Mortimer Adler
in full Mortimer Jerome Adler
born Dec. 28, 1902, New York, New York, U.S.
died June 28, 2001, San Mateo, California
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 Adler 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 became a
proponent of 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.
(1958–61). 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 Encyclopædia Britannica,
Inc., the 10-volume Gateway to the Great Books (1963) and
from 1961 an annual, The Great Ideas Today. He also headed
the editorial staff of Britannica’s 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 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 Encyclopædia Britannica, published in 1974. He
was chairman of the Encyclopædia 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 are How to Speak, How to
Listen: A Guide to Pleasurable and Profitable Conversation
(1983) and Ten Philosophical Mistakes (1985).
