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The Maestro, as I always remember him . . .

Max Weismann has a way of delivering a clear picture of most things and events, it only necessary that sufficient pass until historians can do their work without the obstacles of contemporary prejudice. Mortimer Adler will surely be one of those who, while widely criticized during his on earth by pseudo-philosophers (i.e., PhD’s having narrow philosophical perspectives), will be shown in time to have been one of the most brilliant philosophical scholars since the beginnings of western thought, right up there alongside the all time greats. Who else has or could have written Ten Philosophical Mistakes—one of his 58 books—which he wrote without pretense. This book could only have been undertaken by someone in possession of a depth and insight beyond the ability and scholarship of most mortals during one lifetime. In it he carefully documented and reasoned how small deviations in by some of the greats he admired most, led them to stray from sound conclusions, conclusions routinely accepted in error by less rigorous, modern philosophical academics. Indeed, Adler was one of the 20th Century’s truly unique human intellects, as mankind will eventually discover. The world is a better place for his having lived. So never despair, Max, and keep the torch aglow.

Roland Caldwell, Venice, FL

The hundredth anniversary of Mortimer Adler’s birth is a good opportunity to take stock of Mortimer Adler’s accomplishments, and what he is and will be remembered for.

First, he will—and ought to—be remembered as an entrepreneur of the and the great , standing for the that is everybody’s business. As much as anyone in the 20th century, he got those who weren’t professional philosophers or scholars of the humanities to read and discuss the great books and to ponder the great questions. His most influential and enduring writing, from How to Read a Book to his essays in the Syntopicon, come under this heading. His influence persists today in many ways, among many who would not recognize his name.

Second, he will be remembered as a philosopher of . His advocacy of the great books and the liberal , The Paideia Proposal, and his writings collected in Reforming Education, will and should continue to be an influence.

Third, he will be remembered as a dialectician. In particular, the studies he and his staff at the Institute for Philosophical Research undertook (especially The Idea of Freedom, his greatest work) will continue to be read by those who seek to describe the controversies about the great ideas and to seek the about them.

While the broad philosophy Adler worked out—from ethics to politics to anthropology to to philosophy of philosophy—is as worthy of consideration as any philosophy produced in the last century, my guess is that it will not loom large in the future. Adler deliberately set himself up in opposition to the great movements in 20th century philosophy, and philosophers returned the favor by pretty much ignoring him. I would expect further of philosophy to perpetuate this. The one exception is in the histories of Catholic philosophy—ironic because, until a couple of years before the end, Adler was not Catholic and mostly not even Christian, but his philosophy attracted substantial attention among Thomist Catholics who followed Maritain and Gilson. I would expect further histories to perpetuate this as well.

Finally, as I wrote on the occasion of Adler’s a year and a half ago: while for many I don’t consider myself an Adlerian, he influenced my thinking so profoundly that I can’t imagine how I would look at philosophical issues had he not been around. To whatever extent he is remembered and influential in the future, it will be due in large part to the efforts of Max Weismann and the Center for the Study of the Great Ideas. Thanks for that.

Dr. Jay Gold

Max:

I owe a profound and incalculable debt of gratitude to Dr. Adler and his colleague Max Weismann. I discovered Dr. Adler’s writings in the early 1990s and they profoundly changed my life. I’d taken a 4 year History of Idea program at University of Toronto and never had been able to integrate all the material I studied. Dr. Adler gave me an intelligent and intelligible moral framework to integrate all my learning and . Without him, I would not be the complete person I am today. May bless him as he has blessed me!

Robert Sutherland, Thunder Bay, Ontario

In my opinion, precisely speaking, Mortimer J. Adler was one of a handful of philosophers who existed during the twentieth century, at least among the well-known names. History should justly include him among the ranks with Etienne Gilson, Jacques Maritain, Joseph Owens, Henri Bergson, and Charles Sanders Peirce as a thinker who attempted to revive and pass on to posterity legitimate philosophizing in an intellectual world dominated by skeptics and sophists. We owe him much.

Peter A. Redpath, Philosophy Department, St. John's University

Max:

I would like to contribute something, but lack the words to convey the importance of Dr. Adler’s impact on the way I think. Anything I could say or write would fall short of adequately expressing the sentiments of my heart.

Steve Lloyd

What to say by way of tribute to Mortimer J. Adler, who contributed so mightily to American intellectual life in the 20th century and whose legacy still exerts its irresistible force on young (and not so young) hungering for truth and ? Words fail, of course, adequately to define the difference of Adler and the difference it made. But a few things must be said, however far from they do to their subject.

Mortimer Adler managed to combine rigorous thinking about the great ideas, with penetrating and illuminating insights into the great books. He also developed (if you’ll pardon the expression) a certain Madison-Avenue style ability to reach the common man with what Adler insisted on calling the philosophy of common sense. In this way, he introduced millions of people to the great tradition of Western philosophy. Truly, he showed the masses that Aristotle is for everybody and philosophy is everybody’s business--much to the chagrin (and jealousy) of the gatekeepers of the academic philosophical establishment.

If Adler was right, it would be pointless for me to attempt a strictly philosophical proof that his immaterial intellect necessarily continues to know and understand after death, and that his spiritual will one day be united with a glorified, spiritualized body in the Resurrection. These things I truly believe, as eventually did the pagan-turned- believer Mortimer Adler. Yet such things are, he maintained, articles of faith and therefore beyond unaided ’s power to demonstrate. Something certainly not beyond unaided reason’s power to prove, though, is the persistence of Adler’s contribution to philosophy and to the ongoing enterprise of getting closer and closer to the ever- evasive (in this life, at least) “whole truth and nothing but the truth.” In that sense, we know-- rather than believe--that Mortimer J. Adler .

Mark Brumley, President of the Board of Directors, Ignatius Press Vice President of Campion College of San Francisco

It is a precarious enterprise to compress Dr. Adler's contributions to the human race in a succinct flow of a few words. Only a fool would try. I proceed.

I think his greatest overall contribution was his ability to convince and instill, to those who chose to listen, a of learning and the importance of a liberal education to all people everywhere. His propinquity of death makes one feel that he is reading these tributes. If so, “Hello Mortimer—read them all at least several a day.”

G. Rodney Hart, M.D.

Dear Max,

I have prepared a few brief thoughts on the immense gratitude I owe Dr. Adler on the hundredth anniversary of his birth.

The gratitude I owe him is personal even though I never met him, because his lifelong urgings for us to take ourselves seriously and so make a determined effort to think better and to live better helped me to do just that. From reading his works, I realized the importance of learning to read and write, speak and listen, measure and calculate, and most important of all, to think and reason, better. And his catalogue of the great ideas and the publication of the Great Books guided me toward the subjects most worth thinking about.

His later works were inspirational for me because they are models of insight and clarity in their discussion of intellect, desire, truth, , learning, justice, freedom, , and other great ideas. Although I never met Dr. Adler, I have seen and heard him in so many of the videos that the Center has made available that now, no what I read by him, I can hear his voice speaking the words I am reading.

Dr. Adler was the greatest thinker of the 20th century—and perhaps of all time. The range and insight of his thought and the clarity of his expression certainly surpass those of anyone else I have read.

But Dr. Adler was more than a thinker: he was a doer, tirelessly working to get his ideas known so that others could use them to live better, happier, lives. And even more than that, he was a force for good, working constantly to get his ideas put into practice in ways that would make human society a better place for individuals to live, prosper, and pursue happiness.

All of this—the insight of his thought, the clarity of his expression, and his determination to improve society—made him one of the very greatest men of the 20th century.

You and the others working at the Center for the Study of the Great Ideas have my highest admiration and respect for your constant effort to make Dr. Adler’s thoughts and ideas known and put into practice.

James A. Warren, US Embassy, Lao People's Democratic Republic

To express how much the writings of Dr. M. J. Adler has meant to me and how much his writings have changed my life (for the better) is a difficult task. I intended for 14 years to fly to Chicago and thank him in person. But for one reason or another I put it off. A fact that I now regret.

I am fortunate to have a large study. One wall is lined with book shelves. One shelf has all my Adler books. The middle shelf has the entire GBWW and on top of them I have Six Great Ideas, Intellect, and The Difference of Man and the Difference it Makes. They are placed so the covers are always visible.

I will close with a paraphrase of the last paragraph of a treatise from a book on Tai Chi Ch’uan

Dr Adler’s books are filled with words that imply truth and nothing but truth, if humanity does not study and consider them carefully, humanity could be in very serious trouble.

Thank you Dr. Adler.

A. B. MacFarlane

Past tributes have addressed so much of Dr. Adler’s contributions to educational reform that it hardly seems necessary here, however it might add something to note his continuing and growing, posthumous influence in the homeschooling movement.

The Great Books movement, of which he was well known as the foremost proponent for nearly a century, has taken hold and is being used in a total of four different high school level homeschool programs, each with rapidly increasing student bodies. Likewise his idea of using lesser classics (such as he collected in the Gateway to the Great Books set) to prepare students in a gradual ascent for study of the greatest works of Western civilization, is also being done in even more programs.

Dr. Adler’s view of liberal education being preparatory to a lifetime of learning is opening doors for students who had previously imagined they had to learn all there is to know by the end of college—a belief inevitably shattered to the discouragement of many a graduate. Instead, the joy of learning is being promoted as a sure source of and growth for a lifetime. This is an important change in attitude and understanding. Similarly, more and more high schools are offering “college level” courses, rapidly approaching Dr. Adler’s idea of awarding the B.A. degree upon the completion of high school—at around age 16- 18—upon completion of suitable courses. Dr. Adler was roundly criticized for this novel idea when he proposed it nearly 30 years ago. Use of the “Socratic” mode popularized by Dr. Adler through the Paideia Proposal is gaining popularity in homeschooling, both in local groups and online. These are all significant gains.

I could continue the list, but in brief what we are seeing is that, absent the opposition of the educational establishment in public schools, Dr. Adler’s insights and proposals for the reform of education are taking root in the independent homeschooling movement. This trend will inevitably continue to grow, as the homeschooling movement grows—now 2,000,000 students strong—and continue into colleges and thereafter. So Dr. Adler’s influence for educational reform continues as his legacy grows. For that, more and more homeschooling students, and parents, can be added to the huge number of people who owe Dr. Adler tribute for his life and work.

Patrick S.J. Carmack The Great Books Academy

Dr. Adler we miss you very much on this, the 100th anniversary of your birth. We wish we could hear just one more lecture, one more conversation—one more seminar from you. But since we can’t, we will be content to enjoy and learn from what we have—your written words.

John Boleyn

Dear Max

The significance of Mortimer Adler's work is yet to be determined. I doubt that any of us will know it fully in our own lifetime. But on the Feast Day of the Holy Innocents in the Year 2002, marking the centenary of his birth, we can give thanks for his remarkable legacy to us and to future generations.

This month I lent my Paideia tapes of Mr. Adler's Year 11 North Carolina teaching to a brilliant young university lecturer in so that she could improve her own seminar work, and in a few days I plan to lend the Syntopicon to a Year 12 student and his so that they can browse through it during our summer school holiday season. Naturally I hope that, in tandem with other friends of mine in Australia, they will be inspired by these introductions to read more.

Earlier in the year, a prominent Aussie educator who met Mr. Adler at my house the last time he was in Sydney commented to me about the memorableness of the occasion—and I know that its ripple effects were felt in the independent school that this man then headed. How many similar stories are there? I couldn't even hazard a guess.

Susan Reibel Moore, Sydney, Australia In discussions on the current failure in education it is rewarding to consult the writings of Dr. Adler and call upon his basic input and clarity in that field.

Karl Krudop

Thank you, Dr. Adler

As much as I admired Dr. Adler and marveled at his thinking, I am not a philosopher and my opinion wouldn't (and shouldn't) carry any weight in that regard.

I must, however, take this opportunity to express my gratitude to Dr. Adler for contributing to the most important thing in my life, my Catholic faith.

Despite a religious childhood, as an adult I let myself drift into agnosticism which lasted for many years. During that time I read “How to Think About God” in which Dr. Adler himself denied having any personal religious faith. Sometime later the generosity of some very good people disturbed my complacency, but I couldn't get past the perennial question “If there were a God, why wouldn't He show Himself?” When I read “Intellect” the obvious answer was right there; knowing a complete and perfect good (i.e. God) is incompatible with free will.

Things began to fall into place: God would not bother creating robots; our intellect is limited (and free will protected) by having to work through a material brain; when it is released at death we will see God's perfection (and our imperfection); Christ was no scapegoat, rather He offered Himself as evidence of God's love, so that we could forgive ourselves and accept eternal life. As Pogo said “We have met the enemy and he is us!” I will be eternally grateful to Dr. Adler for starting me on the right path (which he apparently followed also), and I hope and pray I can one day tell him so in person.

Harry McDonald

Mortimer Adler left school at 15 to work as a secretary to the editor of the New York Sun. Two years later he read Plato, and resolved to become a philosopher.

That kind of thing doesn't happen very often; on the other hand phenomena like Mortimer Adler don't happen very often. There was nothing in the world he did not think about and seek to memorialize in his own writings. He teamed up with Robert Hutchins, who was president of the University of Chicago, and took on the creation of a library of great books. For the very idea of this there were those who scorned him, but on trivial grounds, when you come down to it. There was a seminar in Washington in 1990 at which a dozen resplendent scholars were assembled to give their opinions of a second version of the Great Books. Several had been added (Twain, Balzac), one or two dropped (Fielding, Sterne). Gertrude Himmelfarb wanted to know why there wasn't a book in the collection by Burke. Dr. Adler answered that Burke hadn't ever written a book. That sounded tricky, but it wasn't, really: A formalistic point can have formal standing, and Adler was insisting that the Great Books had to be books in the first instance, and even a collection of Burke's speeches didn't make a book out of them. And the sniping went on. What Adler did, with his staff and his coadjutor Hutchins, was to reprint 443 Great Books in a 54- volume set. But hold on a minute, that wasn't all. He contributed what he called a Syntopicon. This took a 100-odd “great ideas” and set out to identify the treatment of them in the Great Books.

The ideas (alphabetically, was the first, world the last) were treated, or not treated, by Homer, the first Great Book, on over to Freud, the latest Great Book. The Syntopicon introduced each idea with a 10,000-word essay, followed by an outline of topics. Under : “1. Inferior deities or demi- in polytheistic ,” ending with, “8. Criticism and satire with respect to the belief in angels and demons;” followed by 17 pages giving the volume, and where in it the subtopics appeared.

A -numbing enterprise insufficiently celebrated for its scope, ambition, and utility. But Adler suffered from the constancy of his belief that philosophy oughtn't to appeal only to the specialists. Adler wanted more people, at age 17, to experience Plato, and he didn't trivialize Plato but tried in a scholarly way with unscholarly enthusiasm to sing out the joys of following Plato around.

WFB: You begin by reaching a very interesting conclusion [in your book, How to Think About God: A Guide for the 20th Century Pagan], which I would like to hear you dilate on, namely that it doesn't really matter whether there was a prime mover [i.e., a force that created the first earthly thing].

Adler: That, it seems to me, is terribly important. That is, if one begins by assuming that the world started at some time—there was a time when there was nothing and the world began — WFB: You're making a temporal point?

Adler: That's right. A temporal point. Then one has begged the question because one has assumed God's existence.

WFB: Why?

Adler: Because if anything comes into existence out of nothing, it needs a cause, and that cause has to be the — my word for that cause — is exnihilation [The creation of something from nothing.]

WFB: Why can't that cause be chemical?

Adler: Because all of our natural , which I think is reliable, teaches us that the causes in do nothing but cause change. There is no natural cause that is the cause of existence or being.

Adler would go on in that way, talking as off- handedly as if conversing with a neighbor in a bus seat, passing the time of day. He did a new edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. He was the dogged philosopher if ever there was one, an exuberant practitioner of philosophy, ambitious proponent of the extraordinary proposition that human need to think even as they need bread and water, and that philosophy is the great granary of mankind.

William F. Buckley, Jr.

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