Green Knight Anonymous. 1967: 426-536. The Social Contracts of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Maurice Cranston. 1985: 80-119.
Social Science and Practical Problems. William Letwin. 1970: 92-137. Social Sciences, Law, and History, The Year's Developments In. 1961 - Edward A. Shils 244-289. 1962- Irving Kristol 220-271. 1963 - Reuel Denney 358-392. 1964 - Daniel Bell 314-364. 1965- Kenneth E. Boulding 254-285. 1966- Asa Briggs 194-239. The Social Sciences Since The Second World Warpart One. Daniel Bell. 1979: 139-181. The Social Sciences Since The Second World Warpart Two. Daniel Bell. 1980: 184-232. Soft Energy Paths: How To Enjoy The Inevitable. Amory B. Lovins. 1980: 27-51. The Solitude of Self. Elizabeth Cady Stanton. 1998: 342-351. Some American Images of Democracy. John Plamenatz. 1968: 250-300. The Song of Roland. Anonymous. 1973: 314-371. Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. William Blake. 1989: 316-353. The Sorry Condition of Counterrevolutionary Doctrine. William F. Buckley, Jr. 1970: 66-78. The Souls of Black Folk. W.E.B. Du Bois. 1995: 334-471. Sources of Our Common Thought: Homer and Plato. I.A. Richards. 1971: 280-326. Space and Dimensionality. Thomas K. Simpson. 1993: 2-49. Space In Great Books of the Western World. Editors. 1963: 74-82. The Spaces of Democracy. Stephen Kern. 1995: 5679. Speech Communication: The Sign of Mankind. Frank Ex Dance. 1975: 40-57, 98-100. Spooky Actions At A Distance: Mysteries of the Quantum Theory. N. David Mermin. 1988: 2-53. State and Revolution. Vi. Lenin. 1970: 386-453. The State of Christian Theology In North America. William J. Abraham. 1991: 242-286. The State of Fiction Today. Susan Fromberg Schaeffer. 1984: 11-42.
State Subsidy and Artistic Freedom. Arnold Goodman. 1977: 41-52. The Stones of Venice (Selections). John Ruskin. 1990: 338-421. The Subjection of Women. John Stuart Mill. 1966: 454-528. Synchophantasy In Economics: A Review of George Gilder's Wealth and Poverty. Louis 0. and Patricia Herter Kelso. 1982: 280-292. The Tale of Genji. Edward Seidensticker. 1987: 286-291. T'ang Poetry: A Return To Basics. Burton Watson. 1987: 267-277. The Teacher. Saint Augustine. 1997: 258-297. Teaching, Nature, and The Moral Virtues. George Anastaplo. 1997: 2-45. The Teaching of Wmalakirti. Robert A.F. Thurman. 1987: 253-259. Technology and Beauty. Mario Salvadori. 1984: 178-232. Technology and Values. John G. Burke. 1969: 190-235. Television. Milton Mayer. 1962: 104-111. Theatre In The Twentieth Century. Norris Houghton. 1981: 4-67. Theogony. Hesiod. 1998: 294-329. Theories of Literature In The Twentieth Century. Harvey Goldstein. 1982: 158-210. On Thought In Medicine. Hermann Von Helmholtz. 1996: 298-319. Three Classics of Science. William A. Wallace. 1974: 212-272. Three Essays. Arnold J. Toynbee. 1961: 529-562. Three Essays. Josiah Royce. 1985: 338-378. Thucydides. J.B. Bury. 1979: 306-335. The Time Machine. H.G. Wells. 1971: 446-505. Toine. Guy De Maupassant. 1993: 466-471. Tokens of Ourselves (Poetry Anthology). William Darkey. 1984: 378-427. Toward A Reading of Capital. Thomas K. Simpson. 1987: 74-125. Toward A Sustainable Energy Future. David J. Rose. 1980: 9-26. Toward A World University. Arthur Lai 1. 1971: 40-51. Trade In The World Economy. Herbert Giersch. 1976: 5-20.
Tradition. A Symposium (Yves Congar, Harry Kalven, Jr., Frank Kermode, Theodosius Dobzhansky, J.H. Plumb). 1974: 1-90. Tradition In The Arts. Frank Kermode. 1974: 35-50. Tradition In Law. Harry Kalven, Jr. 1974: 21-34. Tradition In Theology. Yves Cougar. 1974: 4-20. Tragedy and Comedy. Harvey D. Goldstein. 1990: 140-173. The Transcultural and The Multicultural. Mortimer J. Adler. 1991: 227-240. On Translating Homer. Matthew Arnold. 1971: 402-445. Trotsky's The History of the Russian Revolution. Thomas K. Simpson. 1994: 170-230. The True History. Lucian. 1981: 236-255. Tsurezure-Gusa. Donald Keene. 1987: 291-298. Twentieth-Century Dance. Sally Banes. 1991: 60-140. Twentieth-Century Music. Douglas Allanbrook. 1988: 78-129. Two Approaches To The Authors of the Great Books. Mortimer J. Adler. 1986: 178-183. Two Old Men. Leo Tolstoy. 1979: 456-471. The Unification of Physics. Stephen Hawking. 1984: 2-10. The U.S. and The U.S.S.R. William Benton. 1964: Xii-Xv. The Universe In The Light of Modern Physics. Max Planck. 1962: 485-522. The University As Custodian of Reason. Edward H. Levi. 1969: 30-39. The University As Slaughterhouse. John R. Seeley. 1969: 62-78. The University Today. A Symposium (Clark Kerr, Edward H. Levi, Noam Chomsky, John R. Seeley, Mortimer J. Adler). 1969: 1-97. On The Use, Neglect, and Abuse of Veils: The Parliaments of the World's Religions, 1893, 1993. George Anastaplo. 1994: 30-57. The Utility of Religion. John Stuart Mill. 1977: 404-425. Utopia (Abridged). Sir Thomas More. 1965: 372-437. Virgil and Hippocrates: A Reading of the Georgics. Otto Bird. 1989: 102-122. Virtuality. Thomas K. Simpson. 1996: 180-231.
The Vital Self and Secondary Means. Stephen Spender. 1968: 98-107, 117-119 (Poems). The Voice of Silence: Charlie Chaplin. Thomas K. Simpson. 1995: 178-228. Walden (Selections). Henry David Thoreau. 1965: 438-519. Wallenstein-Part One: The Piccolomini. Friedrich Schiller. 1969: 418-537. Wallenstein-Part Two: The Death of Wallenstein. Friedrich Schiller. 1970: 454-530. Ward Number Six. Anton Chekhov. 1991: 432-480. Wealth and Happiness; Work and Leisure In Great Books of the Western World. Editors. 1965: 90-104. The Welfare State In The World Economy. Martin Bronfenbrenner. 1976: 75-93. We Must Have Heroes. S.L.A. Marshall. 1973: 37-44. We The People: The Rulers and The Ruled. George Anastaplo. 1987: 52-72. What Europeans Have To Say About Americans In Great Books of the Western World. 1964: 112-116. What Is Life? Erwin Schr6dinger. 1967: 372-425. What Kinds of Science Are Worth Supporting? A New Look, and A New Mode. Gerald Holton. 1998: 106-136. Why Christianity Must Be Secularized. Harvey Cox. 1967: 8-21. Why Christianity Should Not Be Secularized. E.L. Mascall. 1967: 22-37. Why The Computer Is Only As Good As It Is. Charles Van Doren. 1985: 230-257. Why Lawyers Lie. William T. Braithwaite. 1994: 231-259. The Widening Gyre: Philosophy In The Twentieth Century. W.T. Jones. 1973: 78-129. Woman: The Image of the Difference. A Pictorial Essay. 1966: 83-98. Woman: Nurture Makes The Difference. Elisabeth Mann Borgese. 1966: 14-27. Woman In Great Books of the Western World. Editors. 1966: 72-82. Woman In The Nineteenth Century. Margaret Fuller. 1997: 298-399. Work, Wealth, and Leisure. A Symposium (Yale Brozen, Adolf A. Berle, Jr., Robert Theobald, Arthur Larson). 1965: 1-104. The World Community. A Symposium (Ren6 Cassin, Henry J. Kellermann,
Arthur Lall, E.J. Mishan, Joseph S. Clark). 1971: 1-120. World Economy. A Symposium (Herbert Giersch, Grant L. Reuber, James Tobin, Jagdish Bhagwati, Martin Bronfenbrenner, Arnold C. Harberger). 1976: 1-106. World Energy and The Challenge To Industrial Civilization. Willis Harman. 1980: 84-99. World Energy Prospects. A Symposium (David J. Rose, Amory B. Lovins, Franklin Tugwell, Ragaei El Mallakh, Willis W. Harman). 1980: 3-99. Young Goodman Brown. Nathaniel Hawthorne. 1979: 444-455. Youth-The Young Go "Boom." Milton Mayer. 1961: 125-140.
Chicago, Illinois: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. Revised 6 February 2001
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Within the classic works of Western civiliation such as Aesop's Fables, Mother Goose, the Little House books, Little Women, Robinson Crusoe, A Christmas Carol, but especially in the great books - the Bible, works by Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare and many others - is an on-going dialogue about the truths of man's nature and his relationship to his fellowmen, his world and his Creator. In giving your children the opportunity to grasp this wisdom from the past, they cannot help but be led to a greater appreciation and understanding of virtue and the wonder and beauty of life. The Great Books Academy is a complete, nursery through 12th grade, classical, liberal arts homeschool program. Course options include books and Lesson Plans for: Art, Cartography, Geography, Language Arts, Literature, Math, Music, Philospophy, Science, History, Foreign Languages and online Socratic discussions. Our graduates have the option of testing for a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree by the Great Books University College.
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Great Books Index - List of Titles
GREAT BOOKS INDEX LIST OF AUTHORS AND TITLES

An Index to Online Great Books in English Translation AUTHORS/HOME . TITLES . GB CAFE . ABOUT GB INDEX . WANTLIST . BOOK LINKS
INDEX BY AUTHOR AND TITLE

To obtain an index of an author's works, including any known online editions of each work, and online articles about that author, select the author's name. To obtain an index of online editions of a particular work, select the name of that work. Then you will be able to scroll up and down to see other works by that author and articles about the author. Authors are listed here in order of their birthdates (insofar as known). To obtain an alphabetical listing of authors, go to the Author Index. The Bible -G
The Bible - Old and New Testaments
Homer -G G
Iliad Odyssey
Aeschylus -G G G G G G G
Persians Seven Against Thebes Suppliant Maidens Agamemnon Libation Bearers Eumenides Prometheus Bound
Sophocles -G G G G
Oedipus Rex Oedipus at Colonus Antigone Ajax
http://books.mirror.org/gb.titles.html (1 of 26) [7/2/2001 2:35:50 PM]
G G G
Electra Trachiniae Philoctetes
Euripides -G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G
Rhesus Alcestis Medea Heracleidae Hippolytus Andromache Hecuba Suppliants Heracles Electra Trojan Women Ion Iphigenia Among the Taurians Helen Phoenician Maidens Bacchae Iphigenia at Aulis Orestes Cyclops
Herodotus -G
History
Thucydides -G
Peloponnesian War
Hippocrates -G G G G
Oath Ancient Medicine Airs, Waters, and Places Prognostics
G G G G G G G G G G G G G
Regimen in Acute Diseases Epidemics Injuries of the Head Surgery Fractures Articulations Instruments of Reduction Aphorisms Law Ulcers Fistulae Hemorrhoids Sacred Disease
Aristophanes -G G G G G G G G G G G
Acharnians Knights Clouds Wasps Peace Birds Lysistrata Thesmophoriazusae Frogs Ecclesiazusae Plutus
Plato -G G G G G G G
Charmides Lysis Laches Protagoras Euthydemus Cratylus Phaedrus
G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G
Ion Symposium Meno Euthyphro Apology Crito Phaedo Gorgias Republic Timaeus Critias Parmenides Theaetetus Sophist Statesman Philebus Laws Seventh Letter
Aristotle -G G G G G G G G G G G G G G
Categories Interpretation Prior Analytics Posterior Analytics Topics Sophistical Refutations Physics Heavens Generation and Corruption Meteorology Metaphysics Soul Sense and Sensible Memory and Reminiscence
G G G G G G G G G G G G G G
Sleep and Sleeplessness Dreams Prophesying by Dreams Longevity and Shortness of Life On Youth and Old Age, On Life and Death, On Breathing History of Animals Parts of Animals Motion of Animals Gait of Animals Nicomachean Ethics Politics Athenian Constitution Rhetoric Poetics
Euclid -G
Elements
Archimedes -Apollonius -Lucretius -G
Nature of Things
Virgil -G G G
Eclogues Georgics Aeneid
Tacitus -G G
Annals Histories
Epictetus -G G
Discourses Golden Sayings
Nicomachus --
Plutarch -G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G
Theseus Romulus Romulus and Theseus Lycurgus Numa Pompilius Lycurgus and Numa Solon Poplicola Poplicola and Solon Themistocles Camillus Pericles Fabius Fabius and Pericles Alcibiades Coriolanus Alcibiades and Coriolanus Timoleon Aemilius Paulus Aemilius Paulus and Timoleon Pelopidas Marcellus Marcellus and Pelopidas Aristides Marcus Cato Philopoeman Flamininus Flamininus and Philopoeman Pyrrhus Caius Marius Lysander Sulla
G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G
Lysander and Sulla Cimon Lucullus Cimon and Lucullus Nicias Crassus Crassus and Nicias Sertorius Eumenus Eumenus and Sertorius Agesilaus Pompey Agesilaus and Pompey Alexander Caesar Phocion Cato the Younger Agis Cleomenes Tiberius Gracchus Caius Gracchus Caius and Tiberius Gracchus and Agis and Cleomenes Demosthenes Cicero Cicero and Demosthenes Demetrius Antony Antony and Demetrius Dion Marcus Brutus Brutus and Dion Aratus Artaxerxes
G G G
Galba Otho Parallel Lives
Ptolemy -G
Geography
Marcus Aurelius -G
Meditations
Galen -G G G
Natural Faculties Exhortation to Study the Arts Diagnosis in Dreams
Plotinus -G
Six Enneads
St Augustine -G G G G G G G
Confessions City of God Christian Doctrine Handbook on Faith, Hope and Love Soliloquies Trinity Letters
The Quran -G
The Quran
St Thomas Aquinas -G G
Summa Theologica Summa Contra Gentiles
Dante -G G G
Longfellow's Translation Cary's Translation La Divina Commedia
Chaucer -http://books.mirror.org/gb.titles.html (8 of 26) [7/2/2001 2:35:50 PM]
G G G G G G G G G G
Troilus and Cressida Canterbury Tales Knight's Tale Book of the Duchess House of Fame Parliament of Fowls Legend of Good Women Truth Gentilesse Against Women Unconstant
Erasmus -G G
Praise of Folly Collected Works
Machiavelli -G
Prince
Copernicus -G
Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
Rabelais -G
Gargantua and Pantagruel
John Calvin -G
Institutes of the Christian Religion
Montaigne -G
Essays
William Gilbert -Cervantes -G
Don Quixote
Francis Bacon -G G G G
Novum Organum New Atlantis Essays Poems
Galileo -William Shakespeare -G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G
Henry VI Part I Henry VI Part II Henry VI Part III Richard III Comedy of Errors Titus Andronicus Taming of the Shrew Two Gentlemen of Verona Love's Labour's Lost Romeo and Juliet Richard II Midsummer-Night's Dream King John Merchant of Venice Henry IV Part I Henry IV Part II Much Ado About Nothing Henry V Julius Caesar As You Like It Twelfth Night Hamlet Merry Wives of Windsor Troilus and Cressida All's Well That Ends Well Measure for Measure Othello King Lear Macbeth Antony and Cleopatra Coriolanus
G G G G G G G G G G G G G G
Timon of Athens Pericles Cymbeline Winter's Tale Tempest Henry VIII Sonnets Lover's Complaint Passionate Pilgrim Rape of Lucrece Sonnets to the Sundry Notes of Music Phoenix and Turtle Venus and Adonis Complete Works
Johannes Kepler -William Harvey -Thomas Hobbes -G G
Leviathan Citizen
Descartes -G G G
Direction of the Mind Discourse on Method Meditations on First Philosophy
John Milton -G G G G G G G
Paradise Lost Paradise Regained Areopagitica Comus Il Penseroso L'allegro Lycidas
Moliere -http://books.mirror.org/gb.titles.html (11 of 26) [7/2/2001 2:35:51 PM]
G G G G
School for Wives Tartuffe Don Juan Miser
Blaise Pascal -G G
Provincial Letters Pensees
Christiaan Huygens -John Locke -G G G G
Concerning Toleration Concerning Civil Government Concerning Human Understanding Concerning Education
Spinoza -G G G G
Ethics Improvement of the Understanding Theologico-Political Treatise Political Treatise
Jean Racine -G
Phaedra
Isaac Newton -G
Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
Leibnitz -G
Monadology
Jonathan Swift -G G G G G
Gulliver's Travels Modest Proposal English Tongue Battle of the Books Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers
George Berkeley -http://books.mirror.org/gb.titles.html (12 of 26) [7/2/2001 2:35:51 PM]
G G G
Human Knowledge Free-Thinking in Mathematics Three Dialogues
Montesquieu -G G
Spirit of Laws Persian Letters
Voltaire -G G
Candide Philosophical Dictionary
Henry Fielding -G G G G G
Joseph Andrews Tom Jones From This World to the Next Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon Miscellanies
David Hume -G G G G G
Concerning Human Understanding Human Nature Original Contract Perfect Commonwealth On Suicide and Immortality
Jean Jacques Rousseau -G G G G
Origin of Inequality Political Economy Social Contract Confessions
Diderot -G
Rameau's Nephew
Laurence Sterne -G G
Tristram Shandy Sentimental Journey
Adam Smith -G
Wealth of Nations
Immanuel Kant -G G G G G G G
Critique of Pure Reason Metaphysic of Morals Critique of Practical Reason Metaphysical Elements of Ethics General Intro to Metaphysic of Morals Science of Right Critique of Judgement
Edward Gibbon -G
Decline and Fall
Thomas Paine -G G G
Common Sense Rights of Man Liberty Tree
James Boswell -G
Life of Johnson
Goethe -G
Poems
Fourier -Hegel -G G
Philosophy of Right Philosophy of History
Jane Austen -G G G G G G
Sense and Sensibility Pride and Prejudice Mansfield Park Emma Northanger Abbey Persuasion
G G
Love and Freindship Lady Susan
USA Founding Documents -G G G G
Declaration of Independence Articles of Confederation Federalist Papers U.S. Constitution
Michael Faraday -Honore de Balzac -G G G G G G G G G G G G G
Duchesse de Langeais Father Goriot Melmouth Reconciled Pierre Grassou Athiest's Mass Ball at Sceaux Elixir of Life Firm of Nuncingen Magic Skin Message Purse Unconscious Comedians Ursula
Emerson -G G G G G G G G G
American Scholar Divinity College Address Literary Ethics The Times Man the Reformer Conservative Method of Nature Transcendentalist Young American
G G G G G G G
Representative Men English Traits Essays - First Series Essays - Second Series Conduct of Life Nature Uncollected Prose
Alexis de Tocqueville -G
Democracy in America
John Stuart Mill -G G G G G
On Liberty Representative Government Utilitarianism Subjection of Women Autobiography
Charles Darwin -G G G G
Origin of Species Descent of Man Voyage of the Beagle Expression of Emotions
Charles Dickens -G G G G G G G G G G G
Pickwick Papers Oliver Twist Nicholas Nickleby Old Curiosity Shop Barnaby Rudge American Notes Martin Chuzzlewit Christmas Carol Chimes Cricket on the Hearth Dombey and Son
G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G
David Copperfield Bleak House Hard Times Little Dorrit Tale of Two Cities Great Expectations Our Mutual Friend Mystery of Edwin Drood Child's History George Silverman's Explanation Haunted Man/Ghost's Bargain Holiday Romance Hunted Down Master Humphrey's Clock Mudfog Pictures from Italy Reprinted Pieces Sketches by Boz Young Couples Young Gentlemen Speeches Sunday Battle of Life Lamplighter Uncommercial Traveller Read At Dusk Lazy Tour Three Ghost Stories Signal-Man Haunted-House Trial for Murder
Soren Kierkegaard -Thoreau -http://books.mirror.org/gb.titles.html (17 of 26) [7/2/2001 2:35:51 PM]
G G G G G G
Civil Disobedience Walden Slavery in Massachusetts Walking The Maine Woods Cape Cod
Karl Marx -G G G
Capital Value, Price and Profit Manifesto of Communist Party
George Eliot -G G G G G G G G G G
Middlemarch Clerical Life Adam Bede Amos Barton Lifted Veil Mill on the Floss Silas Marner Romola Brother Jacob Felix Holt
Herman Melville -G G G G G G G G
Moby Dick Billy Budd Bartleby, the Scrivener Typee Paradise of Bachelors Benito Cereno I and My Chimney Confidence-Man
Friedrich Engels -G
Manifesto of Communist Party
Fyodor Dostoevsky -G G G G G G G G G G G
Brothers Karamazov Crime and Punishment Notes from Underground Double Insulted and Injured Gentle Spirit Crocodile Dream of Ridiculous Man Bobok Peasant Marey Little Orphan
Henrik Ibsen -G G G
Doll's House Wild Duck Peer Gynt
Leo Tolstoy -G G G G G G G G G G
War and Peace Anna Karenina Death of Ivan Ilych Forged Coupon Confession Twenty-Three Tales Exiled to Siberia Kreutzer Sonata Master and Man Father Sergius
Mark Twain -G G G G
Huckleberry Finn Tom Sawyer Life on Mississippi Connecticut Yankee
G G G G G G G G G G G
Tramp Abroad Innocents Abroad Roughing It $30,000 Bequest Pudd'nhead Wilson Tom Sawyer Abroad Tom Sawyer Detective What is Man? Horse's Tale Captain Stormfield Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg
William James -G G G
Principles of Psychology Varieties of Religious Experience Radical Empiricism
Henry James -G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G
Beast in the Jungle Watch and Ward Roderick Hudson American Europeans International Episode Hawthorne Daisy Miller Confidence Portrait of a Lady Washington Square Turn of the Screw In The Cage Sacred Fount Aspern Papers Ambassadors Golden Bowl
G G G G G G G G G
Altar of the Dead Death of the Lion Figure in the Carpet Lesson of the Master Pupil Real Thing Glasses Coxon Fund Jolly Corner
Nietzsche -G G G
Beyond Good and Evil Thus Spake Zarathustra The Antichrist
Henri Poincare -G
Science and Hypothesis
Sigmund Freud -G G G
Origin and Development of Psycho-Analysis Interpretation of Dreams Young Girl's Diary
George Bernard Shaw -G G G G G
Pygmalion Misalliance Mrs. Warren's Profession Dark Lady of the Sonnets Parents and Children
Joseph Conrad -G G G G G G
Almayer's Folly Outcast Nigger of the Narcissus Lord Jim Heart of Darkness Nostromo
G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G
Informer Anarchist Secret Agent Secret Sharer To-morrow Victory Typhoon Personal Record Twixt Land and Sea Mirror of Sea Within the Tides Amy Foster End of Tether Falk Shadow Line Youth Life and Letters Tales of Unrest Arrow of Gold
Thorstein Veblen -G
Theory of Leisure Class
Max Planck -Henri Bergson -G
Introduction to Metaphysics
John Dewey -G
Democracy and Education
Anton Chekhov -G G G G G
Uncle Vanya Black Monk Sleepy-Eye The Party The Grasshopper
Mire
A.N. Whitehead -G G
Introduction to Mathematics Science and Modern World
Luigi Pirandello -G
Six Characters
Marcel Proust -Bertrand Russell -G G G
Problems of Philosophy Proposed Roads to Freedom Praise of Idleness
Thomas Mann -G G
Death in Venice Loulou
Willa Cather -G G G G G G G
Professor's House Youth and Bright Medusa O Pioneers! Troll Garden Song of the Lark Alexander's Bridge My Antonia
G.H. Hardy -Albert Einstein -G G G
Relativity Sidelights on Relativity Ideas and Opinions
Arthur Eddington -G
Stars and Atoms
James Joyce --
G G G
Portrait of the Artist Dubliners Ulysses
Virginia Woolf -G G
Voyage Out Night and Day
Franz Kafka -G
Metamorphosis
John Maynard Keynes -G
Economic Consequences of Peace
Niels Bohr -D.H. Lawrence -G G G G G
Lady Chatterley's Lover Sons and Lovers Women in Love Amores New Poems
Erwin Schroedinger -T.S. Eliot -G G G G G G G
Waste Land Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Prufrock and Other Observations Poems (1920) Sacred Wood Poetic Drama Second-Order Mind
Eugene O'Neill -G G
Mourning Becomes Electra Beyond the Horizon
Martin Heidegger --
Ludwig Wittgenstein -F. Scott Fitzgerald -G G
Great Gatsby This Side of Paradise
William Faulkner -G
A Rose for Emily
Werner Heisenberg -George Orwell -G G
1984 Animal Farm
Most of the online editions to which this index links are on other web page servers, were prepared by someone else with an interest in that particular author, and are maintained by that person. From time to time a link will not work because the material has been moved. Please inform me of any such problems so that they may be resolved if possible. For some works, more than one online edition is listed. Some editions are alternative translations, and some are presented in a different format (HTML pages, text file via ftp or gopher, etc). Some editions are identical, but are at different network sites; if one site is down, you may be able to access the work at another site. Some editions may not be accessed from your country for copyright reasons. Please observe those restrictions. I hope that you find benefit and pleasure in reading these great books. If you know of another or better online edition of one or more of these works or if there are other corrections to this index, please let me know. I am particularly interested in learning of HTML editions which have been properly divided into sections for ease of access. See the Wantlist for details. Note: This great books index is a personal interest project, and is not sponsored by or associated with the Encyclopaedia Britannica corporation. It is not the same list of authors and works that was included in the Great Books of the Western World. Nonetheless it has been suggested and inspired by the work of Robert Hutchins and Mortimer Adler, who were the editors of the 1952 edition of the GBWW. This index is at attempt to guide readers to available online editions of those and other great books. Acknowledgement is made to Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc for permission to reprint portions of the author list and title list of Great Books of the Western World. The author and title lists of the GBWW are copyright (c) 1952, 1990 by Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. The works listed in this index, either their original texts or their HTML editions, may be subject to copyright. Consult the web pages for the edition (which is, in general, on another web server not under my control) for possible copyright restrictions. With very few exceptions, which are noted in this index if
known, there are no restrictions on the online viewing of any of the works listed. If any material is listed in violation of the copyright holder's rights, please advise and the index link will be removed or amended as appropriate. E-Mail: Ken Roberts ken@mirror.org
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GREAT BOOKS INDEX MENU Great Books Index Home Page and Author List List of All Works by Author and Title [90KB] Great Books Cafe - A Discussion Area for the Great Books About the Great Books Index Wantlist and Requests Links to Other Great Books and Literature Sites Mortimer J. Adler on Selecting the Great Books Great Books Reading List 1 Literary Cryptograms
Support for the Great Books Index web pages is provided by Ken Roberts Computer Consultants Inc
URL: http://books.mirror.org/gb.titles.html Last revised February 2, 1999 by Ken Roberts e-mail ken@mirror.org Copyright (c) 1997-1999 by Ken Roberts. All right reserved.
Mortimer J. Adler: Reforming Education
MORTIMER J. ADLER: Reforming Education

Dubbed "America's reigning pedagogue" by William F. Buckley, Jr. on his TV program Firing Line many years ago, Mortimer Jerome Adler is still enthroned and happily reigning. Now 97, Adler has the unique distinction of being the only living person who participated in Socratic discussion groups in 1921 and in 2000 A.D 79 years later (the latter group this writer attended). In American educational reform annals, the twentieth century may aptly be referred to as Adler's Era. Born December 28, 1902 in New York City to immigrants Ignatz and Clarissa (nee Manheim) Adler, a jewelry salesman, and a school teacher, respectively, young Mortimer was a high school drop-out at age 14. He went to work as a copy boy and secretary at the New York Sun newspaper where he hoped to become a journalist. He began taking night classes at Columbia University to learn how to write well. At Columbia he read the autobiography of the English philosopher John Stuart Mill. Adler was impressed to read that Mill could read Greek at the age of 3 and had read the dialogues of Plato in Greek at the age of 5, yet Adler did not even know who Plato was. So at 15 Adler bought a set of Plato and began a lifelong love of philosophy and the Western intellectual tradition. Adler stayed on at Columbia and received a scholarship. His reputation in the classics particularly in philosophy became so great that he was awarded a doctorate in philosophy by Columbia even though he had no bachelor's degree (Adler found it too much of a nuisance to swim at mid-day for the PE requirement). John Murray Cuddihy wrote in a book review that Adler was "the only Ph.D. in America with no B.A., no M.A., not even a high school diploma." Columbia later relented and awarded him a bachelor's degree sixty years later, in 1983, in a graduation ceremony Adler joyfully attended. Adler became a teacher of psychology at Columbia, but found his interest was mainly in leading discussions in the great books the classics. He was a student in the General Honor's class initiated by Professor John Erskine, an Elizabethan literature teacher and author (Helen of Troy; Galahad). Erskine had his students read one book a week over a two-year period. The books were assembled under the title "Classics of Western Civilization." A few years later, in describing the course THE ADLER BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS
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(1927) Dialetic (1931) The Nature of Judicial Proof: An Inquiry into the Logical, Legal , and Empirical Aspects of the Law of Evidence (with J. Michael) (1933) Crime, Law and Social Science (with J. Michael) (1937) Art and Prudence: A Study of Practical Philosophy (1937) What Man Has Made of Man: A Study of the Consequences of Platonism and Positivism in Psychology (1940) The Philosophy and Science of Man: A Collection of Texts as a Foundation for Ethics and Politics (1940) How toRead a Book: The Art of Getting a Liberal Education (1941) A Dialectic of Morals: Towards the Foundation of Political Philosophy (1944) How to Think About War and Peace (1958) The Revolution in Education (with Milton Mayer) (1958) The Capitalist Manifesto (with Louis O. Kelso) (1958) The Idea of Freedom: A Dialectic Examination of the Conceptions of Freedom (1961) The New Capitalists: A Proposal to Free Economic Growth from the Slavery of Savings (with Louis Kelso) (1961) The Idea of Freedom: A Dialectic Examination of
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to Robert Hutchins, Adler used the phrase "great books course" to describe both the course and the books. The name stuck, and is commonly used to refer to courses that are devoted exclusively to the study of the great classics of the West, from the classical to the modern. There had been an earlier "great books" course given by Charles M. Gayley in 1901 at Berkeley, but it was Adler (and Hutchins) who popularized the phrase. At Columbia Adler was influenced by Erskine and John Dewey, the pragmatist philosopher who taught there, but most especially by the great books themselves. In short, through his reading, Adler's teachers became the authors of the classics. Thus influenced more by the thought of Aristotle and Aquinas than by any living teacher, Adler became a believer in absolute and universal truths and values, and so came to fight against Dewey's view that the scientific method is the preeminent foundation for all thought. Adler wrote that Dewey's pragmatism results in moral and intellectual chaos, which was spreading into the schools. His earliest work - Dialectic (1927) - was a summation of the great philosophical and religious ideas of Western civilization. Here he began to apply his formidable analytical skills. The dialogue of the authors of the great books concerning these ideas then helped him integrate his discoveries. Adler later remarked that in this work he confused philosophy with dialec tic, so that discussion about philosophical ideas, short of any conclusions, was for him philosophy itself (he made philosophy, he wrote, merely "a consideration of theories in the realm of the possible, rather than an attempt to state truths about the actual world."), an error he later corrected. Adler (and later, Scott Buchanan) enlarged Erskine's basic idea of bringing together various fields for reading, into a broader view including the sciences, literature, religion, history all fields of knowledge into one great educational experience. He and others thoughtfully selected the great books in all areas of human knowledge that were already connected into a great dialogue (by means of references, quotations, or refutations among them), yielding a complete reading and discussion curriculum. Thus a generalized course became a generalized curriculum. What had become more and more compartmentalized into distinct and seemingly unrelated fields of specialized knowledge, was integrated into a whole, by one course/curriculum the great books program. Adler wrote of this, "that one course...was a college in itself the whole of a liberal education or certainly the core of it. Not just the books we read...but the discussions...highly civil conversations about important themes and in a spirit of inquiry..." Adler thus became the great synthesist in education, bringing what had seemed many loose threads of Western genius together into one rope. Yet by withholding his conclusions as to where the rope might lead, or end, he invited students to form their own
the Controversies about Freedom

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(1961) Great Ideas from the Great Books (1965) The Conditions of Philosophy: Its Checkered Past, Its Present Disorder, and Its Future Promise (1966) How to Read a Book: A Guide to Reading the Great Books (1967) The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes (1970) The Time of Our Lives: The Ethics of Common Sense (1971) The Common Sense of Politics (1972) How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading (with Charles Van Doren) (1975) The American Testament (with William Gorman) (1976) Some Questions About Language: A Theory of Human Discourse and Its Objects (1977) Philosopher at Large: An Intellectual Autobiography (1977) Reforming Education: The Schooling of a People and Their Education Beyond Schooling (edited by Geraldine Van Doren) (1978) Aristotle for Everybody: Difficult Thought Made Easy (1980) How to Think About God: A Guide for the 20th-Century Pagan (1981) Six Great Ideas: Truth-Goodness-Beauty-LibertyEquality-Justice (1982) The Angels and Us (1982) The Paideia Proposal: An Educational Manifesto (1983) How to Speak / How to Listen (1983) Paideia Problems and Possibilities: A Consideration of Questions Raised by The Paideia Proposal (1984) A Vision of the Future: Twelve Ideas for a Better Life and a Better Society (1984) The Paideia Program: An Educational Syllabus (with Members of the Paideia Group) (1985) Ten Philosophical Mistakes (1986) A Guidebook to Learning: For a Lifelong Pursuit of Wisdom (1987) We Hold These Truths: Understanding the Ideas and Ideals of the Constitution (1988) Reforming Education: The Opening of the American Mind (edited by Geraldine Van Doren) (1990) Intellect: Mind Over Matter (1990) Truth in Religion: The Plurality of Religions and the Unity of Truth (1991) Haves Without Have-Nots: Essays for the 21st Century on Democracy and Socialism (1991) Desires, Right & Wrong: The Ethics of Enough (1992) A Second Look in the Rearview Mirror: Further Autobiographical Reflections of a Philosopher at Large (1992) The Great Ideas: A Lexiocon of Western Thought (1993) The Four Dimensions of Philosophy: Metaphysical-Moral-Objective- Categorical (1994) Art, the Arts, and the Great Ideas (1995) Adler's Philosophical Dictionary: 125 Key Terms for the Philosopher's Lexicon (1996) The New Technology: Servant or Master (with Phillip W. Goetz)
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conclusions, which they could only do by studying and discussing each thread in turn. Thus he preserved the singularity of each thread in his synthesis. Like Socrates, he wanted students to draw out conclusions themselves, in dialectical discussion based on their concurrent readings of selections from the great books. Through the use of the dialectic his goal was for students to understand their own conclusions not merely to memorize his. Adler wrote that what we memorize we can soon forget, but what we understand we never forget. One corollary is that Adler decried the testing mania of our schools, which measure what students memorize (often in cramming sessions), disgorge onto tests, and then soon forget.
(2000) How to Think About The Great Ideas: From the Great Books of Western Civilization (edited by Max Weismann)
EDITED WORKS
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(1940) Scholasticism and Politics (1952) Great Books of the Western World (52 Vols.) (1952) A Syntopicon: An Index to the Great Ideas (2 Vols.) (1961) The Great Ideas Today (1961-77, 17 Vols.) (with Robert Hutchins) (1963) Gateway to the Great Books (10 Vols.) (with Robert Hutchins) (1968) The Annals of America (21 Vols.) (1974) Propaedia: Outline of Knowledge and Guide to
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Adler's talent The New Encyclopedia Britannica 15th Edition (30 Vols.) for multi-disciplinary G (1977) Great Treasury of Western Thought (with Charles Van Doren) organization and synthesis G (1978) The Great Ideas Today (1975-1995 - 18 Vols.) marked a G (1990) Great Books of the Western World 2nd Edition (60 Vols.) large part of his G (1990) A Syntopicon: An Index to The Great Ideas 2nd Edition (2 Vols.) subsequent career, and NOTE: Most of these books can be order from the Great made him the Books Store natural choice to be editor of numerous sets of books ranging from Britannica's Great Books of the Western World (60 vols.), The Great Ideas Program (10 vols.), Gateway to the Great Books (10 vols.), The Annals of America (20 vols.), and Encyclopaedia Britannica (32 vols.) while Chairman of the Board of Editors there, to 50 other books which included much text integrating disparate fields of knowledge (see Adler bibliography above). His Propaedia includes his own unique outline of all human knowledge. The Syntopicon, which he invented, a topical index to the 102 Great Ideas preeminent in the Great Books, pressed his skills. He really bit off more than he could chew in the one year he Dr. Mortimer J. Adler thought it would take to complete. It finally took a staff of thirty indexers and sixty clerical helpers ten years to complete, at the then-astronomical cost of one million dollars. This, of course, would not have been possible had he not also powerful analytical skills. He had many co-workers in his labors, including the poet Mark Van Doren, but the one that stands out the most is Bob Hutchins. Adler convinced Hutchins, who had recently been named president of the University of Chicago, that Hutchins was uneducated. Hutchins was humble enough to accept that judgement and asked Adler to help him, invited him to Chicago, and began the joint study and co-moderating of great books discussion groups there, with Adler. The program met stiff resistance, but Hutchins remained committed to the course (in the "University College") which gradually made an impact. From both Columbia and Chicago the great books approach to education began to make inroads against the still-dominant "progressive" view of education. The publication of the huge bestseller How To Read A Book by Adler in 1940 (still in print) made him a household word across the country. The publication of the Britannica Great Books set in 1952, put together by Adler, Hutchins, et al., advanced the classical movement into the homes of average Americans. In the mid-1950s, Mark Van Doren sales reached nearly 50,000 sets per year and 1 million sets were eventually sold. Thus a course became a curriculum, which became a movement for educational reform: a return to the great works and ideas of Western civilization. Adler became at once America's reigning pedagogue (he appeared on
Firing Line more than any other guest) as well as the object of attack and scorn, particularly by the educational establishment. But at least through the 1950s, Adler was in the ascent as the classics were returning to classrooms and homes across America earning him the titles "supersalesman of philosophy" and "the Charles Atlas of Western Intellection." After the death of Hutchins in 1977, one name became synonymous with the great books movement: Mortimer J. Adler. Adler said at the time that "the underestimation of the human intelligence is the worst sin of our time." He saw his task as the restoration of philosophy "to its proper place in our culture." Regarding modern philosophy, Adler said (in an interview with Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times ) that "the twentieth century, for the most part, is an age in which relativism, skepticism, and subjectivism are rampant, and that's what I'm mainly fighting against...modern philosophy got off to a bad start when Descartes and Locke committed the 'besetting sin of modern thought', they ignored Aristotle." After Hutchins left Chicago, two things happened: the faculty at Chicago largely tossed the integrated great books approach overboard; and Hutchins helped Adler raise the funds to initiate the Institute for Philosophical Research. The former event stimulated the reaction of the modern philosophy departments, education departments and entrenched "progressive" teachers' organizations against the great books classical revival. Ultimately they succeeded in crushing the reform "in the generally iconoclastic and anti-retrospective atmosphere of the middle and late sixties" as Adler wrote. It survives here and there in a few colleges. The other change was that Adler focused more and more on deepening his philosophical inquiries into the realms of the ultimate. Out came books on the great ideas, freedom, justice, love, beauty, happiness, truth, religion, God which he either wrote or edited for the Institute. Along with being the father of four sons: Mark, Michael, Douglas and Philip; Adler also helped found the Great Books Foundation, the Aspen Institute, and co-founded the Center for the Study of the Great Ideas (with Max Weismann), in efforts to advance his educational and philosophical ideas. Likewise, in 1982 Adler and a group composed mostly of educators, published The Paideia Proposal: An Educational Manifesto to advance his ideas on reforming education, principally by introducing the Socratic method ("questioning and discussion groups") into the schools alongside the didactic ("lecturing") and skills instruction ("coaching") modes of teaching, with emphasis on the Socratic method increasing with grade levels. Wherever his advice was followed, the fruits were evident in the improved educational environment, academic skills and understanding of the students and teachers involved. Unfortunately, the resistance to reform had long since galvanized in American educational institutions, despite their steadily declining performance (by any measure). He also promoted the idea that a generalized education, such as the great books and Paideia proposals provide, ought to be pushed back down into the high schools and a Bachelor of Arts degree (B.A.) awarded upon successful completion of that program, at age 16 or so. He maintained that the third level of education the college or university level ought to be largely for specialization in one's chosen area, with some interdisciplinary cross fertilization of ideas in a community of scholars (more of a Hutchins' focus than Adler's). Teachers, he believed, should continue a generalized education since they are to be exemplars for their students as professional "learners," in all areas. He would, therefor, abolish all specialized "teachers' colleges"and colleges of education. On his final TV installment of Firing Line, William F. Buckley, Jr. "cited with pride the fact that the philospher Mortimer J. Adler used Firing Line to explicate his elaborate proofs for the existence of God." - Andrew Ferguson No longer writing books, Adler told this writer that he was pleased his ideas were now being disseminated into the homeschool movement and that there exists plenty of material in his writings to advance his educational ideas there. Indeed, throughout his long educational career, Dr. Adler focused first on helping educate those outside of the institutional educational environment. This stems partly from the resistance of the "progressive" educational establishment to reform; partly to Adler's own experience as a self-educated high school drop-out; and partly from his belief and long experience that a complete education could not possibly be obtained in schools being the work of a lifetime and that teachers who thought they could produce fully-educated young people did not understand that they too were merely partially-educated learners. He wrote that only by about age 60 had he finally some claim on the possession of wisdom. 37 years later, he claims to be learning still. No one, no matter how old, says Adler, should stop learning. He has taken his own advice. -P.S.J.C
For those interested in learning more about the fascinating life of Mortimer J. Adler, he has written two autobiographies: An Intellectual Autobiography: Philosopher at Large (MacMillan, NY, 1977); and, Mortimer J. Adler: A Second Look in the Rearview Mirror (MacMillan, NY 1992). Interesting recent articles on Adler appear in an article by Tim Lacy in the summer 2000 issue of the e-magazine Philosophy is Everybody's Business at thegreatideas. org; and at the Adler Archives online.
But what are the great books?

Since 1952 the phrase has at once come to signify both a particular and a general set of books. The former sense, italicized and capitalized as Great Books, is used widely and in this publication to refer to the particular set produced by Encyclopedia Britannica. Used in the latter sense, the phrase is usually lower-case and not capitalized, and refers to a general set of books sometimes called "the Western canon" or simply "the canon." - Tim Lacy, Toward the Great Books
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Mortimer J. Adler / An Overview of his Main Philosophical Insights
Mortimer J. Adler
An Overview of His Main Philosophical Insights
******
Biographical Information
Mortimer J. Adler is a chairman of the Board of Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. He is the director for the Institute for Philosophical Research in Chicago and a senior associate at the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. He is a modern day philosopher and the author of more than 50 books. His method in several of these books is Socratic underpinning his familiarity with a wide range of works of ancient and contemporary philosophers. His philosophy has touched a broad spectrum of society including education.
Basic Tenets of Alder's Philosophy

Adler believes that philosophy is for everyman. He believes that becoming, "a generally educated human being also involves some grasp of the history of history and of philosophy, and some understanding of the philosophy of history and of philosophy." (Adler, Four Dimensions of Philosophy, pgs. viii-ix) Because Adler feels that philosophy is something that everyone should do he has made several proposals, to return philosophical dialogue about the "great ideas " into current thinking and modern educational curriculums. In Conditions of Philosophy, Adler laid out six conditions for philosophy to reacquire its former prominence in society. They are: 1. Philosophy must be recognized as an autonomous branch of knowledge 2. Philosophical knowledge should be knowledge of the first order 3. Philosophical theories should be judged by the same standards of objective truth that are applied to the natural sciences. 4. Philosophy should be a public undertaking.
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5. Philosophy must develop a method distinctly its own. 6. Philosophy must not be esoteric and out of touch with the real world.
Knowledege And Philosophy

To Adler knowledge is truth beyond the shadow of a doubt. It is "doxa " a well founded opinion, based upon evidence and reason that is testable, falsifiable and corrigible. Philosophy is like mathematics to Adler, in that it is non-investigative. In other words math can be developed without special equipment to conduct investigations. Philosophy is also like math because it deals with ideal objects, objects of thought. However; unlike math, philosophy is empirical. This is because philosophy is based on synthetic judgments in contrast to analytical judgments. This type of judgment is testable by "sense experiences ", because all human beings have "common experiences " that include the knowledge acquired without ever asking a single question. It is possible for anyone to verify or reject a synthetic judgment; therefore, it is possible for every man and woman to be a philosopher. Philosophy is like common sense it is acquired by intellectual insights and rational thought processes. "It cannot be too often repeated that philosophy is everbody's business. To be a human being is to be endowed with he proclivity to philosophize." (Six great Ideas, pg.3 ) Adler believes new philosophy must be knowledge of the first order. This means knowledge about reality. Knowledge of the second order is knowledge about knowledge itself. However, Adler notes that philosophy is the only branch of knowledge that exists in a number of different dimensions. In fact he breaks philosophy up into four distinct dimensions. Metaphysics and moral philosophy would be examples of philosophy that is first order knowledge. The understanding of ideas and subjects would be examples of philosophy that is second order knowledge. Note that in these four dimensions Adler refers to philosophy as both knowledge and as understanding. We know metaphysics and moral philosophy. We only understand ideas and subjects. One way to test our "knowledge" of philosophy is by applying the tests of truth. These include: the pragmatic test which analyzes if a judgment which led to an action had a successful outcome and the test of generalizations which analyzes if perception is altered by one or more negative instances, but perhaps the most important test of truth to Adler is the test of coherence. This test shows whether or not a philosophy is consistent with reality, "only a coherent theory or doctrine can correspond with reality." (Four Dimensions, pg. 32)
The Six Great Ideas

To Adler, philosophy is about ideas, especially "great ideas ". Adler believes
that Plato was right in, "holding that ideas are objects that the human mind can think about." (Six Great Ideas, pg. 9) Adler narrowed the great ideas to six. He argues that a philosopher should begin with these six because of our common call to be good citizens and thoughtful human beings. He notes that five of the six ideas are prominent in the three documents that are the prime source of the American testament; the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Gettysburg Address. According to Adler three of these ideas we judge by truth, goodness and beauty and three of these ideas we live by and act on liberty, equality and justice. About truth, Adler says that it has both objective and subjective elements and that we should incorporate a mild form of skepticism that questions not its objective aspect but its subjective aspect. "The objective truth of a statement may be immutable, but not our subjective judgment about whether it is true. there are no degrees of objective truth. ...But when, subjectively, we judge a statement to be true or false, we may do so with more or less assurance, and accordingly, we may speak of it as being more or less true...." (Six great Ideas, pg.45) According to Adler the pursuit of truth in all branches of knowledge involves: 1. The addition of new truths to our existing body of knowledge. 2. The replacement of less accurate or comprehensive forms with better ones. 3. The discover and rectification of errors. 4. The discarding of generalizations that have been falsified by negative instances. "The sphere of truth, in short, is the sphere of those matters about which we think disagreement is profitable precisely because we think that these are matters about which it is possible to resolve differences." (Six Great Ideas, pg. 58) According to Adler, the difference between truth and goodness is found in the relationships that they both pose. "When we talk about the pursuit of truth, we are regarding truth as an object of desire and, in doing so, we are in effect attributing goodness to truth." (Six Great Ideas, pg. 67) According to Adler, we can determine what is good if we can discriminate between our natural and acquired desires, our wants and needs if you will. this distinction allows us to draw a line between real and apparent goods. Those things which fulfill are natural desires our good for us. Goodness allows us to express three degrees of evaluation, the positive, the comparative and the superlative. While Adler acknowledges the skepticism that would say that truth, goodness
and beauty are all subjective. He effectively argues that there are elements of each which are objective. Beauty is intimately related to goodness because it too so based upon it relationship with us. The whole idea of beauty and how it is defined and perceived Adler further explores in Arts, the arts, and the Great Ideas. Adler notes that of the three great ideas we act upon justice is sovereign to liberty and equality, much as truth is sovereign to goodness and beauty. He also believes that all three ideas fall into the domain of goodness. for instance, to act rightly or justly is to do good. According to Adler all three are "real goods" that are needed in the pursuit of happiness. Of these three only justice is an unlimited good. Regarding freedom Adler says there are three forms. They are: 1. natural freedom, the freedom that we are born with, freedom of our wills, 2. liberty, the freedom associated with wisdom and moral virtue and 3. circumstantial freedom which is contingent upon conditions and can change frequently in the course of a lifetime. Regarding equality Adler says, "The equalities to which we are entitled, by virtue of being human, are circumstantial, no personal. They are equalities of condition-of status, treatment and opportunity." (Six Great Ideas, pg.165)
Ten Philosophical Mistakes

Finally, Adler in Ten Philosophical Mistakes discusses the errors that plague modern philosophy. He identifies: 1. the mistake about consciousness 2. the mistake about the human mind 3. the failure to recognize that ideas are meanings 4. the mistake of not acknowledging the contributions of philosophy are as important as those of the sciences. 5. the mistake that makes good and evil subjective 6. the mistake in the identification of happiness 7. the misunderstanding between freedom of choice and determinism 8. the denial of human nature 9. failure to understand how the basic forms of human association are both natural and conventional 10. the fallacy of reductionism To renew philosophy in this century we must remove many of the mistakes
that have beomce all too common in modern philosophy. Many of these mistakes are small to Adler, theideas that fix them are simple. Many of these moder mistakes have roots that lie in antiquity. The two most significant philosophical mistakes though, are the first two. The first mistake is based upon Locke's view of consciousness, which said that all ideas are that which we apprehend when we are conscious of anything. In contrast, Adler says that a cognitive idea cannot be that which and that by which I apprehend something. That this view defies common sense. The second mistake, the mistaken view of the human mind is based upon Hobbes, Berkeley and Hume who believed that the mind was entirely a sensitive faculty, with no trace of intellectuality. Adler's counter argument is based upon Locke's argument which differentiated between perceptual and conceptual thought based upon man's reflective ability. LINKS TO WEBSITES DEDICATED TO THE WRITINGS AND WORK OF MORTIMER J. ADLER: Biography A brief biography of Adler Center for the Study of The Great Ideas Philosophical research center founded by Adler Bibliography Writings of Adler and other noted educators . LIBRARY HOME
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Mortimer J. Adler
Mortimer J. Adler
Center for the Study of The Great Ideas
mjadler@xsite.net
A Biographical Sketch
Dr. Adler is Founder and Director of the Institute for Philosophical Research, Chairman of the Board of Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., Editor in Chief of the Great Books of the Western World and A Syntopicon: An Index to the Great Ideas, Editor of The Great Ideas Today (all published by Encyclopaedia Britannica), Honorary Trustee of the Aspen Institute, past Instructor at Columbia University, Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago, Honorary Chairman and Co-Founder (with Max Weismann) of the Center for the Study of The Great Ideas and Editor in Chief of Philosophy is Everybody's Business. Ongoing programs started or developed by Dr. Adler include: The Great Books Foundation (with Robert Hutchins), the Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults at the University of Chicago (with Robert Hutchins), the Executive Seminars of the Aspen Institute, the Paideia Project (a plan for major reform of public school education), and The Great Ideas seminars and lectures at the Center for the Study of The Great Ideas-all promoting liberal education through an understanding of great works of philosophy, literature, history, science, and religion. For detailed information about Dr. Adler, two autobiographies covering his intellectual life, are both currently available: Philosopher at Large: An Intellectual Autobiography (1902-1976) (New York: Collier Books, Macmillan, 1992, originally published in 1977), and A Second Look in the Rearview Mirror: Further Autobiographical Reflections of a Philosopher at Large (New York: Macmillan, 1992).
A Partial Bibliography
Books
(1927) Dialectic (1931) The Nature of Judicial Proof: An Inquiry into the Logical, Legal, and Empirical Aspects of the Law of Evidence (with J. Michael)
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Mortimer J. Adler
(1933) Crime, Law and Social Science (with Jerome Michael) (1937) Art and Prudence: A Study in Practical Philosophy (1937) What Man Has Made of Man: A Study of the Consequences of Platonism and Positivism in Psychology (1940) The Philosophy and Science of Man: A Collection of Texts as a Foundation for Ethics and Politics (1940) How to Read a Book: The Art of Getting a Liberal Education (1941) A Dialectic of Morals: Towards the Foundations of Political Philosophy (1944) How to Think About War and Peace (1958) The Revolution in Education (with Milton Mayer) (1958) The Capitalist Manifesto (with Louis O. Kelso) (1958) The Idea of Freedom: A Dialectical Examination of the Conceptions of Freedom (1961) The New Capitalists: A Proposal to Free Economic Growth from the Slavery of Savings (with Louis Kelso) (1961) The Idea of Freedom: A Dialectical Examination of the Controversies about Freedom (1961) Great Ideas from the Great Books (1965) The Conditions of Philosophy: Its Checkered Past, Its Present Disorder, and Its Future Promise (1966) How to Read a Book: A Guide to Reading the Great Books (1967) The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes (1970) The Time of Our Lives: The Ethics of Common Sense (1971) The Common Sense of Politics (1972) How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading (with Charles Van Doren) (1975) The American Testament (with William Gorman) (1976) Some Questions About Language: A Theory of Human Discourse and Its Objects (1977) Philosopher at Large: An Intellectual Autobiography (1977) Reforming Education: The Schooling of a People and Their Education Beyond Schooling (edited by Geraldine Van Doren) (1978) Aristotle for Everybody: Difficult Thought Made Easy (1980) How to Think About God: A Guide for the 20th-Century Pagan (1981) Six Great Ideas: Truth-Goodness-Beauty-Liberty-Equality-Justice (1982) The Angels and Us (1982) The Paideia Proposal: An Educational Manifesto (1983) How to Speak / How to Listen (1983) Paideia Problems and Possibilities: A Consideration of Questions Raised by The Paideia Proposal (1984) A Vision of the Future: Twelve Ideas for a Better Life and a Better Society (1984) The Paideia Program: An Educational Syllabus (with Members of the Paideia Group) (1985) Ten Philosophical Mistakes
Mortimer J. Adler
(1986) A Guidebook to Learning: For a Lifelong Pursuit of Wisdom (1987) We Hold These Truths: Understanding the Ideas and Ideals of the Constitution (1988) Reforming Education: The Opening of the American Mind (edited by Geraldine Van Doren) (1990) Intellect: Mind Over Matter (1990) Truth in Religion: The Plurality of Religions and the Unity of Truth (1991) Haves Without Have-Nots: Essays for the 21st Century on Democracy and Socialism (1991) Desires, Right & Wrong: The Ethics of Enough (1992) A Second Look in the Rearview Mirror: Further Autobiographical Reflections of a Philosopher At Large (1992) The Great Ideas: A Lexicon of Western Thought (1993) The Four Dimensions of Philosophy: Metaphysical-Moral-Objective-Categorical (1994) Art, the Arts, and the Great Ideas (1995) Adler's Philosophical Dictionary: 125 Key Terms for the Philosopher's Lexicon (1996) The New Technology: Servant or Master (with Phillip W. Goetz)
Edited Works
(1940) Scholasticism and Politics (1952) Great Books of the Western World (52 vols.) (1952) A Syntopicon: An Index to The Great Ideas (2 vols.) (1961) The Great Ideas Today (1961-77, 17 vols.) (with Robert Hutchins) (1963) Gateway to the Great Books (10 vols.) (with Robert Hutchins) (1968) The Annals of America (21 vols.) (1974) Propaedia: Outline of Knowledge and Guide to The New Encyclopaedia Britannica 15th Edition (30 vols.) (1977) Great Treasury of Western Thought (with Charles Van Doren) (1978) The Great Ideas Today (1978-1995 - 18 vols.) (1990) Great Books of the Western World 2nd Edition (60 vols.) (1990) A Syntopicon: An Index to The Great Ideas 2nd Edition (2 vols.) [Return to Sellars Forum]
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born Dec. 28, 1902, New York, N.Y., U.S. died June 28, 2001, San Mateo, Calif. in full Mortimer Jerome Adler American philosopher, educator, editor, and advocate of adult and general education by study of the great writings of the Western world. While still in public school he was taken on as a copyboy by the New York Sun, where he stayed for two years doing a variety of editorial work full-time. He then attended Columbia University, completed his coursework for a bachelor's degree, but did not receive a diploma because he had refused physical education (swimming). He stayed at Columbia to teach and earn a Ph.D. (1928) and then became professor of the philosophy of law at the University of Chicago. There, with Robert M. Hutchins, he led in the pursuit of liberal education through regular discussions based on reading great books. He had studied under John Erskine in a special honours course at Columbia in which the best sellers of ancient times were read as a cultural basis for human understanding and communication. Adler was associated with Hutchins in editing the 54-volume Great Books of the Western World (1952) and conceived and directed the preparation of its two-volume index of great ideas, the Syntopicon. In 1952 Adler became director of the Institute for Philosophical Research (initially in San Francisco and from 1963 in Chicago), which prepared The Idea of Freedom, 2 vol. (195861). His books include How to Read a Book (1940; rev. ed. 1972), A Dialectic of Morals (1941), The Capitalist Manifesto (with Louis O. Kelso, 1958), The Revolution in Education (with Milton Mayer, 1958), Aristotle for Everyone (1978), How to Think About God (1980), and Six Great Ideas (1981). With Hutchins, Adler edited for Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc., the 10-volume Gateway to the Great Books (1963) and from 1961 an annual, The Great Ideas Today. He also edited the 20-volume Annals of America, including a two-volume Conspectus, Great Issues in American Life (1968). Under the sponsorship of Britannica, he delivered several series of lectures at the University of Chicago that were published later as books: The Conditions of Philosophy (1965), The Difference
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of Man and the Difference It Makes (1967), and The Time of Our Lives (1970). In 1969 he became director of planning for the 15th edition of Encyclopdia Britannica, published in 1974. He was chairman of the Encyclopdia Britannica's Board of Editors from 1974 to 1995. Adler's memoirs consist of Philosopher at Large: An Intellectual Autobiography (1977) and A Second Look in the Rearview Mirror (1992). As the spokesman for a group of noted educators, he wrote, after considerable study and debate, The Paideia Proposal: An Educational Manifesto (1982) and The Paideia Program: An Educational Syllabus (1984), calling for the abolition in American schools of multitrack educational systems, arguing that a single elementary and secondary school program for all students would ensure the upgrading of the curriculum and the quality of instruction to serve the needs of the brightest and to lift the achievement of the least advantaged. He proposed that specialized vocational or preprofessional training be given only after students had completed a full course of basic education in the humanities, arts, sciences, and language. Among Adler's later works were How to Speak, How to Listen: A Guide to Pleasurable and Profitable Conversation (1983) and Ten Philosophical Mistakes (1985).
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Adler, Mortimer J.
Adler, Mortimer J. (born 1902), American author, teacher,

philosopher, educator, editor, and encyclopedist. Adler has had an important influence on American intellectual life during the 20th century. He has written many books and helped to design several monumental publications, including the 15th Edition of 'Encyclopaedia Britannica', but perhaps his most important contribution has been his unending efforts to reform American education and to revive the spirit of liberal studies in the schools. Mortimer Jerome Adler was born in New York City on Dec. 28, 1902. As a youth he manifested precocious intellectual powers, devouring the collected works of such philosophers as Plato, Aristotle, William James, and John Dewey at an early age and insisting on equal devotion from his teachers to the classic thought and writings of the West. After gaining a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1928, he moved to the University of Chicago where he taught the philosophy of law from 1930 to 1952 and supported the reforming efforts of President R.M. Hutchins. Adler also began his lifetime of service to Encyclopaedia Britannica, producing (with Hutchins) the 54-volume 'Great Books of the Western World' (1952), whose famous 'Syntopicon' Adler planned and edited. In 1952 he established the Institute for Philosophical Research, first in San Francisco and later in Chicago, and for it produced a number of philosophical works, including 'The Idea of Freedom' (2 vols., 1958-61), 'The Conditions of Philosophy' (1965), 'The Time of Our Lives' (1970), 'Aristotle for Everybody' (1978), 'How to Think About God' (1980), and 'How to Speak and How to Listen' (1983). His best-selling work, 'How to Read a Book', first appeared in 1940 and was revised with the assistance of Charles Van Doren in 1972. His autobiography, 'Philosopher at Large', was published in 1977. In 1950 Adler was instrumental in the founding of the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies at Aspen, Colo. One aspect of the institute's agenda was the Aspen Executive Program, inaugurated in 1951. Based on a reading list devised by Adler, the seminars for business executives proved to be a unique and popular experiment in adult education. In his later years Adler, at the head of the Paideia Group, produced a series of books and papers on the reform of education in America, most notably 'The Paideia Proposal' (1982). The group's main thesis was that education in a democracy must be excellent not only for some but for all students, and that no less than universal liberal education is required by the democratic ideal and the democratic promise Hutchins, Robert M. Philosophy: Modern Philosophy
Compton's Encyclopedia Online v3.0 1998 The Learning Company, Inc.
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LiteraryCritic.com -- Mortimer Adler speech
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Mortimer Adler speech

HARVARD'S LOWELL LECTURE - APRIL 11, 1990 "The Great Books, the Great Ideas, and a Lifetime of Learning" by Dr. Mortimer J. Adler Dean Shinagel, Ladies, and Gentlemen. I would like to begin by congratulating the Harvard Extension School on its 80th anniversary, fulfilling the hope of its founder A. Lawrence Lowell in 1910. I think the Harvard Extension School is preceded by some 10 or 15 years by a similar extension school at the University of Chicago. It was founded in 1894, by William Rainey Harper, who as the first president there, not only created an extension school, but a correspondence school. I do not know the date of the establishment of the extension school at Columbia University, but I do know the part it played in my own life. I was a drop-out from high school. I wanted to be a journalist, and went to work on the old, very great New York Sun under editor Edward Page Mitchell. I thought that I should have a little more schooling than I had, having had only two years of high school, so I enrolled in extension courses at Columbia--took a course in Victorian Literature and a course in Wordsworth and Coleridge, of the century before. In the course in Victorian Literature I was assigned to read John Stuart Mill's Autobiography. I discovered, to my amazement, that John Stuart Mill could read Greek at the age of three, had read the dialogues of Plato in Greek at the age of five, and by eleven had read most of the books that I later discovered were the Great Books. At eleven he edited his father's history of India. At twelve he edited Jeremy Bentham's Rationale of Judicial Proof. And I was now fifteen and had read none of these. So I decided to buy a set of Plato, which ruined me. I decided I could play the Greek game of Socrates--a game with one's mind. I had impressed Frank Allen Patterson, who was Director of the
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extension school; he taught this course in Victorian Literature. He got me a three-year scholarship at Columbia. And I did go there for three years--sophomore, junior and senior year--but unlike what Dean Shinagel told you, I did not graduate in 1923, though I did get a Phi Beta Kappa key a few years later. I got an Honorary Bachelor's degree in 1983--some sixty years after I had my Ph.D. The story that's usually told is that I did not get the degree because I did not swim. That's true, I didn't swim and I don't swim now. But the real reason why I didn't get my degree is that I refused to go to gym. Physical education was required at Columbia for graduation. The commencement exercises were on Tuesday, the first Tuesday in May. The Friday before that Tuesday, Dean Hawkes called me into his office and said, "Mortimer, I'm sorry to say that you can't get your diploma next Tuesday." I asked, "Why not, Dean Hawkes?" He said, "You haven't been to the gym." I said, "You're right." He said, "That's it, no diploma." Columbia relented finally, and gave me the degree. My real reason for not going to gym at 10 o'clock in the morning was that I had a logic class at 9 o'clock, and a philosophy class at 11 o'clock. I thought it was a nuisance to get dressed and undressed in the middle of the day. You had to do so to put on a gymsuit. My congratulations also to Dean Shinagel and the teaching staff of the school for a record enrollment of 14,000 students in this year. I was interested in the analysis of the motivations of the students in the school--35 percent are participating in classes for professional development, 37 percent for personal interest, 28 percent seeking some degree or form of certification. One statistic I found in the Alumni Bulletin I received interests me greatly. Only 20 percent of the 14,000 students enrolled in the Extension School here at Harvard are taking courses for no credit. This fact has a bearing on a distinction that is central to my talk this evening. The distinction is between all schooling--in youth and in the years of one's adult life--and adult learning after all schooling is completed. As I will try to make clear, this distinction separates all those phases of education that have some kind of termination and the one phase that is interminable. Before I explain this basic distinction and indicate its significance for a lifetime of learning, let me tell you the standpoint from which I will be speaking to you. I speak to you as an educational reformer--active in educational reform at the college level from 1930 to 1960--at the University of Chicago and at St. John's
College in Annapolis from 1937 on: in both cases, focusing on the importance of reading the great books and discussing the great ideas, not for the sake of acquiring more and more specialized knowledge, but rather to increase one's understanding. Since the early 1980s, the Paideia reform of basic schooling (K-12) has been at work in the US; and from 1923 on, I have been an advocate of the importance of the great books and the great ideas in everyone's education. The three main objectives of schooling are: preparation for earning a living; preparation for intelligent fulfillment of one's civic duty, to be a good citizen of the republic; preparation for fulfilling one's moral obligation to lead a morally good life, enriched by the continuation of learning after all schooling is terminated. Of these three objectives the first may be partly accomplished in K-12, but it is mainly accomplished in colleges or in the extension divisions of our great universities; the second should be accomplished in basic schooling and, if not completed there, in college; the third cannot be accomplished at any stage of schooling, in youth or in adult years, but only in that interminable phase of education, the phase that is genuinely adult learning after all schooling is terminated or completed. Let me now state for you the principles of the Paideia reform of basic schooling. Its first principle is genuine equality of educational opportunity--not just the same quantity of schooling, but the same quality for all. Only this would be truly democratic schooling, a kind of schooling that we have not yet achieved in this country. My friend Frank Keppel, who died earlier this year, enunciated this first principle, when he said: "Education must make good on the concept that no child within our society is either unteachable, or unreachable." We say the same thing when we say that, except those in asylums for mental deficiency, all the children are educable and educable in exactly the same sense. Schooling, in addition to producing competent specialists, should prepare their graduates to go on learning for the sake of becoming generally educated human beings. The second principle, one that applies mainly to basic schooling, though it should also be adopted by good colleges, is that in addition to didactic instruction in subject-matter, by means of lectures and textbooks, there should be coaching in the skills of learning, mainly reading and listening, writing,
and speaking; and most important of all, Socratic questioning in the discussion of books read and ideas or issues considered. In most of the K-12 schools and in most of our colleges, didactic instruction in subject-matter greatly predominates. There is inadequate coaching on the basic skills of learning; and almost no Socratically conducted discussion. The third principle--the one most relevant to this evening's lecture--is the distinction between specialized education and general learning (which is the meaning of Paideia), together with the controlling insight that no one ever has been, or can be, generally educated in basic school or in college. Why not? Because youth--immaturity--is an insuperable obstacle to becoming a generally educated human being. Maturity--the experience of years--is indispensable. It is something to be hoped for in the years beyond middle life after all schooling has been completed. The best indication that schools and colleges have done the job they should be doing is that their graduates have been given the skills and the motivation to continue general learning after all schooling is completed. In other words, schooling, in addition to producing competent specialists, should prepare their graduates to go on learning for the sake of becoming generally educated human beings before they die, and in order to lead morally good and intellectually enriched lives. These principles correct the false views of schooling that abound in this country. That the purpose of schooling in youth and in extension courses in adult years is to turn out educated human beings when our educational institutions confer diplomas, degrees, or certificates, (an educated young person, or a wise young person, is a contradiction in terms, like a round square). That extension courses in adult life are all that is necessary for adult learning, either to compensate for deficient schooling in youth or to go beyond schooling in youth. That adult schooling should be regarded as an avocation or a hobby, a harmless and pleasurable use of spare time. That the young are more educable than adults and can profit more from schooling than adults. The very opposite is the case: adults, being more mature, are more educable than the young, and can profit more from schooling. Let me now return to my distinction between
schooling at all ages, and the kind of education that can be completed and terminated, and the kind of education that is interminable, that begins after all schooling is completed, and is terminated only with a death certificate. Adult learning, once begun, is interminable. We normally have eight years of elementary school, four years of high school, four years of college, three or four years of medical school, law school, engineering school. Degrees, diplomas, or certificates honor the completion of these phases of schooling. It is proper for a person to say "I've completed my college program" or "I completed my professional training." It is similarly proper for a person, enrolled in extension courses, to say "I have now completed the specialized education that I did not complete in college or professional school." But it is totally improper for an adult to say, "I have now completed my adult education." No more preposterous words can be uttered than for someone to say--at the age of thirty, forty, or fifty--"I have now completed my adult education." To that, the only response should be: "Are you ready to die? What are you going to do with the rest of your life?" Adult learning, for the sake of becoming a generally educated human being, once begun, is interminable. Our minds, unlike our bodies, are able to grow and develop until death overtakes us. Unless it declines because of serious mental illness, the mind is not like a muscle, bone, or bodily organ that begins to decline when youth ends, but it is a vital instrument that, if properly exercised, continues to improve. The only condition of its continual growth is that it be continually nourished and exercised. How nourished? By reading the great books year after year. How exercised? By discussing them. Permit me to digress for a moment by speaking to you autobiographically. I became an undergraduate in the college of Columbia University in 1920. At Columbia two strokes of good fortune befell me and changed my life. The great books seminars were invented by John Erskine, of whom I was a student in 1922 and 1923. My first stroke of good fortune was to be asked to teach one of those seminars with the poet, Mark Van Doren, from 1923 to 1929. I would have supposed, under other circumstances, that I had read the great books and understood them, and would not have to read them again. What I learned by having to teach them Socratically the year after I graduated from college was that I did not really understand them.
This gave me the insight that the great books are endlessly rereadable and that the attempt to understand the great ideas to be found in them is an interminable pursuit. That insight was reinforced by the years of teaching great books seminars at the University of Chicago with President Robert Hutchins, between 1930 and 1950, by the teaching of adult seminars in Chicago and at the Aspen Institute ever since, and by all the work I did in editing Great Books of the Western World for Encyclopaedia Britannica, and all the work I did in producing the Syntopicon of the Great Ideas. As I assess my own career as an adult learner, my judgment is that I have learned more from all the great books seminars that I have conducted, especially with adults, than I have ever learned from any other source. And I would dare to say that, sometime after sixty, I have gradually achieved a sufficient understanding of the great ideas and a minimum measure of wisdom to regard myself as a generally educated human being. Why are all great books and the great ideas the indispensable substance of a lifetime of learning? The great books are great because they are inexhaustibly rereadable, as few books are. Not all of them fulfill this high expectation. But many of them do; as, for example, the fifteen authors one would take to a comfortable island if one could take only fifteen authors to read over and over again in fifteen years. But the others, less great than that, approximate this high ideal of inexhaustible rereadability, or of being studiable over and over again. The great ideas--the 102 that are treated in the Syntopicon-- deal with all the basic issues and problems that human beings confront when they think about the world in which they live, themselves, and their society. They are the ideas that all of us have to think about and think with. Without any understanding of them, we have no purchase on the wisdom all of us should seek. If the great books are worth studying in schools and colleges, as the Paideia reform thinks is the case, for the sake of gaining initially some skill in intellectual pursuits, they are certainly worth studying for the rest of one's life, not only for the sake of increasing that skill, but in order to transform one's self, slowly, painfully, but rewardingly, into an educated person. Generally educated persons are those who, through
the travail of their own lives, have enough experience to assimilate the ideas which make them representative of their culture and the bearer of its traditions. Generally educated persons are those who have enough experience to assimilate the ideas which make them representative of their culture and the bearer of its traditions. In conclusion, I have only a few more words to add. The interminable learning that all mature adults should engage in after all terminable phases of schooling are completed is the learning of an autodidact. But there are two big ifs here. Persons are autodidacts if their only teachers are the great books that they read and discuss with their peers and if the great books teach them as Socrates taught those with whom he discussed ideas; as a midwife, merely helping the activity of the learner's own mind. So far as the growth of understanding and wisdom are concerned, no one ever learns anything from a teacher, but only by the activity of one's own mind, with or without the help of a teacher. In 1986, I published A Guidebook to Learning. Its concluding chapter was concerned with the continued learning to be performed by autodidacts. It gave autodidacts two bits of advice. One was that they should recognize the three great areas of subject matter to be studied, because only those three are transcendental in the sense of dealing with all aspects of human life. They are history (for everything has history) and philosophy (for philosophy is everybody's business) and poetry (the great works of imaginative literature, the novels and plays that are of significance to all of us). I have not included science because science as it has developed in the modern world has become more and more the province of the specialists. No one of the many sciences is everybody's business, any more than law, medicine, or engineering should be everyone's profession. The particular positive or empirical sciences, along with mathematics, enter into the continuing self-education of autodidacts, only to the extent that some understanding of these disciplines or subject-matters should be part of everyone's general education. The approach, in other words, should always be that of the generalist: in other words, historical and philosophical. My second bit of advice to autodidacts is short and sweet. To the question: what should autodidacts do? The answer is: Read and Discuss. Not just read, for reading without discussion with others who
have read the same book is not nearly as profitable as it should be for the mind and its effort to understand what has been read. (Solitary reading is as horrible as solitary drinking.) As reading without discussion can fail to yield the full measure of understanding that should be sought, discussion without the substance for discussion that good and great books afford, is likely to degenerate into dinner-party chit-chat or little more than an exchange of opinions and personal prejudices. Autodidacts who read, year after year, the great books of history, philosophy, and poetry, and discuss them with their peers, are on the road to becoming generally educated persons before they die, and to have lives that are enriched by a lifetime of learning. Back to Mortimer Adler page
Copyright and disclaimer 1999-2000 Tim McCormick
THE CRISIS IN CONTEMPORARY EDUCATION

Mortimer J. Adler Published in The Social Frontier, February, 1939, Vol. V, No. 42, pp. 140-145. Crisis is a turning point. In pneumonia, it is the point at which the patient gets either better or worse. But the present crisis in education is different. Things can't get worse. They can only get better. We have reached an extreme in the swing of the pendulum. Progressive education in all its forms was a sound and genuine reaction against the extreme aridity and empty formalism of classical education, which had reached the limit of its own degradation at the end of the last century. Unhappily, as always, the reaction went too far. The opposite extreme has given us an educational program which is equally preposterous, though for different reasons. Professor Dewey himself has of late scored the excesses of some of his would-be followers. What is obviously indicated, to avoid a false issue which offers a choice between undesirable extremes, is a moderate position, one which would agree with progressivism in correcting the abuses of the classical program but which would rectify progressivism itself by retaining whatever was essentially right in the classical approach. If one sets out to remedy abuses, one should remember that one is doing so because something good has been spoiled. The trouble with most reforms is that they start out to remove flaws and end by throwing the good away with the bad. We must eliminate the present excesses of progressive education without discarding the basic insights which motivated the movement. There is no name readily available for designating the middle position. Traditionalism indicates that tradition, as well as progress and novelty, is a factor in education, but the name itself fails to mention the latter factors. Essentialism -- apart from its being a barbaric name -- has been used for a doctrine that does not seem to me an adequate formulation of the moderate policy. For want of a name, therefore, I shall refer to the solution of our difficulties as the Hutchins program. As I understand it, this combines what was vital in classicism -- formal discipline and tradition -- with what is sound in progressivism -- the emphasis upon the present rather than upon the past and the insistence upon activity as indispensable to the learning process. Tradition and invention are the two factors which constitute every living culture: without invention, a culture dies; without tradition, a culture cannot begin to live. So we must have these two factors, in the right proportion and order, in education if the educational process is to preserve and enhance culture. In these terms I shall defend the reforms proposed by President Hutchins. I say "defend" because they have been so widely, so violently, so blindly attacked. Much of the attack has been name-calling and does not deserve serious
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attention. If the real issues were properly understood, there would be an end to all this nonsense about fascism and authoritarianism, for it would be clear that to ask for discipline in education is not to advocate Prussian drill and the goose step; to ask for the abolition of the elective system is not to desire totalitarian regimentation; to emphasize the rule of reason in human life is not to abridge our liberties. It is only license we retain without the discipline of reason. The Hutchins program cherishes all the goods which seem to motivate its opponents: it is forward-looking, valuing the cultural heritage the past transmits only for the sake of intelligent, i.e., prospective, living in the present; it is truly liberal, if the essence of liberalism is respect for persons made free and independent by the discipline of their rational powers; it is fundamentally democratic, for it abides by the principle of universal, popular education, though it distinguishes liberal and vocational training and realizes that even democracies need leaders. I shall try, therefore, to locate the crucial issues and to discuss them briefly, in the hope that objections arising from misconceptions will be answered and that the real basis for demanding the reform of contemporary education will be understood. I may even hope that with such clarification, name-calling may cease, though I dare not hope that rational argument will overcome the inertia of the vested interests. There are two basic issues which divide President Hutchins and his opponents. Both are philosophical. The first has to do with the nature of knowledge and the distinction between science and philosophy, as different kinds of knowledge having different histories and different utilities. The second has to do with the nature of man, whether he is merely an animal whose biological destiny is adjustment in the struggle for existence, or, though an animal, also rational and having a uniquely human destiny of self-perfection. The educational consequences of affirming that man is a rational animal, different in kind and not merely in degree of intelligence, and that philosophy is more eminently knowledge than science, having a validity is which is independent of scientific findings, and a utility superior to that of science -these determine the main points in the Hutchins program. The errors of progressive education are similarly determined by the educational consequences of the opposing denials. It would be naive to suppose that these issues could be adequately argued in short scope. Even in a fairly long book, I have failed to argue these matters with rhetorical effectiveness.1 Not only does the resolution of these issues rest upon profound and extensive considerations, but the mere statement of the affirmative theses arouses so many and such violent prejudices in minds which have suffered the kind of education which their denial has sanctioned, that it is almost impossible to get a hearing, even from persons who call themselves liberal. It almost seems that being educated under the Hutchins program is a necessary prerequisite for understanding the educational philosophy on which it
turns. Similarly, the educational philosophy of our teachers' colleges is received as the obvious truth by those who have been educated under its auspices. But unless everything is just a matter of opinion, and the might of the majority makes right, these issues are genuine, and the truth lies only on one side. Furthermore, philosophic truth is not a private intuition. It is capable of such explication and demonstration that it becomes the public property of all minds free enough from prejudice to be convinced by evidence and reasons. Since adequate argument is not possible here, I must content myself with trying to sharpen the issues thernselves. I choose to do this in a frankly polemic manner -- for there is no point in concealing an adherence to the truth as one sees it -- by defining the philosophical errors which underlie progressive education. I shall discuss, first, the twin myths of progress and utility which are the misleading notions of pragmatic positivism; second, the false educational psychology which denies or ignores man's rationality; and, finally, the way in which the progressive program has been determined by these errors. 1. It is no play on words to say that the myth of universal progress, progress in all things, lies at the heart of progressive education. This myth of progress is a nineteenth-century notion, due partly to positivism and partly to illicit extensions of the doctrine of evolution.2 Progress differs from change in that it is change in a definite direction and is measured by standards which evaluate stages in a process as better and worse. The growth of a plant or animal is a progress from infancy to maturity, to the point where the organism reaches its biological perfection. But everywhere in nature growth is followed by decline, maturity by senescence. The one possible exception to the rule that natural progress is not interminable is that which the panorama of evolution appears to present. But even here, taking the facts as they are usually told in the story of evolution, it is only by a questionable extrapolation of the curve that one could conclude that there is interminable progress in the development of forms of life. Yet it was just this uncritically reached conclusion which propagated the notion that the law of progress rules all things, and that as we move into the future we go endlessly from worse to better, from lower to higher. The other source of this myth of progress was a view of cultural history, dictated by positivism. If one supposes, as the positivists do, that science is the only form of valid, general knowledge about the world, and that the technical application of science to the control of things is the only kind of utility which knowledge has, then there appears to be uninterrupted and interminable progress in human affairs as well as in nature. For does not Auguste Comte tell us that there are three stages in human history -- the superstitious or religious; the speculative, conjectural, or philosophical; and the stage of positive knowledge, or the scientific -- and is this not progress? In the era of science itself does not every century see the ever increasing scope of scientific knowledge and the ever enlarging domain of technology? As the years roll by, we have more and better knowledge, bigger and better inventions or utilities. The positivists are so enraptured by this picture of progress and by the dreams
of the future it generates that they are somehow able to forget that in our moral and political affairs a Hitler and a Mussolini and their followers are not much of an improvement upon a Nero or a Caligula and the gangs they led. But this flaw in the picture must not be forgotten, for it is the clue to one of the two great exceptions to the law of progress in human affairs which make the notion of universal and perpetual progress a deceptive illusion. The first exception is human nature itself. If we can discriminate between nature and nurture, we can understand the sense in which human nature is constant throughout all the variations of culture and all the transformations of history. Man is a biological species, and if a species means anything it means a constant nature which is transmitted from generation to generation. When that constancy fails, when another specific nature is generated, we have, whether by mutation or otherwise, the origin of a new species. It must follow, then, that so long as what is generated remains specifically man, human nature remains constant from generation to generation. By human nature I mean the native abilities and the organic needs which everywhere constitute the same animal, known as man.3 The second exception is more difficult to discuss, for it turns on the essential difference between philosophy and science. The positivists cannot accept biological science and deny the specific constancy of man; they can remain positivists and still recognize how the unchanging character of human nature explains the failure of progress in social and political affairs. But they cannot remain positivists and agree that philosophy is knowledge which is not only nonscientific in its method but also independent in its validity of all the ever changing findings and formulations of research. Since I cannot argue the point here, I shall try only to indicate how affirming philosophy affects our view of cultural history. As I have said elsewhere,4 the positivist is right in his effort to de-ontologize science, to define science as knowledge of phenomenal relationships, generalizing the correlation of diverse sensibles and being totally unconcerned with substances and causes. He is wrong only when he is a negativist, that is, when he denies philosophy, which is ontological knowledge, which is concerned with substances and causes, and which seeks to penetrate beneath the sensible to the intelligible. There is a clear distinction here between the formal objects or noetic aims of science and philosophy; and that distinction is accompanied by a distinction in method. All human knowledge arises from sense-experience, but the activity of the senses alone can account for no generalizations of the sort which distinguish both science and philosophy from history. Intelligence or reason must work reflectively, analytically, inductively over the materials of sense-experience. These two factors, sense and reason, observation and reflection, experience and thought, are common to both science and philosophy. The difference in their methods lies in the fact that science requires special experience, the data achieved by all kinds of research,
investigation whether experimental or otherwise; whereas philosophy arises from reflection about the common experience of mankind, the experience which all men have everywhere and at all times as a result of the noninvestigative use of their senses, and which is always the same because the sensitive powers of man are as constant as his nature and the natural world on which they operate is the same. From this distinction in object and method arises a basic difference in the historical careers of science and philosophy. Science is progressive, and interminably so, as long as men are ingenious and industrious in their efforts at research. There are no apparent limitations to the progress in scientific knowledge except the width, breadth, and depth of the world to be investigated. But philosophy does not grow with an enlargement of experience. Its data are always the same. It grows only by a refinement in the intellectual prowess itself, by profounder insight, by better analysis. Its development is restricted by the limitations of man's intellectual powers; and if our ancestors have accumulated philosophic wisdom, we can improve little on their work. I am saying no more here than what Whitehead means when he says that the history of European philosophy is nothing but a series of footnotes to Plato.5 I cannot resist adding that Aristotle wrote most of the footnotes. In short, there is perpetual progress in scientific knowledge because of the nature of science itself, the contingency of its conclusions as relative to the available data; but there is no such progress in philosophy or wisdom because its conclusions are not contingent, and the relevant experience is always the same. The historical movement of science is a straight line ever upward. The historical movement of philosophy is a deepening spiral, in every turn of which the same truths and the same errors reappear. Professor Gilson has magnificently demonstrated this in his William James Lectures on "The Unity of Philosophical Experience."6 The essential difference between science and philosophy bears not only on the myth of progress, but also on the utility myth. The positivist, regarding only science as knowledge, thinks that the only utility knowledge can have is to give man control over the operable things of nature. But the things which we can control are utilities only in the sense of means. None of them is an end in itself. Clearly the difference between intelligent and unintelligent operation lies in referring means to ends. Furthermore, everyone can see that science is the kind of knowledge which can be used for evil purposes as well as good, according as the means it provides us with are ordered to the right or the wrong ends. But what determines the ordering of means to ends, and what provides the criteria for judging ends as good and bad? Either this is mere opinion, and again might makes right, or it is knowledge. But it is clearly not scientific knowledge, for otherwise science could protect itself and all mankind from the misuses to which it is so readily put. It is philosophical knowledge, which in the practical order is called morals and politics, that must direct us in intelligent operation
toward the right ends. The utility of philosophy is thus superior to that of science, and what is even more obvious, science without moral wisdom -- a command of utilities without right direction -- is a dangerous thing. The more science we have, the more we are in need of wisdom to prevent its misuse. The imminent tragedy of the contemporary world is written in the fact that positivistic modern culture has magnified science and almost completely emancipated itself from wisdom. One further point must be added. Philosophy's independence of science holds in the practical as well as in the theoretical sphere. We have not progressed in moral wisdom. All the advances in science have not changed the moral and political problems which men face, except to make them more difficult because men have more implements at hand to gain their ends. 2. I turn now to the psychological error concerning man's nature. So-called "scientific psychology," which has its roots in the physiological laboratory and its ideology from the evolutionary speculations of nineteenth-century materialism, regards man as an animal different from others only in degree of intelligence or in such accidental matters as erect posture. Man is a bundle of reflexes which can be conditioned, as in other animals, by the positive and negative stimuli of pleasure and pain; he learns as other animals do, by trial and error -- or if he has insight, as the gestaltists claim, so do all other animals; his habits are all sensori-motor coordinations, the archetype of which is the reflex arc. When to the experimental literature are added views which have their origin in the clinic or on the psychoanalytical couch, man's rationality, if admitted at all, is reduced to the craft whereby his ego is forced by his id to rationalize the basic instinctive drives which get him into social conflicts. His behavior originates with and is controlled by his visceral urges, and intelligence is their servant, reason their cunning. It should be apparent, though it is seldom seen, that such a conception of human nature makes it impossible to explain how man can be a scientist, not to mention a philosopher. Scientific truth, which man possesses, and the scientific method which he employs, cannot be accounted for in terms of conditioned reflexes or sensori-motor coordinations, except by the most obvious verbal legerdemain. The very ideal of science -- that the truth, to whatever extent it is achieved, is objective and independent of our passions and urges -- must be an illusion, if reason operates only in the service of the gut and under its dictation. With the scientific ideal goes all the rest of morality, for all ideals become illusions which thinly conceal man's brutishness. The paradox still remains, however, that man is the only animal which finds it necessary to fool himself with ideals. The opposite view, which makes the issue, can be simply stated, though not here argued. Man is a rational animal, and in possessing rationality, which is not just animal intelligence to a higher degree, he is essentially, that is, specifically, different from brutes. Man has all the powers possessed by brute
animals: he has vegetative powers; he has sensitive, appetitive, and locomotive powers. But in addition he has an intellect, and this power, the power of understanding, of abstracting, judging, reasoning, no other animal has.7 It is by the exercise of this power that man is an artist, a scientist, a philosopher; that he lives socially by conventions determined by himself rather than instinctively as other social animals do; that he has a syntactical language for the communication of knowledge and commands; that he is able freely to choose the means by which he attains the end he desires because he understands it to be good. Opposite educational consequences follow from choosing opposite sides in these two issues. If man is a rational animal, constant in nature throughout history, then there must be certain constant features in every sound educational program, regardless of culture or epoch. The basic education of a rational animal is the discipline of his rational powers and the cultivation of his intellect. This discipline is achieved by the liberal arts, the arts of reading and listening, of writing and speaking, and, perforce, of thinking, since man is a social animal as well as a rational one and his intellectual life is lived in a community which can exist only through the communication of men. The three R's, which always signified the formal disciplines, are the essence of liberal or general education. They cannot be inculcated by college courses in logic or mathematics or classical languages. That was the error of classical education, which the progressivist rightly condemned. One learns to write and read only by performing these acts, but since reading and writing are intellectual arts, the habits must be formed under the discipline of rules of art; moreover, intellectual habits cannot be formed intelligently unless the rules themselves are understood. The program of liberal education consists of the liberal arts, acquired as habits through performance under intelligible disciplines. In short, the A.B. degree should be awarded for competence in reading, writing, and rechoning. But one cannot learn to read and write without subject matter. The reason is trained in its proper operations by these arts, but the intellect is not cultivated by them. That can be accomplished only through furnishing it with knowledge and wisdom, by acquainting it with truth, by giving it a mastery of ideas. At this point, the other basic feature of liberal education appears, namely, the great books, the master productions in all fields, philosophy, science, history, and belles-lettres. They are not only the material which must be used to teach students how to read and write, but they constitute the cultural tradition by which the intellects of each generation must first be cultivated. Note, here, how the myth of progress is denied. If there is philosophical wisdom as well as scientific knowledge, if the former consists of insights and ideas that change little from time to time, and if even the latter has many abiding concepts and a relatively constant method, if the great works of
literature as well as of philosophy touch upon the permanent moral problems of mankind and express the universal convictions of men involved in moral conflict -- if these things are so, then the great books of ancient and medieval, as well as modern, times are a repository of knowledge and wisdom, a tradition of culture which must initiate each new generation. The reading of these books is not for antiquarian purposes; the interest is not archaeological or philological. That was the type of interest which dominated the humanistic course in the German gymnasium, and was "classical education" at its worst. Rather the books are to be read because they are as contemporary today as when they were written, and that because the problems they deal with and the ideas they present are not subject to the law of perpetual and interminable progress. The fact that the ancients and medievals were wrong in many matters of scientific knowledge, the fact that even Newton and Galileo were wrong in their turn, makes no difference to the philosophical accomplishments of these periods, nor even to the insights and procedures of the great masters of science. There is not space here to expound fully the curriculum for liberal education which President Hutchins has proposed and which is in operation at St. John's College in Annapolis.8 I am merely indicating how the emphasis upon the liberal arts and the great books follows from and is justified by the fundamental theses which distinguish his educational philosophy. If the educational system were properly divided into three parts -- elementary, secondary or collegiate, and university -- what I have here called liberal or general education would occur at the second level. At the lowest level, elementary education would inculcate the fundamental routines of language and mathematics and stimulate the imagination and the talents for fine arts, thus preparing for college in a manner quite unlike that determined by college board examinations. At the university level, which might begin at what is now the junior year of college, if the A.B. were advanced as the degree for secondary education, would come all the specialized and professional studies. A man can be well trained as a chemist or a historian, a lawyer or a physician, only after he has been fundamentally educated, after he has learned to read and write and has some ideas. If general education emphasizes the permanent studies -- the liberal arts and the cultural tradition -- specialized education, at the university level, is the place for the progressive studies, the studies in which novelty and invention predominate. If one examines the education which now prevails from the elementary school through to the university, one discovers that the opposite theses are at work. Influenced by the myths of progress and utility, failing to recognize the constancy of human nature, and denying, implicitly or explicitly, man's distinctive rationality, the existing system has completely discarded the permanent studies or, what is almost as bad, put them in the university where they are out of place. In terms of a false educational psychology which misinterpreted experiments on the transfer of trainings as showing there is no
point to formal discipline, not enough effort is made to teach students how to read and write. If man has an intellect it can be disciplined despite all the findings on the limited transferability of training from one set of sensori-motor coordinations to another. In terms of pragmatic positivism, the cultural tradition is ignored because there is nothing worth knowing except the most recent results of scientific research. Any book older than yesterday is hardly worth reading, for by the law of progress we must have advanced to a new and better stage of knowledge. We must teach students how to face contemporary problems, and each generation must pull itself up by its own bootstraps, for the problems are ever changing and the past can afford no help at all. Because man is viewed as having only an animal career and not a human destiny, interest and adjustment have taken the place of discipline and cultivation as the watchwords of educational policy. The whole aim of education changes, for adjustment leads to the cult of success, the "ideal" of getting ahead by beating your neighbor. The emphasis on the intersts of the student makes him a buyer instead of as patient, and the teacher becomes a salesman rather than a doctor prescribing the cure for ignorance and incompetence. It is the student who is the master under the elective system, which was invented because of the excessive proliferation of scientific courses in the curriculum, and has been perpetuated by that perversion of educational policy which makes the young, i.e., the relatively ignorant and incompetent, choose their own road to learning, according to the fickle interests of their immaturity. Extracurricular activities originated in response to interests that were tangential to the main business of education, but in many schools they have become the curriculum, and the substantial studies have been thrown out. They are not even extracurricular. Many college curriculums offer courses from A to Z without discrimination; and the university, instead of being a hierarchy of studies and a community of scholars, is a collection of specialties, together only in geographical proximity. Elementary education is devoid of discipline. The basic routines in language and mathematics have been dropped or corrupted. Memory is not cultivated. Social studies, current events, manual arts and games occupy the major time. Secondary or collegiate education fails even more, though in part the failure is due to the inadequate preparation given in the elementary schools. Our Bachelors of Arts cannot read, write, or speak their own language well; neither they nor, for that matter, our Masters of Arts, are acquainted with the liberal arts. They cannot read and they have not read the great books in all fieids.9 They do not possess the leading ideas or understand the basic problems which are permanently human. They have been fed for years on textbooks and lecture courses which hand out predigested materials; and, as a result, they are chaotically informed and viciously indoctrinated with the local prejudices of professors and their textbooks.10 As a final consequence, education at the graduate and professional level has been necessarily debased. Law schools must teach reading; graduate schools struggle to get Ph.D. candidates to write
simple, clear English. I conclude with the question: What are the chances of this deplorable situation being remedied? What chance is there of the Hutchins reform being effected? I ask this question, of course, on the assumption that the truth lies on his side of the basic issues, and with the insight that his program is the moderate one between the extremes of a dead classicism and a progressivism run amuck. Even granted this, I must confess that I am pessimistic, for a number of reasons. First and foremost, there is the inertia of vested interests, which perpetuate existing human institutions. Organized education is one of the largest rackets in this country, and the teachers' colleges, especially such influential ones as those at Columbia, Chicago, and California, are the gangs which control what goes on, in ways that do not always meet the eye and would not stand inspection. To call education a racket is, of ourse, to speak metaphorically, but the comparison has point. Reforming education will have to use racket-busting techniques or it will not succeed. In the second place, there is the vicious circle in the teaching profession itself. The teachers of today were taught by the teachers of yesterday and teach the teachers of tomorrow. When this vicious circle, which has always existed, gets standardized by schools of education, in which a philosophy of education becomes an official program imposed upon the profession and the system by various accrediting agencies, degrees, requirements for promotion, and so forth, the circle becomes almost impregnable. Even if the great mass of teachers were to feel that there is something wrong with education, they could do nothing about it. They have been subjugated; worse than that, they have been indoctrinated by the reigning philosophy so that they no longer have enough free judgment to be critical; but worst of all, they themselves have been so inadequately educated that they would be hindered from understanding the principles or taking part in the execution of the reform being proposed. For the most part, the members of the teaching profession are overtrained and undereducated. Teaching is an art and a teacher must be trained, but since the technique is one of communicating knowledge and inculcating discipline, it is not educational psychology and courses in method and pedagogy which train a teacher, but the liberal arts. Further, a teacher should have a cultivated mind, generally cultivated regardless of his field of special interest, for he must be the visible and moving representative of the cultural tradition to his students. But how can he be this if he has no acquaintance with the cultural heritage, if he cannot read well, and if he is not well read? Finally, there is the even deeper vicious circle in which an educational system and the society in which it flourishes are reciprocal. You cannot improve a society without changing its education; but you cannot lift the educational system above the level of the society in which it exists. We probably have as good an educational program today in this country as we
deserve, according to our cultural attainments and aspirations. If my pessimism encounters objection on the grounds that the movement which John Dewey led succeeded in changing American education, I must answer that that change moved with the tide of American life and expressed its own dominant values and interests. The reform in which I am interested must work against the tide, challenging the worst, and also the most obdurate, features of our national ethos -- our materialism, our pragmatism, our modernism. But pessimism must not lead to despair, for much is at stake that makes it imperative to keep working for reform so long as a chance remains. There are many signs and portents that the modern world is headed for a great social upheaval and a drastic cultural eclipse. We are viewing a race between two revolutions -- a violent one by fire and sword and a peaceful one by education and reason -- to end the iniquitous capitalistic system and the rotten bourgeois culture of our times. Even if, in the world at large, violence is needed to win the day, the educational revolution must follow to preserve and nourish the fruits of victory. In this country, democracy and liberal institutions are at stake, for these can be sustained and developed only by a truly liberal education. Failing to develop critical minds, failing to liberate the mind by discipline, contemporary education makes the way easy for demagogues of all sorts. Education which does not build on wisdom or respect reason above all else, leads to the frustration of the individual and the brutal conflict of social forces. For whenever reason does not rule, the mind must yield to the sheer weight of opinion propagated by pressure; only might remains and none dares say it is not right.
Notes 1 What Man Has Made of Man, New York, 1937. Reviews by Hook in The Nation, Ayres in The New Republic; Leighton in The Christian Century, etc. indicate not only the failure of communication, but also the reasons for it. I have discussed these reasons in a recent monograph on St. Thomas and the GEntiles, Milwaukee, 1938. [Back] 2 Vd. J. Maritain, Theonas, New York, 1933: Ch. 7-11. [Back] 3 To say that human nature is constant, that man's specific nature remains the same through the generations, is not to deny the kind of variations within the human group which are rightly called individual differences. There are, of course, definite limits even to this individual variability, There is a relative constancy in the range of these differences and an invariance in their distribution, from generation to generation. [Back] 4 Vd. What Man Has Made of Man, Lect. I, Notes 6, 7, 16a, 47. [Back]
5 "The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato" (Process and Reality, New York. 1029: p. 63). [Back] 6 New York, 1937. Vd. esp. Ch. 4, 8, 11, 12. [Back] 7 "To expatiate upon the importance of thought would be absurd. The traditional definition of man as 'the thinking animal' fixes thought as the essential difference between man and the brutes, -- surely an important matter" (Dewey, How We Thank, 1st. ed., 1910: p. 14). Cf. ibid., 2nd. ed., 1933, p. 17: "We all acknowledge, in words at least, that ability to think is highly important; it is regarded as the distinguishing power that marks man off from the lower animals." [Back] 8 Vd. The Higher Learning in America, New Haven, 1936. For a description of what is going on at St. John's, see the new program bulletin, obtainable from the college upon request. [Back] 9 An article explaining precisely what it means to say that our college graduates cannot read will soon be published. Of course, they can read in the sense in which all of us can read the newspapers, popular magazines, and even school text-books. There is another sense of 'reading,' however, in which it, along with listening consists of the basic intellectual operations by which one learns from the discourse of others. If a book is worth reading, it must exceed the immediate grasp of the student; otherwise it could not educate or elevate him, for we are educated only by our betters. Reading is the process whereby a student, working on a book without extrinsic aids, moves himself from a state of understanding less to one of understanding more. It would take at least four years of disciplined practice to learn how to read in this way. [Back] 10 When neither the teacher nor the student is a liberal artist trained in art of giving or receiving communication critically, teaching must degenerate into indoctrination in that vicious sense in which the student is a sponge passively absorbing docrines which, however true or excellent they may be in themelves, cannot be more than prejudices or opinions as they are received. [Back]
Mortimer Adler - Why Should We Read Great Books?
"Why should we read the great books of the Western world?" according to Mortimer Adler
ANYONE WHO DESIRES TO LEARN NEED ONLY PICK UP THE BOOK AND READ; IT IS THAT SIMPLE.
from "Only Adults Can Be Educated", interview of Mortimer J. Adler with Max Weismann, in "Philosophy is Everybody's Business: Journal of the Center for the Study of The Great Ideas", Vol 3, No 1, 1996.
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Suppose there were a college or university in which the faculty was thus composed: Herodotus and Thucydides taught the history of Greece, and Gibbon lectured on the fall of Rome. Plato and St. Thomas gave a course in metaphysics together; Fracis Bacon and John Stuart Mill discussed the logic of science; Aristotle, Spinoza, and Immanuel Kant shared the platform on moral problems; Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke talked about politics. You could take a series of courses in mathematics from Euclid, Descartes, Riemann, and Cantor, with Bertrand Russell and A.N. Whitehead added at the end. You could listen to St. Augustine, Aquinas and William James talk about the nature of man and the human mind, with perhaps Jacques Maritain to comment on the lectures. In economics, the lectures were by Adam Smith, Ricardo, Karl Marx, and Marshall. Boas discussed the human race and its races, Thorstein Veblen and John Dewey the economic and political problems of American democracy, and Lenin lectured on communism. There might even be lectures on art by Leonardo da Vinci, and a lecture on Leonardo by Freud. A much larger faculty than this is imaginable, but this will suffice. Would anyone want to go to any other university, if he could get into this one? There need be no limitation of numbers. The price of admission -- the only entrance requirement -- is the ability and willingness to read and discuss. This school exists for everybody who is willing and able to learn from first-rate teachers. Great Books Cafe
Why read Great Books?

Posted by Mortimer J. Adler on Wednesday, 2 April 1997 I would like to share with you a letter that I recently received and my
answer to it:
Dear Dr. Adler, Why should we read great books that deal with the problems and concerns of bygone eras? Our social and political problems are so urgent that they demand practically all the time and energy we can devote to serious contemporary reading. Is there any value, besides mere historical interest, in reading books written in the simple obsolete cultures of former times? -----------------People who question or even scorn the study of the past and its works usually assume that the past is entirely different from the present, and that hence we can learn nothing worthwhile from the past. But it is not true that the past is entirely different from the present. We can learn much of value from its similarity and its difference. A tremendous change in the conditions of human life and in our knowledge and control of the natural world has taken place since ancient times. The ancients had no prevision of our present-day technical and social environment, and hence have no counsel to offer us about the particular problems we confront. But, although social and economic arrangements vary with time and place, man remains man. We and the ancients share a common human nature and hence certain common human experiences and problems. The poets bear witness that ancient man, too, saw the sun rise and set, felt the wind on his cheek, was possessed by love and desire, experienced ecstasy and elation as well as frustration and disillusion, and knew good and evil. The ancient poets speak across the centuries to us, sometimes more directly and vividly than our contemporary writers. And the ancient prophets and philosophers, in dealing with the
basic problems of men living together in society, still have some thing to say to us. I have elsewhere pointed out that the ancients did not face our problem of providing fulfillment for a large group of elderly citizens. But the passages from Sophocles and Aristophanes show that the ancients, too, were aware of the woes and disabilities of old age. Also, the ancient view that elderly persons have highly developed capacities for practical judgment and philosophical meditation indicate possibilities that might not occur to us if we just looked at the present-day picture. No former age has faced the possibility that life on earth might be totally exterminated through atomic warfare. But past ages, too, knew war and the extermination and enslavement of whole peoples. Thinkers of the past meditated on the problems of war and peace and make suggestions that are worth listening to. Cicero and Locke show that the human way to settle disputes is by discussion and law, while Dante and Kant propose world government as the way to world peace. Former ages did not experience particular forms of dictatorship that we have known in this century. But they had firsthand experience of absolute tyranny and the suppression of political liberty. Aristotle's treatise on politics includes a penetrating and systematic analysis of dictatorships, as well as a recommendation of measures to be taken to avoid the extremes of tyranny and anarchy. We also learn from the past by considering the respects in which it differs from the present. We can discover where we are today and what we have become by knowing what the people of the past did and thought. And part of the past -- our personal past and that of the race -- always lives in us.
Exclusive preference for either the past or the present is a foolish and wasteful form of snobbishness and provinciality. We must seek what is most worthy in the works of both the past and the present. When we do that, we find that ancient poets, prophets, and philosophers are as much our contemporaries in the world of the mind as the most discerning of present-day writers. In fact, many of the ancient writings speak more directly to our experience and condition than the latest best sellers. Mortimer J. Adler
The Great Ideas from the Great Books
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Mortimer J.

Basic Tenets of Alder's Philosophy

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Knowldege And Philosophy

The Six Great Ideas

Ten Philosophical Mistakes

The Paideia Curricular Framework

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Welcome to the Mortimer J. Adler Archives

The Archive Directory

A Short Biography of Dr. Adler

Books by Dr. Adler

Dr. Adler's Audio and Video Cassettes

A Bibliography of Work by Dr. Adler

Book Review by Max Weismann

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Books by Mortimer J. Adler

Metaphysics and Epistemology G Knowledge and Opinion

Moral Philosophy and Ethics G Aristotle's Ethics: The Theory of Happiness I

Education G Only Adults Can Be Educated

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Adler on Salesmanship G The Art of Persuasion - I

The Art of Persuasion - II The Art of Persuasion - III

Part 2 - - (Categorizing Human

Part 3 - - (Is a Particular Activity

Part 4 - - (The Spectrum of Work,

Part 5 - - (The Options Open to Us for

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Aesthetics G Some Thoughts on Beauty On Reading G How to Read a Difficult Book

On The Great Books G Why Read Great Books?

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Center for the Study of The Great Ideas

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Access The Great Books

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OTHER GREAT BOOKS LINKS

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The Great Ideas Today, Index

Center for the Study of the Great Ideas

The Great Ideas Today

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