Background

Mortimer Jerome Adler was born on December 28, 1902, in New York City. He was the son of Ignatz and Clarissa (Manheim) Adler.

Education

After reading the autobiography of a nineteenth-century English philosopher John Stuart Mill, Adler quit high school to direct his own education. He worked as a copyboy by the New York Sun, where he stayed for two years doing a variety of editorial work full-time and read Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, John Stuart Mill and others. On scholarship, he earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy at Columbia University in three years, but left without a diploma because he refused to complete the swimming requirement. In 1983, the university relented and awarded him the long-delayed Bachelor of Arts degree. While at Columbia, he contributed to the student literary magazine, The Morningside and wrote his first book: Dialectic, published in 1927.

Career

After his graduation from Columbia University, Adler stayed there to teach and then became a professor of the philosophy of law at the University of Chicago. There, with Robert M. Hutchins, he became a proponent of the pursuit of liberal education through regular discussions based on reading great books. 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. (1958–61). With Hutchins, Adler edited for Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., the 10-volume Gateway to the Great Books (1963) and from 1961 an annual, The Great Ideas Today.

Adler also headed the editorial staff of Britannica’s 20-volume Annals of America, which included 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 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 the Encyclopædia Britannica, published in 1974. He was chairman of the Encyclopædia Britannica’s Board of Editors from 1974 to 1995.

Achievements

• Mortimer Jerome Adler is known as a philosopher and popular author, who attempted to make philosophy easy to understand for the average person on the street. Adler helped establish the Great Books Foundation that encouraged people to meet in groups twice a month and talk about classic texts. He wrote nearly fifty books and two autobiographies. He also was a president and director for the Institute for Philosophical Research in San Francisco.
  
  As the director of editorial planning for the fifteenth edition of Britannica from 1965, he was instrumental in the major reorganization of knowledge embodied in that edition. He introduced the Paideia Proposal which resulted in his founding the Paideia Program, a grade-school curriculum centered around guided reading and discussion of difficult works (as judged for each grade). With Max Weismann, he founded The Center for the Study of The Great Ideas.

Works

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  • The Time of Our Lives: The Ethics of Common Sense

    (Is it a good time to be alive? Is ours a good society to ...)

    1970
  • A Guidebook to Learning: For a Lifelong Pursuit of Wisdom

    (A systematic approach to lifelong learning interconnects ...)

    1986
  • The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes

    (In this classic work, Adler explores how man differs from...)

    1967
  • Vision of the Future

    (The author elucidates the implications of twelve key idea...)

    1984
  • How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

    (With half a million copies in print, How to Read a Book i...)

    1940
  • Reforming Education: The Opening of American Mind

    (A founder of the "great books" movement addresses the con...)

    1988
  • The Paideia Proposal: An Educational Manifesto

    (Analyzes the purpose of public education in a democratic ...)

    1982
  • Paideia Program

    (Essays discuss seminars, tutoring, lectures, school struc...)

    1984
  • Six Great Ideas

    (Discusses complex philosophical problems in concrete lang...)

    1981
  • Aristotle for Everybody: Difficult Thought Made Easy

    (Aristotle (384 - 322 B.C.) taught logic to Alexander the ...)

    1978
  • The Capitalist Manifesto

    (In 1956, a U.S. lawyer-economist, Louis O. Kelso, created...)

    1958
  • How to Think About God: A Guide for the 20th-Century Pagan

    (Dr. Adler, in his discussion, extends and modernizes the ...)

    1980
  • The Angels and Us

    (Dr. Adler, the bestselling author of "Ten Philosophical M...)

    1982
  • Dialectic 1927
  • Crime Law and Social Science 1933
  • Art And Prudence - A Study In Practical Philosophy 1937
  • What Man Has Made of Mana Study of the Consequences of Platonism and Positivism in Psychology 1937
  • St. Thomas and The Gentiles 1938
  • Ten Philosophical Mistakes 1985
  • A Dialectic Of Morals: Towards The Foundations Of Political Philosophy 1941
  • How to Think About War and Peace 1944
  • Revolution in Education 1944
  • Idea Of Freedom, Volume II, Dialectical Examination Of The Controversies About Freedom 1958
  • The New Capitalists: A Proposal to Free Economic Growth from the Slavery of Savings 1961
  • Great Ideas from the Great Books 1961
  • The Conditions of Philosophy 1965
  • The Common Sense of Politics 1971
  • The American Testament 1975
  • Some Questions About Language: A Theory of Human Discourse and Its Objects 1977
  • Philosopher at Large: An Intellectual Autobiography 1977
  • We Hold These Truths: Understanding the Ideas and Ideals of the Constitution 1987

Religion

Although Adler was not a Catholic, he can be considered a Catholic philosopher on account of his lifelong participation in the Neo-Thomist movement.

Views

Central to Adler's philosophy was a rebuttal of the prevailing notions of educational philosopher John Dewey, who had taught him at Columbia. Opposed to Dewey's focus on experimentation and the free selection of values that are applicable to the times, Adler published articles and books charging that such a belief system produced shoddy, poorly prepared thinkers and precipitated social unrest.

As an admirer of Plato, Aristotle, and St. Thomas Aquinas, Adler believed there is no changing truth and values and viewed it as the job of a good education to impart those things. 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.

Quotations: "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."

Membership

Mortimer Adler was a long member of the American Catholic Philosophical Association.

Interests

• Philosophers & Thinkers

  Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, John Stuart Mill

Connections

Mortimer Adler was married twice. In 1927, he married Helen Boynton but they divorced in 1960. The marriage produced two children, Mark and Michael. His second wife was Carolyn Pring. They married in 1963. The marriage was blessed with two children. In 1998 Carolyn died.

Father:

Ignatz Adler

Mother:

Clarissa (Manheim) Adler

late-wife:

Caroline Sage Pring

ex-wife:

Helen Boynton

colleague:

Scott Buchanan

1895 – 1968

Scott Buchanan was an American philosopher, educator, and foundation consultant. He is best known as the founder of the Great Books program at St. John's College, at Annapolis, Maryland.

Friend:

Deal Wyatt Hudson

Born on November 20, 1949

Deal Wyatt Hudson is an American conservative political activist. Hudson is a former publisher and editor of Crisis Magazine and InsideCatholic.com from 1996-2011.

Friend:

Roland Pierre DuMaine

August 2, 1931 – June 13, 2019

Roland Pierre DuMaine was an American Roman Catholic bishop. He was the Bishop of San José in California for the first 18 years of the diocese.

Friend:

Ralph Matthew McInerny

February 24, 1929 – January 29, 2010

Ralph Matthew McInerny was an American author and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. McInerny's most popular mystery book series featured Father Dowling.

References

• Contemporary Authors New Revision Series: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction, General Non-Fiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures, Television, and Other Fields In response to the escalating need for up-to-date information on writers, Contemporary Authors New Revision Series brings researchers the most recent data on the worlds most-popular authors.
  2010