Talk:Mortimer Adler
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Thank you to the person who made the decision to remove the quote regarding black writers, for which no source was given. I also seriously doubt that Adler ever made such a statement. Now, it is possible that he said black writers had never written any "Great Books", but that one word, from "good" to "great", makes a huge difference where Adler was concerned. It must be understood that he had a very specific and technical definition of a "Great Book" that excludes 99.99999% of everything that has ever been written. Please see the following link for Adler's own comments on this issue: http://books.mirror.org/gb.sel1990.html.
I've seen this same article around the internet, and always there is no source given for the quote regarding black writers, "they've never written any good books". I doubt this quote is genuine without documentation. Adler was editor of the Great Ideas Today, which did include Black authors. In another instance, Adler was widley reported as once saying "we must abolish the United States". He never said such a thing, and the "quote" was from the notorius John Birch Society. So can someone find a source for this quote before putting it back in? PBTim
It is highly unlikely Mortimer Adler would have said or written something he would consider wreckless like "We must abolish the United States" I have studied Adler's writings for many years and I am almost certain that he would not make a racial generalization such as black writers have "never written any good books." The fact is Adler was probably the best dialectical thinker since Aristotle. He criticized Aristotle for his acceptance of slavery and his strong opinions about women. Adler's "Syntopicon" and his monumental comprehensive two volume work on Freedom are supreme examples of Aristotlean dialectical thought. I too challenge anyone to produce evidence that Adler ever expressed dismissal of American Government (see his "Capitalist Manifesto", "A Vision of the Future" & "The Annals of America,"20 Vols for his clearly stated views about American Government and race) Adler had many fans and many enemies. He knew John Dewey, was not taken in with his very verbose, misleadingly cavalier writing style and he was not afraid to meet him in public debate. To John Dewey's discredit, he responded to Adler's brilliant criticism with personal attack. He said Adler and his friends were fascists. Adler disliked Dewey but he did not let that blind him to the fact that Dewey did write one good, significant book, "Education and Democracy."
Correction: Mortimer Adler did not have a degree in philosophy. His only degree was the Phd in Psychology. He was not awarded his BA degree until many years later. An Unusually talented literature professor at Columbia, John Erskine, developed the great ideas approach to general education and he was Adler's chief instructor and mentor at Columbia. I believe it was Erskine who suggested to Adler that he prepare to prepare a dissertation and to apply for the Phd degree. Erskine, at the time, was America's most well known Professor. He was a gifted musician who toured and he was creator of the historical novel.
There is an interesting interview of Martin Gardner [ http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1420714/posts ]in which Martin says some harse things about Mortimer.
Heres the quote: "I was at Chicago during the famous Hutchins- Adler period. Mortimer Adler came from an orthodox Jewish background and became fascinated by Catholicism, and he almost joined the Catholic church. Half a dozen or more students of Adler’s at Chicago became Catholics as a result of taking courses from him. I never liked Adler. I took one course, a Great Books course he taught with Hutchins. I wrote a letter to the New Republic—it was published—saying that readers should all pray for Adler’s conversion to the Catholic church, because that would clear the air, and we would know exactly what he believed. I have a very rare document, a speech that Adler gave at Northwestern University, and incredible as it may seem, he argued that, if the Catholic church is a true church, it had a right to execute heretics. Can you imagine somebody in this day and age saying that the church had a right to execute heretics? That’s in this lecture. Adler of course is very much ashamed of it. But the punch line is that, shortly before he died, Adler joined the Catholic church. So it took about half a century for the prayers of the New Republic readers to be answered.
Notices: You wrote that letter at the time you were at Chicago?
Gardner: Yes, I was an undergraduate. Adler was a character. He had a tremendous ego. He edited the Encyclopedia Britannica. If you some of them handmade, were look through the first volume, which has general articles, you will find very short articles on Bertrand Russell, no article on Carnap, a very short article on Quine—and when you turn to Adler, a big, long article of several columns! But the university was an exciting place partly because Adler aroused so much animosity among the faculty and among the students. This led somebody to propose the “Madman Theory of Education”, which says that every university should have a madman on the faculty who gets the students all riled up in opposing his views. There was also a joke going around at the time that the University of Chicago was a Baptist school where Jewish professors were teaching Catholic theology. " For the record, I'm actually a fan of both of these quys.
