Mortimer Adler first 8 Pages
Interesting Historical Quotes... In support of "World Government" : 1977 -- Leading educator Mortimer Adler publishes Philosopher at Large in which he says: "...if local civil government is necessary for local civil peace, then world civil government is necessary for world peace."
Confusion about the Socratic Method : In educational circles, the appropriate mode of instruction in Mortimer Adler's paideia proposal "must be the Socratic mode of teaching, a mode of teaching called maieutic because it helps the student bring ideas to birth."19
Mortimer Adler (webster encyclpedia) :
Liberal Education and the American Experiment : Or consider how even Mortimer Adler, the contemporary champion of Aristotelian essentialism, writing in The Paideia Proposal, emphasizes the utilitarian when he contends that we should provide the best education to our children in order to guarantee the "proper working of our political institutions, the efficiency of our industries and businesses, the salvation of our economy, the vitality of our culture...."(27) As we will see later in this paper, the view of schools as utilitarian institutions, of schooling as means to an end, has dominated schooling theory in the 20th Century; the Cardinal Principles of 1918, George Counts' "reconstructionism" in the 1930's, the "life-adjustment" curriculum of the 1940's and 1950's, James B. Conant's reconfiguration of the high school in the early 1960's, and society-wide racial integration through school desegregation in the 1960's and 1970's are only the most visible examples of using the school as a "lever of social reform."
http://www.skepticfiles.org/books/nwo.htm
THE NEW WORLD ORDER' A Critique and Chronology By Dennis L. Cuddy, Ph.D :
1948 - Britain's Sir Harold Butler, in the July issue of Foreign Affairs, sees "A New World Order" taking shape. ...
- UNESCO president and Fabian Socialist, Sir Julian Huxley, calls for a radical eugenic policy in UNESCO, its Purpose and its Philosophy. He states: "Thus even though it is quite true that any radical eugenic policy of controlled human breeding will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible, it will be important for UNESCO to see that the eugenic problem is examined with the greatest care, and that the public mind is informed of the issues at stake that much that is now unthinkable may at least become thinkable.
- Preliminary Draft of a World Constitution is published by U.S. educators Robert Hutchins, Mortimer Adler, Rexford Tugwell and others, advocating regional federation on the way toward world federation or government, with England incorporated into a European federation. The Constitution provides for a "World Council" along with a "Chamber of Guardians" to enforce world law. Also included is a "Preamble" calling upon nations to surrender their arms to the world government, and including the right of this "Federal Republic of the World" to seize private property for federal use. ....
1949 - George Orwell publishes 1984. In his classic work, Orwell describes a "Newspeak" language and "doublethink" They were exemplified in the slogans of "the Party" which were "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength" Orwell explains that "Newspeak had been devised to meet the ideological needs of INGSOC, or English Socialism" and "Big Brother" represents neither the failed German Nazis nor the Russian Communists who also will fail, but rather "the Party" which will control men's minds. The leading character OBrien says, "The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake.... If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever".
July 26: Eighteen members of the U. S. Senate sponsor Senate Concurrent Resolution 56, calling for the United Nations to be restructured as a world federation.
1950 - Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee considers World Government. February 9: A Foreign Relations Subcommittee introduces Senate Concurrent Resolution 66 which begins: "Whereas, in order to achieve universal peace and justice, the present Charter of the United Nations should be changed to provide a true world government constitution".
The document was prepared by Hutchins, Adler, Tugwell and others, and the resolution was first introduced in the Senate on September 13, 1949 by Senator Glen Taylor (D-Idaho). Senator Alexander Wiley (R-Wisconsin) called it "a consummation devoutly to be wished for" and said, "I understand your proposition is either change the United Nations, or change or create, by a separate convention, a world order" Senator Taylor later stated, "We would have to sacrifice considerable sovereignty to the world organization to enable them to levy taxes in their own right to support themselves".
Mortimer Adler (webster encyclpedia) :
Liberal Education and the American Experiment : Or consider how even Mortimer Adler, the contemporary champion of Aristotelian essentialism, writing in The Paideia Proposal, emphasizes the utilitarian when he contends that we should provide the best education to our children in order to guarantee the "proper working of our political institutions, the efficiency of our industries and businesses, the salvation of our economy, the vitality of our culture...."(27) As we will see later in this paper, the view of schools as utilitarian institutions, of schooling as means to an end, has dominated schooling theory in the 20th Century; the Cardinal Principles of 1918, George Counts' "reconstructionism" in the 1930's, the "life-adjustment" curriculum of the 1940's and 1950's, James B. Conant's reconfiguration of the high school in the early 1960's, and society-wide racial integration through school desegregation in the 1960's and 1970's are only the most visible examples of using the school as a "lever of social reform."
THE NEW WORLD ORDER' A Critique and Chronology By Dennis L. Cuddy, Ph.D : 1948 - Britain's Sir Harold Butler, in the July issue of Foreign Affairs, sees "A New World Order" taking shape. ... ...UNESCO president and Fabian Socialist, Sir Julian Huxley, calls for a radical eugenic policy in UNESCO, its Purpose and its Philosophy. He states: "Thus even though it is quite true that any radical eugenic policy of controlled human breeding will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible, it will be important for UNESCO to see that the eugenic problem is examined with the greatest care, and that the public mind is informed of the issues at stake that much that is now unthinkable may at least become thinkable. - Preliminary Draft of a World Constitution is published by U.S. educators Robert Hutchins, Mortimer Adler, Rexford Tugwell and others, advocating regional federation on the way toward world federation or government, with England incorporated into a European federation. The Constitution provides for a "World Council" along with a "Chamber of Guardians" to enforce world law. Also included is a "Preamble" calling upon nations to surrender their arms to the world government, and including the right of this "Federal Republic of the World" to seize private property for federal use. ....1949 - George Orwell publishes 1984. In his classic work, Orwell describes a "Newspeak" language and "doublethink" They were exemplified in the slogans of "the Party" which were "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength" Orwell explains that "Newspeak had been devised to meet the ideological needs of INGSOC, or English Socialism" and "Big Brother" represents neither the failed German Nazis nor the Russian Communists who also will fail, but rather "the Party" which will control men's minds. The leading character OBrien says, "The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake.... If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever". July 26: Eighteen members of the U. S. Senate sponsor Senate Concurrent Resolution 56, calling for the United Nations to be restructured as a world federation. 1950 - Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee considers World Government. February 9: A Foreign Relations Subcommittee introduces Senate Concurrent Resolution 66 which begins: "Whereas, in order to achieve universal peace and justice, the present Charter of the United Nations should be changed to provide a true world government constitution".The document was prepared by Hutchins, Adler, Tugwell and others, and the resolution was first introduced in the Senate on September 13, 1949 by Senator Glen Taylor (D-Idaho). Senator Alexander Wiley (R-Wisconsin) called it "a consummation devoutly to be wished for" and said, "I understand your proposition is either change the United Nations, or change or create, by a separate convention, a world order" Senator Taylor later stated, "We would have to sacrifice considerable sovereignty to the world organization to enable them to levy taxes in their own right to support themselves".
http://www.creationism.org/csshs/v10n4p27.htm
Ideas Have Consequences" and Biased Reason (Ellen Myers) : Mortimer Adler has achieved fame in education with his "Paideia Proposal" recommending the reading of the "Great Books" as well as use of the "Socratic method" in the high schools of America. Anything but the absolute reality created, sustained and ruled by the God of Scripture!
In conclusion, while Bible-believing Christians can find much that is acceptable in books such as Ideas Have Consequences, they must reject the dishonesty of "secular language"; the notion that man's reason is somehow not fallen and can find neutral ground for dialogue with unbelievers; any and all forms of denial of the authority and inerrancy of Scripture; attempts to substitute men's philosophical formulations for God Himself and His Word; and the idolatry of the works of men's own hands and minds, including civilization. Ostensibly classical, "conservative" education without God cannot save and restore our nation or culture any more than the tried-and-false "progressive" education. As a matter of fact, the two are but branches from the same root, man's apostate reason exalting itself against the Creator Who alone has the power and wisdom to guide and prosper him.
So why do Britannica make such a fuss about this strange component? Well, because the Board of Editors for the 15th edition was headed by the University of Chicago's Mortimer J. Adler. You must understand that the Britannica has nothing to do with Britain any longer; much to the horror of devout Anglophiles, it became an American citizen years before Rupert Murdoch realised the advantages.
Mortimer Adler was the Aristotelian philosopher of law responsible for another publishing bonanza, the 54-tome Great Books of the Western World--reviewed famously by the scathing polymath Dwight Macdonald in 1952 as "The Book-of-the-Millennium Club". These multifarious works are strung together by a Propaedia-like volume Adler devised entitled the Syntopicon, which is meant to access and organise the 102 Great Ideas in the Great Books.
Dr Adler, you see, like his spiritual mentor Aristotle, is a demon for putting things in categories and bringing stray thoughts to heel. Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is notable for some less than complimentary remarks aimed at Dr Adler and his team of Rational Christian educationists at Chicago.
Adler's study of evidence, cross-fertilized by a reading of classics of the Western world, resulted in a conviction that human wisdom had advanced relatively little in recent times. He consistently harked back to St. Thomas Aquinas, who had taken Plato and Aristotle and made them part of his medieval synthesis of Greek philosophy and Christian faith. The work of Aquinas and the Greeks, as interpreted by Aquinas, was to Adler the capstone of the Western intellectual heritage. Therefore they provided a measuring rod for anyone seeking the good books.
It would be going a little too far to suggest that Adler's 15th edition of the
Britannica is a modernised, face-lifted version of a medieval Catholic monk's
Summa Contra Gentiles--but it wouldn't be going all that far. Despite the
association in the back of our minds with slick salesmen, Britannica is clearly
put together with a conservative moralist's fervour.
"When the Eleventh Edition was published in 1910 and 1911," observes the latest
Editorial Report, "the Victorians' world seemed secure and subject to capture"
by encyclopaedists. By contrast, the 1985 edition "must not be edited with a
national view. In a world under nuclear arms and ecological stress, the easy
judgements and parochial self-confidence of another day no longer serve."
Nice work if you can get it. Yet it's strikingly revealing--in a document where
the section on NUCLEAR FUSION is by Lev Artsimovitch, late Head of the Plasma
Physics Division in the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy in Moscow--that the
major article on MARXISM should have been provided by the Reverend Henri Chambre,
of the Society of Jesus.
This spirit of ecumenism doesn't operate in reverse, alas: the bumper article on
CHRISTIANITY is by a convocation of ecclesiastics and church historians,
including Archbishop Iakovos, Linwood Fredericksen of Rotary International, and
the Rev. Massey H. Shepherd, Jr, of (naturally) Berkeley, Cal.
Even if you knew nothing of this background, it'd be clear from the outset that
Adler's ambitions go beyond any mere compendium of data. His Editor from 1964 to
1975, a man with the wonderfully Tolstoyan name Warren Preece, detailed three
ways an encyclopaedia might be used:
First, there are occasions on which a reader desires to look something up... the
size of the whale, the feeding habits of the robin, the achievements of Rudolf
Virchow...
Second, ...he may... be more interested in the causes of the war in Vietnam than
in the casualty statistics of the Tet offensives...; he may want to know how
interest rates can be used to control the volume of currency in circulation
rather than how to define compound interest...
Third, users may on occasion seek that genuine understanding that in itself
somehow defines what the world means by the word `education'. On such occasions,
his interest is in neither the size of the whale nor the taxonomic
characteristics of the family to which the lion belongs, but in an insight into
what has been known and conjectured about the whole sweep of life on Earth... an
understanding of the objects of studies of all the sciences as they relate to
something grander than the disciplines themselves.
Heroic stuff. The Encyclopaedia Britannica is engaged in nothing less than a
crusade to civilise us all by turning the tools of mass production to the
service of the human spirit, as understood in the light of St. Thomas Aquinas
and his rational but pious Greek chums.
By the way, if you've never heard of Rudolph Virchow, here's some of what the
Macropaedia says:
A German pathologist, statesman and anthropologist, Rudolph Virchow pioneered
the modern concept of pathological processes by his application of the cell
theory to explain the effects of disease in the organs and tissues of the body.
He emphasised that diseases arose primarily, not in the organs or tissues in
general, but in their individual cells. Moreover, in line with his liberal
political views, he held that the body is a free state of equal individuals (its
cells). He was active in the reform of medical education and contributed to the
development of anthropology as a modern science.
"CONFLICT SEEMS VAGUELY UN-AMERICAN":
TEACHING THE CONFLICTS AND THE LEGACY OF COLD WAR 1
:
Through his (and Mortimer Adler's) Great Books Program, Hutchins could prominently insist on the idea that social and political progress would come only through an understanding of differences arrived at through "conversation" (one of his favorite words)--a position that was interpreted by anticommunists as a sell-out to the communists, tantamount to "peaceful coexistence." That Hutchins could suggest the Great Books as a way in which American citizens could teach themselves the skills necessary for doing what American diplomats were *not* doing abroad--namely reaching, through intercultural "conversation," a "minimum understanding" with those whose ideology we find abhorrent--was itself an irritant to anticommunists. The exploration of differences through the playing off against one another of opposing positions was the theoretical basis (for Hutchins if not as happily for Adler) of the program Hutchins outlined in *The Great Conversation: The Substance of a Liberal Education* (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952), a work meant both as a handbook for Great Books discussion leaders and as a manifesto for an idealistic liberal pedagogy Hutchins mostly failed to bring even to his own University of Chicago. "The liberally educated man" had above all to be able to discern "distinctions and interrelations" between various positions (p. 3); to achieve this, he (or she--despite Hutchins's habitual use of the male pronoun, Great Books discussion groups were designed to and did include many women) must learn to see how culture is strengthened and reconstructed (though not originally constructed) through dialogue. Ours might ideally be a "Civilization of the Dialogue," argued Hutchins, if it weren't for certain "citizens [he meant anticommunist congressmen] constantly demanding the suppression of freedom of speech in the interest of national security" (p. 61).
Embracing Pedagogical Pluralism:
An Educator’s Case for (at Least Public) School Choice
David J. Ferrero
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Seattle, Washington (U.S.)
:
Variations on Cuban’s list of attributes are found widely in accounts of successful schools. At this level, educators enjoy notable consensus. For example, in one way or another, Theodore Sizer (1997), Mortimer Adler (1982), and Paul Gagnon (1993) have in different ways argued that “less is more”—i.e., that curricula should be selective, covered in-depth, and coherent. The problem is that the consensus erodes quickly as one begins to unpack their assertions: the criteria of selection, the meaning of depth, and the principles of coherence differ substantially among the progressive Sizer, the humanist-traditionalist Adler, and the disciplined-based traditionalist Gagnon.
Adler, A. (1964). Social interest: A challenge to
mankind. Capricorn. (No longer in print.)
Adler, A. (H. Ansbacher & R. Ansbacher, Eds.) (1956.) The individual psychology
of Alfred Adler: A systematic presentation in selections from his writings. New
York: Basic Books.
Adler, A. (H. Ansbacher & R. Ansbacher, Eds.) (1979). Superiority and social
interest. New York: W. W. Norton. (Part 5 is "Religion and individual
psychology") ISBN: 0393009106
Adler, A., & Jahn, E. (1933). Religion and Psychology. Frankfurt. (A classic
work in German.)
Adler, K., & Deutsch, D. (Eds.) (1959). Essays in individual psychology. Grove
Press. (Section 2, by Albert Reissner, is titled "Religion and Psychotherapy")
Adler, M. J. (1994). Platonism and Positivism in Psychology. Transaction/Rutgers
University. (Mortimer Adler discusses Freud's contribution to psychology and his
views on religion.) ISBN: 0393009106
Mortimer Adler (webster encyclpedia)
:
Mortimer Adler
"The philosopher ought never to try to avoid the duty of making up his mind."
Mortimer Jerome Adler (December 28, 1902 - June 28, 2001) was an American
philosopher and author.
Adler was born in New York City. After dropping out of high school at age 14, he
worked as a copy boy for the New York Sun. Wanting to become a journalist, he
took writing classes at night where he discovered the works of men he would come
to call heroes: Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, John Stuart Mill,
and others. He went on to study philosophy at Columbia University. Though he
failed to complete the necessary physical education requirements for a
bachelor's degree, he stayed at the university and eventually was given a
teaching position and was awarded a doctorate in philosophy.
Adler was appointed to the philosophy faculty at the University of Chicago in
1930, where he met its president Robert Hutchins, with whom he founded the
"Great Books" program and made other educational reforms. With Max Weismann, he
founded The Center for the Study of The Great Ideas. For a long time he was an
editor of the Encyclop椩a Britannica, and influenced many of the policies of the
15th edition. He served as director of the Institute for Philosophical Research
in 1952.
Adler long strove to bring philosophy to the masses, and some of his works (such
as How to Read a Book) became popular bestsellers. Adler was often aided in his
thinking and writing by Arthur Rubin, an old friend from his Columbia
undergraduate days.
"Unlike many of my contemporaries, I never write books for my fellow professors
to read. I have no interest in the academic audience at all. I'm interested in
Joe Doakes. A general audience can read any book I write—and they do."
Adler took a long time in his own life to "make up his mind" about theological
issues. In Volume 51 of the Mars Hill Audio Journal (2001), Ken Meyer includes
his 1980 interview with Adler, conducted after How to Think About God was
published. Meyer reminisces, "During that interview, I asked him why he had
never embraced the Christian faith himself. He explained that while he had been
profoundly influenced by a number of Christian thinkers during his life,
...there were moral—not intellectual—obstacles to his conversion. He didn't
explain any further."
Meyer goes on to point out that Adler finally "surrendered to the hound of
heaven" and "made a confession of faith and was baptised" only a few years after
that interview. Offering insight into Adler's conversion, Meyer quotes Adler
from his subsequent 1990 article in Christianity magazine: "My chief reason for
choosing Christianity was because the mysteries were incomprehensible. What's
the point of revelation if we could figure it out ourselves? If it were wholly
comprehensible, then it would just be another philosophy."
Also in that 1980 interview, Meyer "playfully" asked Adler which single book he
would want to take on a desert island. Adler responded with eleven:
Thucydides' The History of the Peloponnesian War [1]
5 or 6 of Plato's Dialogues
Aristotle's Ethics & Politics
Augustine of Hippo's Confessions
Plutarch's Lives
Dante's Divine Comedy
some plays of Shakespeare
Montaigne's Essays
Gulliver's Travels
Locke's Second Treatise on Government
Tolstoy's War and Peace
Adler was a controversial figure in some circles who saw his focus on the
classics as eurocentric and dogmatic, and he was never afraid to speak his mind.
Once asked in an interview why his great books list did not include any black
authors, he said simply "...they didn't write any good books."
Table of contents [showhide]
1 Works
2 Edited Works
3 External Links - Resources
Works
Dialectic (1927)
The Nature of Judicial Proof: An Inquiry into the Logical, Legal, and Empirical
Aspects of the Law of Evidence (1931, with Jerome Michael)
Diagrammatics (1932, with Maude Phelps Hutchins)
Crime, Law and Social Science (1933, with Jerome Michael)
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 (1937)
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 (1940)
A Dialectic of Morals: Towards the Foundations of Political Philosophy (1941)
How to Think About War and Peace (1944)
The Revolution in Education (1944, with Milton Mayer)
The Capitalist Manifesto (1958, with Louis O. Kelso)
The Idea of Freedom: A Dialectical Examination of the Conceptions of Freedom
(1958)
The New Capitalists: A Proposal to Free Economic Growth from the Slavery of
Savings (1961, with Louis O. Kelso)
The Idea of Freedom: A Dialectical Examination of the Controversies about
Freedom (1961)
Great Ideas from the Great Books (1961)
The Conditions of Philosophy: Its Checkered Past, Its Present Disorder, and Its
Future Promise (1965)
How to Read a Book: A Guide to Reading the Great Books (1966)
The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes (1967)
The Time of Our Lives: The Ethics of Common Sense (1970)
The Common Sense of Politics (1971)
How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading (1972, with Charles
Van Doren)
The American Testament (1975, with William Gorman)
Some Questions About Language: A Theory of Human Discourse and Its Objects
(1976)
Philosopher at Large: An Intellectual Autobiography (1977)
Reforming Education: The Schooling of a People and Their Education Beyond
Schooling (1977, edited by Geraldine Van Doren)
Aristotle for Everybody: Difficult Thought Made Easy (1978)
How to Think About God: A Guide for the 20th-Century Pagan (1980)
Six Great Ideas: Truth-Goodness-Beauty-Liberty-Equality-Justice (1981)
The Angels and Us (1982)
The Paideia Proposal: An Educational Manifesto (1982)
How to Speak / How to Listen (1983)
Paideia Problems and Possibilities: A Consideration of Questions Raised by The
Paideia Proposal (1983)
A Vision of the Future: Twelve Ideas for a Better Life and a Better Society
(1984)
The Paideia Program: An Educational Syllabus (1984, with Members of the Paideia
Group)
Ten Philosophical Mistakes (1985) ISBN 0-02-500330-5
A Guidebook to Learning: For a Lifelong Pursuit of Wisdom (1986)
We Hold These Truths: Understanding the Ideas and Ideals of the Constitution
(1987)
Reforming Education: The Opening of the American Mind (1988, edited by Geraldine
Van Doren)
Intellect: Mind Over Matter (1990)
Truth in Religion: The Plurality of Religions and the Unity of Truth (1990)
Haves Without Have-Nots: Essays for the 21st Century on Democracy and Socialism
(1991)
Desires, Right & Wrong: The Ethics of Enough (1991)
A Second Look in the Rearview Mirror: Further Autobiographical Reflections of a
Philosopher At Large (1992)
The Great Ideas: A Lexicon of Western Thought (1992)
The Four Dimensions of Philosophy: Metaphysical-Moral-Objective-Categorical
(1993)
Art, the Arts, and the Great Ideas (1994)
Adler's Philosophical Dictionary: 125 Key Terms for the Philosopher's Lexicon
(1995)
Edited Works
The New Technology: Servant or Master (in work, with Phillip W. Goetz)
Scholasticism and Politics (1940)
Great Books of the Western World (1952, 52 volumes)
A Syntopicon: An Index to The Great Ideas (1952, 2 volumes)
The Great Ideas Today (1961-1977, 17 volumes, with Robert Hutchins)
Gateway to the Great Books (1963, 10 volumes, with Robert Hutchins)
The Annals of America (1968, 21 volumes)
Propaedia: Outline of Knowledge and Guide to The New Encyclop椩a Britannica 15th
Edition (1974, 30 volumes)
Great Treasury of Western Thought (1977, with Charles Van Doren)
The Great Ideas Today (1978-1999, 20 volumes)
Great Books of the Western World 2nd Edition (1990, 60 volumes)
A Syntopicon: An Index to The Great Ideas 2nd Edition (1990, 2 volumes)
External Links - Resources
Center for the Study of the Great Ideas
Mortimer J. Adler Archives
Adler pages at Pepperdine University
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