Center for the Study of The Great Ideas

Socratic Backfire?

2011-11-07T06:00:00.009-06:00

Kaustuv Basu reports at Inside Higher Ed on Professor Steven Maranville’s lawsuit for being denied tenure at Utah Valley University, allegedly because students' evaluations complained that he used the Socratic method. (via Dad29)

Philosophical counselors rely on eternal wisdom of great thinkers

2011-09-12T06:00:00.002-05:00

Emily Wax reports in The Washington Post (via Arts & Letters Daily)

Cloth Bound

2011-08-16T06:00:00.001-05:00

How the Great Books seminar turned a radical poet into a philosopher and priest, by Benjamin Recchie, in The Core: College Magazine of the University of Chicago

From today's NYTIMES: Does Philosophy Matter?

2011-08-02T10:06:00.004-05:00

From today's NYTIMES: Does Philosophy Matter?

Does Philosophy Matter?
By STANLEY FISH
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/does-philosophy-matter/?ref=opinion

Condemnation Without Absolutes
By Stanley Fish
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/15/opinion/condemnation-without-absolutes.html

The Maze of Moral Relativism
By PAUL BOGHOSSIAN
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/the-maze-of-moral-relativism/

My observations . . .

2011-07-16T11:51:00.002-05:00

We live in a dysfunctional, anti-intellectual society, wrought with moral relativism that is tearing apart our families, our communities and even our country. From my observations, it seems that we are in lockstep with the cultural trajectory of ancient Rome.

Former Senior Policy Advisor in the U.S. Department of Education, Charlotte Iserbyt on the Deliberate Dumbing Down of the World

2011-02-08T11:19:00.000-06:00

A free pdf:

http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/MomsPDFs/DDDoA.sml.pdf

Brazil Senate passes amendment to make pursuit of happiness a fundamental right

2010-11-12T12:49:00.000-06:00

Thursday, November 11, 2010; 7:34 PM

SAO PAULO, BRAZIL - A Senate committee in Brazil approved a "happiness amendment" that, if passed by Congress, would make the pursuit of happiness a fundamental right guaranteed by the country's constitution.

The amendment was the project of a nonprofit organization, the Movimento Mais Feliz (Happier Movement). It was sponsored by Cristovam Buarque, a senator and former presidential candidate who campaigned for greater investment in education as an essential element in promoting growth and development.

Yet Buarque still casts doubt on the effectiveness of guaranteeing happiness through legislation.

"I would rather vote for political reform or a big movement against corruption," he said, "but this amendment came on to the agenda, and happily it was approved. I will try to make other changes to the constitution to bring about other important advances."

Cristiano Paixao, a professor of law at the University of Brasilia, described the amendment as "a useless and worrying change to the constitution."

"It gives the population the idea that happiness can be brought about by an act of the national Congress," he said.

The search for happiness is not new, either in the Americas or elsewhere. "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is one of the most famous phrases in the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

The Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan considers its "gross national happiness" index - which attempts to measure quality of life or social progress in more holistic and psychological terms than gross domestic product - integral to national policy.

The Brazilian amendment says it aims to promote happiness through access to such services by acting on five fronts: increasing popular awareness, mobilizing social groups, stimulating participation in social projects, training "multipliers" and motivating citizens to contribute to its projects.

"The state has the obligation to create conditions to provide education, health, security, etc.," the amendment says. "The idea is to force the state to assume the responsibility of meeting these needs so that citizens can seek happiness."

Moral Philosophy and Religion are no longer needed!

2010-11-05T09:52:00.004-05:00

So it has come down to this:

In this new book he argues from a philosophical and a neurobiological perspective that science can and should determine morality.

Mortimer Adler's Institute for Philosophical Research

2010-11-01T21:40:00.002-05:00

Mortimer Adler's Institute for Philosophical Research

2090 Jackson Street San Francisco, CA

The Whittier Mansion was one of the first California residences built of stone on a steel framework, a construction technique which served it well during the 1906 Earthquake. It was designed by Edward R. Swain and built in 1896 at a cost of $152,000 for William Frank Whittier, who had made his fortune in mercantilism and shipping.

In contrast to the forbidding Richardsonian Romanesque exterior, the interior is opulent. Each of the four levels is 3,500 square feet with an undeveloped fifth level, or attic, for the handyman. Most of the mansion's thirty rooms have carved paneling of mahogany, golden oak, primavera, and tamano with hardware of hand-wrought German silver.

Mr. Whittier lived in the house until his death in 1917 at the age of 85. His heirs retained possession of the property until 1938 when they sold it to the government of the Third Reich. For the next several years, until the United States entered World War II, the Whittier Mansion was the German Consulate headed by Fritz Wiedemann who successfully cultivated the San Francisco Nobs with lavish parties and receptions.

When the United States declared war on Germany, Herr Wiedemann fled. For the next decade, the house was under the jurisdiction of the Alien Property Custodian.

In 1952, Mortimer Adler's Institute for Philosophical Research took up residence, but only for a few years until 1956 when the California Historical Society moved in and remained until 1993.

Today the California Historical Society is located in less flamboyant quarters on Mission Street, and the Whittier Mansion is once again a private residence.

What's your Great Books story?

2010-10-31T07:24:00.000-05:00

At the Britannica Blog, Joseph Lane recalled My Britannica Great Books Set: How I Got It, What It Means to Me.

A Question about Capital Punishment . . .

2010-10-17T10:29:00.002-05:00

Why do you think this country has not abolished capital punishment, while most other (including our two neighbors, Canada and Mexico) so-called civilized nations have?

Education, Education Reforming Education . . .

2010-10-01T09:04:00.002-05:00

That’s what we’re hearing a lot of these days in the media. As I’ve said elsewhere on this blog, when the word education is used these days, vocation is meant. Also, I’ve noted that curriculum is never mentioned, only teachers and more money. I submit that our parents and even grandparents received better schooling than we did--even with one teacher, a blackboard in a one room school. Just recently a new public school opened in Los Angeles, at the astounding cost of $578 million.

In my view, if schools did nothing but instill the desire to spend the rest of their lives learning and give them some of the tools for doing so, they would be doing their job.

Lastly in my view, the reason our schooling stinks, is primarily the fault of us as parents and citizens.

Here’s what my late colleague Mortimer Adler, has said on schooling:

For more than 70 years, a controlling insight in my educational philosophy has been the recognition that no one has ever been--no one can ever be--educated in school or college.

That would be the case if our schools and colleges were at their very best, which they certainly are not, and even if the students were among the best and the brightest as well as conscientious in the application of their powers.

The reason is simply that youth itself--immaturity--is an insuperable obstacle to becoming educated. Schooling is for the young. Education comes later, usually much later. The very best thing for our schools to do is to prepare the young for continued learning by giving them the skills of learning and the love of it. Our schools and colleges are not doing that now, but that is what they should be doing.

To speak of an educated young person, rich in understanding of basic ideas and issues, is as much a contradiction in terms as to speak of a round square. The young can be prepared for education in the years to come, but only mature men and women can become educated, beginning the process in their 40's and 50's and reaching some modicum of genuine insight, sound judgment and practical wisdom after the age 60.

This is what no high school or college graduate knows or can understand. As a matter of fact, most of their teachers do not seem to know it. In their obsession with covering ground and in the way in which they test or examine their students, they certainly do not act as if they understood that they were only preparing their students for education in later life rather than trying to complete it within the precincts of their institutions.

There is, of course, some truth in the ancient insight that awareness of ignorance is the beginning of wisdom. But, remember, it is just the beginning. From there on one has to do something about it.

And to do it intelligently one must know something of its causes and cures--why adults need education and what, if anything, they can do about it. When young adults realize how little they learned in school, they usually assume there was something wrong with the school they attended or with the way they spent their time there. But the fact is that the best possible graduate of the best possible school needs to continue learning every bit as much as the worst.

How should they go about doing this? In a recent book, I tried to answer the question, "How should persons proceed who wish to conduct for themselves the continuation of learning after all schooling has been finished?" The brief and simple answer is: Read and discuss.

Never just read, for reading without discussion with others who have read the same book is not nearly as profitable. And as reading without discussion can fail to yield the full measure of understanding that should be sought, so discussion without the substance that good and great books afford is likely to degenerate into little more than an exchange of opinions or personal prejudices.

Those who take this prescription seriously would, of course, be better off if their schooling had given them the intellectual discipline and skill they need to carry it out, and if it had also introduced them to the world of learning with some appreciation of its basic ideas and issues. But even the individual who is fortunate to leave school or college with a mind so disciplined, and with an abiding love of learning, would still have a long road to travel before he or she became an educated person.

If our schools and colleges were doing their part and adults were doing theirs, all would be well. However, our schools and colleges are not doing their part because they are trying to do everything else. And adults are not doing their part because most are under the illusion that they had completed their education when they finished their schooling.

Only the person who realizes that mature life is the time to get the education that no young person can ever acquire is at last on the high road to learning. The road is steep and rocky, but it is the high road, open to anyone who has the skill in learning and the ultimate goal of all learning in view--understanding the nature of things and man's place in the total scheme.

An educated person is one who through the travail of his own life has assimilated the ideas that make him representative of his culture, that make him a bearer of its traditions and enable him to contribute to its improvement.

Max Weismann asks three questions . . .

2010-08-29T09:13:00.000-05:00

There is a story told by Glaucon in the second book of Plato's Republic, where Glaucon and his brother Adeimantus are trying to get Socrates to explain to them why being just to others is an aid to leading a happy life. They tell him the story of Gyges--Gyges was a servant in the household of the King of Lydia, and Gyges fell in love with the Queen and the Queen with him. The Queen gave Gyges a ring which if he turned it around, made him invisible. Gyges used the ring, made himself invisible, murdered the King and married the Queen, and became the ruler of Lydia.

Suppose there's only one ring of Gyges in the world and you're walking up Fifth Avenue on a bright sunny morning, and you pass Tiffany's at 5th Avenue and 57th Street and in one of those little windows, you see a little black case with a nice gold ring and a sign under it says, “Ring of Gyges, moderately priced, inquire within.”

One, would you go in and inquire about the price of the ring? Two, if it was within your power to buy it, would you buy it? Three, if you bought it, how would you use it? Remembering that the ring of Gyges would enable you to do anything you wanted and have no fear of ever being caught or punished.

Adler on immigration reform

2010-08-06T12:00:00.003-05:00

Archbishop Jerome E. Listecki begins his column in the latest issue of the Milwaukee Catholic Herald,

I remember the prophetic words of the great Dr. Mortimer Adler, well-known philosopher and educator, who remarked in a discussion symposium in the 1980s that unless we get our immigration policy under control, we will risk dividing the country and even severely damaging our economy and cultural way of life. He was not taking sides; he was merely stating his observation.

Does the end ever justify the means?

2010-08-02T16:52:00.001-05:00

What in your view . . .

2010-07-10T07:38:00.000-05:00

Is the single greatest impediment, towards mankind and individuals from achieving a really good life?

Vining on Adler

2010-07-09T06:00:00.002-05:00

An unregistered student of Dr. Adler's, and later a Syntopicon indexer, Dorothy Vining at Musings at 87 reflected on his life, work, and religious conversion.

Old School pedagogically

2010-07-08T06:00:00.000-05:00

Philosophy professor, blogger, and self-described "fan of Mortimer Adler’s Paideia Proposal" Mark Peterson writes on education in a recent column in the West Bend [Wisconsin] Daily News.

Learning and teaching are inevitable – if we try

2010-07-06T06:00:00.001-05:00

Teacher and blogger Frank Bird grapples with, among other things, Mortimer Adler and the Paideia Principles.

The goal of philosophy

2010-06-21T06:00:00.006-05:00

Postulates Of the Pitch, by John Helpern, The Wall Street Journal, review of 'Soccer and Philosophy', edited by Ted Richards (via Arts & Letters Daily)

On Rereading 'The Apology'

2010-06-14T06:00:00.001-05:00

Last Things column by James V. Schall, S.J., at First Principles

Not So Natural Selection

2010-06-07T06:00:00.002-05:00

Richard C. Lewontin reviews 'What Darwin Got Wrong', by Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, in The New York Review of Books

The Debt of Socrates

2010-06-01T06:00:00.001-05:00

Christopher Buckley in The New York Times

What is equality?

2010-05-23T16:17:00.002-05:00

I recently had a conversation with a friend in which he criticized capitalism because it was unequal. I responded with Jesus parable of the laborers in the vinyard in which people were hired at various times in the day to harvest grapes and then they were all paid the same at the end of the day. Were they treated equally? Yes and no. They had equality of outcome, but they were certainly not treated equally for labor performed, either by the hour or the quantity of crop harvested.
Political or economic equality can be equality of outcome, opportunity, laws, lack of legal barriers etc. The notion of equality does not tell us on what basis the equality is to be drawn. What basis we decide to administer equality can often have great impacts on other factors. Socialism, for example, tends to make everyone equally poor, except for the oligarchy that administers the socialistic system. Capitalism treats everyone equally in the sense of equal before the law, but it results in great inequality of wealth. Which is best? The notion of equality itself does not tell us.

Lessons not learned . . .

2010-05-21T05:22:00.002-05:00

NEW YORK - The Dalai Lama on Thursday declared that he is still a Marxist in spirit who condemns capitalism as a system whose main goal is "how to make profit." Marxism has "the only economy system expressing concern of equal distribution (of wealth); that is moral ethics," the Tibetan Buddhist leader told a news conference at the start of a four-day New York visit.

WOW! At last, we know everything!!

2010-05-03T08:37:00.002-05:00

THE STORY OF EVERYTHING

That is the subtitle of the new television series, "Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking.”

Here is the show’s promo; In two mind-blowing hours, Hawking reveals the wonders of the cosmos to a new generation. Delve into the mind of the world's most famous living scientist and reveal the splendor and majesty of the universe as never seen before. See how the universe began, how it creates stars, black holes and life--and how everything will end.

Last evening I watched the two hours of theoretical musings about hypotheses of the relatively little known universe and its mechanics, masquerading as unabashed reality.

Science Fiction at its best!

“I challenge every adult to step up and join the conversation,''

2009-10-12T12:12:00.002-05:00

Secretary Arne Duncan
United States Secretary of Education
LBJ Education Building, Room 7W311
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20202

Dear Secretary Duncan:

I reside in Chicago and I am a well known moral philosopher in the field education and I am the protégé of Dr. Mortimer J. Adler.
.
U.S. Attorney General Holder: "We want to listen to educators, parents, and experts in the field, and find out the best ideas for addressing this urgent problem. We're not interested in just scratching the surface or focusing on generalities, and as we delve into this problem we're not going to protect any sacred cows. We're here to learn firsthand what's happening on our streets so we can devise effective solutions."

As long as you treat violence, drug/alcohol addiction, vicious behavior, etceteras as the problem, instead as a symptom of a moral problem, you are not really addressing the crisis.

Whenever there is something bad or wrong in our communities, cities, states, it is because we (citizens & parents) let it get that way.

Most Americans have lost their moral compass and we are in lock-step with the cultural trajectory of ancient Rome.

When the word education is used today, vocation is meant. Only a true liberal education can save us and that is not even a guarantee.

Our schools are not turning out young people prepared for the high office and the duties of citizenship in a democratic republic. Our political institutions cannot thrive, they may not even survive, if we do not produce a greater number of thinking citizens, from whom some statesmen of the type we had in the eighteenth century might eventually emerge. We are, indeed, a nation at risk, and nothing but radical reform of our schools can save us from impending disaster. Whatever the price we must pay in money and effort to do this, the price we will pay for not doing it will be much greater.

Cordially,

Max Weismann,
President and co-founder with Mortimer Adler, Center for the Study of The Great Ideas and Chairman, The Great Books Academy (3,000+ students)

Cc: Eric Holder
Mayor Richard M. Daley

Confessions of a Middlebrow Professor

2009-10-08T07:39:00.003-05:00

W.A. Pannapacker in The Chronicle Review, October 5, 2009 (via Arts & Letters Daily)

We are increasingly ignorant, but we do not know enough to be properly ashamed. If we are determined to get on in life, we believe it will not have anything to do with our ability to reference Machiavelli or Adam Smith at the office Christmas party. The rejection of the Great Books signifies a declining belief in the value of anything without a direct practical application, combined with the triumph of a passive entertainment—as anyone who teaches college students can probably affirm

--Terrence Berres

All Twitter no Tolkien

2009-08-25T08:02:00.003-05:00

Diane Ravitch writes that Americans are no longer reading literature and are instead focused on trivial communication such as twitter. She asks some questions I would like to answer:

1) On a recent recommended reading list, why wasn't anything by Mark Twain listed?

Simple. One word. Racism. It just isn't popular any longer and very few people are willing to tolerate the racism in Twain's works.

2) Why "Lord of the Rings"? Must have been due to the movie.

Fantasy literature has always had a hard time getting any respect. Literature snobs won't read it and they assume that, along with science fiction, it is merely escapist. This is certainly true of much of the genre as it is equally true of fiction in general. Lord of the Rings is not of that type, though it certainly has its adventure elements. Here are what I regard as the outstanding elements of the Ring trilogy:

Philosophical: It continues the thread begun in Plato's republic with the parable of the Ring of Gaiges and continued in Wagner's Ring Cycle. In both of those explorations of the lust to power, the cautionary elements were emphasized. Tolkien asks a different question: What would it cost to destroy the lust for power in us? Instead of using the ring of power to kill the king and marry the queen (Gaiges) or to bring the entire cosmos into ruin (Wagner), Tolkien's characters destroy the ring of power at tremendous cost to themselves.

Philological: Tolkien was a professor of medieval literature and created his fantasy world as a showcase for several of his invented languages.

Poetic: Many fans of escapist fantasy literature have trouble with LotR because the plot moves so slowly due to a lot of epic poetry and history building. LotR is a good introduction to epic poetry and inspired me to continue on reading the Iliad, Odessy, Aeneid, L'Morte d Arthur etc.

Theological: Tolkien creates a number of angelic or semi-angelic characters including the wizard Gandalf. He essentially asks the question: if an angel were to come to earth, what would he be like? How does compassion look in the real world?

Political: The legend of the Istari- wizards was that the gods sent them to oppose evil but without overt shows of power. This explores the idea of how we can attempt to change the world in a non-coercive fashion.

Value system: Tolkien creates his elven race (nothing like the traditional elves - these are more like angelic norsemen) to showcase another set of questions: What would a race of immortals value? He shows us a value system that centered on preserving beauty, seeking knowledge and keeping courage alive.

I think Tolkien deserves his place in the literary pantheon right next to Fitzgerald, Shakespeare, Twain and frankly, Asimov and Ellison. If you want literature that can change the way you think about the world, don't discount classic era science fiction and the best of the fantasy genre.

Otto A. Bird on The Two Cultures

2009-06-07T15:35:00.001-05:00

A surprising, if not startling, omission in the original formulation of the Snow-Leavis controversy over the two cultures was the lack of any reference to philosophy. Yet certainly the most fundamental of all the issues on which they were divided was a philosophical one, namely that regarding our best and most fundamental knowledge. --Otto A. Bird (1914-2009), Cultures in Conflict: An Essay in the Philosophy of the Humanities (1976) p. 125

(Terrence Berres)

Reviews of Beam's 'A Great Idea at the Time'

2009-04-22T06:00:00.003-05:00

Following up on Ambrose Mensch's post, A Great Idea at the Time, here are some of the reviews of Alex Beam's book, A Great Idea at the Time: The Rise, Fall, and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books.

A good read about the Great Books: Long before Oprah’s Book Club, there was..., by Mary Ruth Yoe, University of Chicago Magazine, November-December 2008

Heavy Reading, by James Campbell, The New York Times, November 14, 2008

The great dictators, by Matthew Price, The National, December 26, 2008

The Not-So-Great Books, by Daniel J. Flynn, First Principles, April 20, 2009

--Terrence Berres

We The People Stimulus Package

2009-03-24T09:37:00.001-05:00

Please read Mortimer Adler's statement below and watch the video.

EVERY CITIZEN, BOTH YOUNG, AND OLD!
by Mortimer J. Adler

By "every citizen" I mean not only the persons who are of an age
to exercise the franchise that enables them to participate
actively in political life. I include also those individuals who
will become our future citizens--the young, who, when they come
of age, will take on the responsibilities that the high office
of citizenship puts on their shoulders.

Most Americans, I fear, do not know or appreciate the fact that
citizenship is the primary political office under a
constitutional government. In a republic, the citizens are the
ruling class. They are the permanent and principal rulers. All
other offices that are set up by the constitution are secondary.

The first and indispensable qualification for holding political
office in any of the branches of government is to be a citizen.
Officeholders, moreover, whether elected or selected, are
citizens in office for a period of time, but all citizens are
citizens for life. Officeholders, from the President down, are
transient and instrumental rulers, unlike citizens in general
who are permanent and principal rulers.

The distinction between the permanent status of citizenship and
the transient or temporary character of government officials is
obvious. But it may not be so obvious why I refer to citizens as
the principal and call government officials instrumental rulers.
To understand this point it is necessary to realize that the
government of the United States is not in Washington, not in the
White House, not in the Capitol, which houses the Congress, nor
in any or all the public office buildings in the District of
Columbia.

The government of the United States resides in us--we, the
people. What resides in Washington is the administration of our
government. We recognize this, at least verbally, when we say,
after a Presidential election, that we have changed one
administration for another. That change leaves the government of
the United States unchanged, because its principal rulers are
also its permanent rulers, whereas its instrumental rulers, its
administrative officials--are transient and temporary.

Administrative officials, from the President down, are the
instruments by which we, the people, govern ourselves. They
serve us in our capacity as self-governing citizens of the
Republic. Lincoln never tired of saying that he conceived his
role to be that of a servant of the people who elected him. The
word "servant" in this connection does not carry any invidious
connotations of inferiority or menial status. Rather, it
signifies the performance of an important function, one carrying
great responsibility, a responsibility officials are called upon
to discharge while they are serving a term in public office.

I am sorry to say that most Americans think of themselves as the
subjects of government and regard the administrators in public
office as their rulers, instead of thinking of themselves as the
ruling class and public officials as their servants--the
instrumentalities for carrying out their will.

It is of the utmost importance to persuade the citizens of the
United States, both young and old, that they have misconceived
their role in the political life of this country. If they can be
persuaded to overcome this misconception, and come to view
themselves in the right light, they will understand that their
high responsibility as citizens carries with it the obligation
to understand the ideas and ideals of our constitutional
government.

Irresponsible Professors and Lonely Students

2009-03-23T08:10:00.001-05:00

Students, professors used to think, needed both guidance and those models of human greatness that could help them discover who they are and what to do. One irony, of course, was that when professors offered such guidance, students didn’t particularly need or want it. They often came to college with characters already formed, already habituated to the practice of moral virtue.

I'm not looking, honest!

2009-03-14T12:59:00.001-05:00

The Economist, March 7, 2009, reports from the Physics and Philosophy front on proof of Hardy's paradox.

...two groups of physicists, working independently, have demonstrated that nature is indeed real when unobserved. When no one is peeking, however, it acts in a really odd way.

--Terrence Berres

For Philosophers, Dead Is the New 90

2009-02-10T18:00:00.002-06:00

Carlin Romano in The Chronicle Review, February 13, 2009, recalls his days as a graduate student at Yale arranging for guest speakers.

...I learned that no matter how old a philosopher might be, if still alive — make that, no matter how many years over 100 — one shouldn't presume the good fellow gone.

Michael Levy learned that same lesson when his letter to the editor published in The Wall Street Journal, November 15, 1999, included "[Mortimer] Adler turns in his grave, I am sure...".

--Terrence Berres

(via Arts & Letters Daily)

But what is it for?

2009-01-24T16:47:00.002-06:00

The Economist, January 15, 2009 reports

When Roberto Mangabeira Unger swapped life as a philosopher and Harvard law professor for a place in Brazil’s government, he was given a small ministry from which to think about the future. [ ] His most recent plan is a blueprint for Brazil’s armed forces—an unusual task for a man whose previous life involved writing long, gnomic books about “the radicalisation of indeterminacy”.

--Terrence Berres

God: Philosophers weigh in

2009-01-09T06:00:00.001-06:00

Alex Byrne in Boston Review, January/February 2009

Arguments for the existence of God are usually divided into those whose premises may be known from the armchair, and those whose premises are the result of experiment and observation. The best-known armchair argument is called (following Kant’s unhelpful terminology) the “ontological argument,” while the design argument (also called the “teleological argument”) is the main representative of empirical arguments.

Adler On: God

Defined, Adler's Philosophical Dictionary (1995)

How to Think About God: A Guide for the 20th Century Pagan (1980, 1982, 1988, 1991) especially Chapter 9

--Terrence Berres

Messengers in the modern world

2009-01-02T18:00:00.000-06:00

The Economist, December 18, 2008, on the current status of one of The Great Ideas

The inexorable progress of the Enlightenment, though it has sent devils packing and committed nymphs and sprites to the realms of silliness, has never managed to stamp out angels. They survive, and are taken seriously.

--Terrence Berres

See Adler On: Angels

A philosopher's ideas about Sleep

2008-12-31T18:00:00.002-06:00

An interview with Bernard Shaw by Eimar O'Duffy

The Great Ideas: The University of Chicago and the Ideal of Liberal Education

2008-12-27T12:35:00.001-06:00

An Exhibition in the Department of Special Collections
The University of Chicago Library
May 1, 2002 - September 6, 2002

Organization of the Exhibition:
Introduction
1. General Honors at Columbia University
2. General Honors Comes to Chicago
3. From General Education to the College Curriculum
4. Creating a Great Curriculum
5. Spreading the Gospel
6. "Western" Culture
7. Spreading the Word
8. Back to Chicago

--Terrence Berres

RichardDawkins.net

2008-12-22T17:56:00.004-06:00

An excerpt from Intellect: Mind Over Matter is being discussed over at the Richard Dawkins message board.

-Mark Brawner

Syntopiconline

2008-12-09T17:05:00.001-06:00

Britannica blog is in the midst of a series of posts on the Great Books, Britannica's Great Books, and Alex Beam's book on both. To one post Michael Ross added a comment that includes this news.

The Great Books [of the Western World] too will soon be available in e-book format, searchable and linked to the Syntopicon. They will be available through most libraries, we hope, as well as from from EB, by the end of the year.

--Terrence Berres

Mortimer Adler in Life's image archive

2008-11-20T12:00:00.000-06:00

The Associated Press reported

Google Inc. has opened an online photo gallery that will feature millions of images from Life magazine's archives that have never been seen by the public before.

The new service, available at http://images.google.com/hosted/life, debuted Tuesday with about 2 million photos. Eventually, Google plans to scan all 10 million photos from Life's library so they can be viewed on any computer with an Internet connection.

...

The photos can be printed out for free as long as they aren't being used as part of an attempt to make money. Time Warner Inc., Life's parent company, hopes to make money by selling high-resolution, framed prints. The orders will be processed through Qoop.com.

(via Ryan Sayre Patrico at First Things)

--Terrence Berres

Mortimer J. Adler's MySpace page

2008-11-18T14:53:00.002-06:00

--Terrence Berres

The happiness of free people

2008-11-11T12:12:00.004-06:00

Click on the title link to go to the great ideas forum if you would like to discuss the implications of the November issue of Great Ideas Online http://www.thegreatideas.org/21w/TGIO496.pdf , where Dr. Adler explains the Aristotelian concept of eudaimonia or happiness.

As usual, I am grateful to Dr. Adler for stimulating essays, but find I totally disagree with his conclusions and most of his premises. In this case, I have argued that the Aristotelian definition of happiness is suitable only for a nation of rulers and subjects and propose an alternate definition, based on Stoic philosophy which I will argue is more suitable for a free people.

In Our Time With Melvyn Bragg: Aristotle's 'Politics'

2008-11-08T12:05:00.002-06:00

The history of ideas discussed by Melvyn Bragg and guests including Philosophy, science, literature, religion and the influence these ideas have on us today.

IOT: Aristotle's Politics
Thursday, November 06, 2008 3:30 AM
Melvyn Bragg discusses Aristotle's 'Politics' - a two and a half thousand year old collection of notes that have cast a very long shadow in political philosophy. He is joined by Angie Hobbs, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick; Paul Cartledge, AG Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at the University of Cambridge; and Annabel Brett, Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Cambridge.

-Mark Brawner

Against Intuition

2008-10-03T06:00:00.000-05:00

Christopher Shea in The Chronicle Review on the experimental-philosophy [x-phi] movement

A key question for experimental psychology is how it proposes to get from descriptive findings to philosophically sound conclusions about what we ought to do, or what ought to count as sound knowledge.

So far, it appears, the discipline tends to be better at tearing down such conclusions, or trying to.

(via Arts & Letters Daily)

--Terrence Berres

John Cleese - The Scientists - 2008

2008-09-14T13:53:00.001-05:00

--Terrence Berres

A Great Idea at the Time

2008-08-28T12:00:00.000-05:00

Via Apocaloopsis, the publisher's notice of A Great Idea at the Time: The Rise, Fall, and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books, by Alex Beam

The Great Books of Western Civilization [sic], fifty-four volumes chosen by intellectuals at the University of Chicago, began as an educational movement, and evolved into a successful marketing idea. Why did a million American households buy books by Hippocrates and Nicomachus from door-to-door salesmen? And how and why did the great books fall out of fashion?

Going Off the Rawls

2008-08-26T12:00:00.000-05:00

David Gordon in The American Conservative, July 28, 2008

This is key to [John] Rawls’s theory: whatever arises from a fair procedure is just.

But what is a fair procedure? Rawls again has an ingenious approach, his famous veil of ignorance. ...

Rawls’s veil of ignorance generalizes the point of this example. He asks that we imagine a situation, which he calls the original position, in which people do not know their own abilities, tastes, and conceptions of the good. Under this limit, individuals motivated by self-interest endeavor to arrive at principles of justice. People behind the veil of ignorance are self-interested but in crucial respects ignorant.

Great Unread Books: Which classic are you ashamed to admit you have never read?

2008-08-10T15:59:00.002-05:00

The Telegraph, July 22, 2008

Respectable authors made shameful confessions at Ways With Words festival; watch them below. Now it's your turn: which book are you most embarrassed to admit you have never read?

(via Arts & Letters Daily)

--Terrence Berres

All the Answers: The quiz-show scandals—and the aftermath. by Charles Van Doren

2008-07-29T09:48:00.001-05:00

I was considered well spoken, well educated, handsome—the very image of a young man that parents would like their son to be. I was also thought to be the ideal teacher, which is to say patient, thoughtful, trustworthy, caring. In addition, I was making a small fortune. And then—well, this is what happened:

Mind Over What’s the Matter

2008-07-28T06:46:00.002-05:00

Simon Blackburn, in yesterday's New York Times, reviews Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists, by Susan Neiman.

Neiman, an American who is currently the director of the Einstein Forum in Berlin, boldly asserts that when Marxism, postmodernism, theory and fundamentalism challenge the Enlightenment they invariably come off second best. I agree, and I wish more people did so.

Saying challengers to the Enlightenment "invariably come off second best" seems inconsistent with "wishing" more people were convinced of it.

--Terrence Berres

The Disadvantages of an Elite Education

2008-07-25T06:00:00.000-05:00

William Deresiewicz in The American Scholar, Summer 2008

The advantages of an elite education are indeed undeniable. You learn to think, at least in certain ways, and you make the contacts needed to launch yourself into a life rich in all of society’s most cherished rewards. To consider that while some opportunities are being created, others are being cancelled and that while some abilities are being developed, others are being crippled is, within this context, not only outrageous, but inconceivable.

(via Shark and Shepherd)

Education: the deflationary view

2008-07-23T06:00:00.000-05:00

Stanley Fish in the Yale Alumni Magazine July/August 2008

So what is it that institutions of higher learning are supposed to do? My answer is simple. College and university teachers can (legitimately) do two things: (1) introduce students to bodies of knowledge and traditions of inquiry that had not previously been part of their experience; and (2) equip those same students with the analytical skills -- of argument, statistical modeling, laboratory procedure -- that will enable them to move confidently within those traditions and to engage in independent research after a course is over

After 49 years Charles Van Doren opens up . . .

2008-07-19T08:26:00.003-05:00

At the 2001 memorial service of Mortimer Adler, a close friend of Van Doren's father, the famous writer and poet Mark Van Doren, the disgraced son talked of "the time when I fell down, face down in the mud, and [Adler] picked me up, brushed me off, and gave me a job." I interviewed Van Doren about Adler last year, and he called the late 1950s the time "when my life changed." He said he was working on a memoir, which he declined to discuss.

An Original Confession

2008-07-14T06:47:00.001-05:00

Darwin revised the text of the “Origin” extensively each time the book was republished in his lifetime; by the 6th (and last) edition, the text had evolved considerably. The final paragraph of the 6th edition differs from that of the first in that it includes mention of “the creator.” The relevant sentence of the 6th edition reads “…having been originally breathed by the creator into a few forms or into one…”

Who Is the Greatest Modern-Day Thinker?

2008-06-29T07:26:00.000-05:00

Via a reader, Stephen J. Dubner in Freakonomics at The New York Times relays this question from a college student in a "core" (great books?) curriculum.

Once you’ve thought about what it means to be a thinker, then comes the hard part of thinking about who best fits the description.

Which includes the criteria for greatness, and maybe even for "Modern-Day".

So who are your nominees, and why?

Naming U. of C. research center after Nobel Prize winner has faculty split

2008-06-26T12:00:00.000-05:00

U. of C. is the University of Chicago, and the Nobel Prize winner is Milton Friedman (1912-2006). Jodi S. Cohen reported in the Chicago Tribune, June 18, 2008,

In a letter to U. of C. President Robert Zimmer, 101 professors--about 8 percent of the university's full-time faculty--said they feared that having a center named after the conservative, free-market economist could "reinforce among the public a perception that the university's faculty lacks intellectual and ideological diversity."

(via "Diogenes" at Off the Record)

--Terrence Berres

Book culture without books?

2008-06-25T13:22:00.001-05:00

David Carter reviews The Book is Dead (Long Live the Book) by Sherman Young, in Australian Humanities Review, March 2008

It seems appropriate to be writing this in Tokyo where a recent bestseller list showed that five of the year's most successful novels, including the top three, were first written to be read on mobile phones before being republished in book form.

(via Milt's File)

--Terrence Berres

Van Doren on Adler (2008)

2008-06-08T14:44:00.002-05:00

In the newly-published edition of Charles Van Doren's 1985 book The Joy of Reading, one of the recommended works continues to be the Mortimer J. Adler's Syntopicon to Great Books of the Western World. Mr. Van Doren's revised essay includes this (p. 444).

...The work stands as a monument to the efforts of critical philosophy in our century that will long endure.

I wrote that sentence twenty years ago, and I no longer believe it to be true, although it should be. ... We talked on the phone a few weeks before [Adler's death] ... I recalled the deep sadness that accompanied his statement in that last conversation to the effect that everything he had worked and fought for throughout his life had failed. I said "No, no!" but the statement was in large part correct. ... I'm not sure that Adler's vision will ever be seen again, and I think we have lost something rich and beautiful.

(via Apocaloopsis)

--Terrence Berres

Standing Up For What You Don't Believe

2008-06-05T07:13:00.000-05:00

Steve Fuller in TPM Online

I agreed to serve as an expert “rebuttal” witness in the first US trial to test ID [Intelligent Design] as fit for public science instruction, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (2005). In other words, my testimony addressed the arguments of those who thought ID had no place in science classes.

--Terrence Berres

The Reach of an Ancient Greek

2008-05-31T09:17:00.001-05:00

Anthony Gottlieb in The Wall Street Journal, May 17, 2008, reviews The Music of Pythagoras, by Kitty Ferguson

(via Arts & Letters Daily)

--Terrence Berres

One College That’s Getting It Right

2008-05-20T12:17:00.000-05:00

Michael Linton at the First Things weblog about some school in Maryland.

--Terrence Berres

Adler on Anarchy

2008-05-10T10:03:00.005-05:00

Recently, Max Weisman sent out emails with writings of Dr. Adler on the subject of Anarchy. Specifically, Dr. Adler rebutted the arguments by philosophical anarchists on the basis that human nature requires a certain about of coercion and punishment in order to achieve the greatest good and that it would require, as Mills said, humans to have the nature of angels. Thus, anarchy is simplistic and naive and could never work. The coercive power of the state is good rather than the lesser evil.

These argument are based upon the belief that human nature is at least partly evil and that the ills we see in the world are a result of that nature. From Aristotle to Catholicism to evangelical protestants, the basic view has been similar: There is a list of things that every human needs to be truly happy, therefore, there is a moral duty to obtain those things, therefore anyone who doesn't appear to be seeking the things on the list is wrong, bad and worthy of punishment, coercion, psychiatric treatment or at least some form of correction. American legal theory is also based upon such beliefs.

This worldview is not the only viable option. Buddhist thought, for example, regards human nature as intrinsically good but that people have become disconnected from that nature so that the evils we see in the world are not a result of human nature, but of a disconnection from it. By getting in touch with that inner goodness, we address the root causes of suffering and reduce or eliminate it from our lives. Notice that the agreement on the list of things that humans need to be happy is there, but there is a departure that there is any moral quality to this list. Instead of labeling people who suffer or cause suffering evil, wrong, bad and declaring them worthy of punishment, we could also choose to consider such people as being tragically disconnected from their own needs or ignorant of their own nature. This, by the way, was the belief of Socrates and Plato - that evil was caused by ignorance rather than nature.

My own view is that if human nature is, in fact, intrinsically evil, then there never was any hope for us in the beginning. How can evil people come up with conceptions of good to begin with? I think human nature is intrinsically good and that this forms a common bond between us all and a basis of cooperation. When we deal with people in a way that appeals to their basic goodness and to their fundamental needs, we can experience getting our needs met through compassionate giving. Check out www.cnvc.org for some additional thoughts on this worldview.

Dr. Adlers rebuttal of anarchism is subtley based upon his worldview as a neo-Aristotelian. Before we accept his rebuttal, I think it relevant to first debate the merits of Aristotelian ethics. Lets start with the behavior of one of his star pupils - Alexander.

Adler On: Capitalism and Socialism

2008-05-04T06:40:00.001-05:00

Mike Wallace interview, September 7, 1958 (video)

The End of the Conflict Between Capitalism and Communism, Part One,
Haves Without Have-Nots (1991),

Defined,
Adler's Philosophical Dictionary (1995)

I'll try to include as least one linked item
with these topical bibliographic posts.
--Terrence Berres

Robert Nozick and the Coast of Utopia

2008-05-01T07:54:00.000-05:00

David Lewis Schaefer in the New York Sun, April 30, 2008, reconsiders Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) by Robert Nozick.

Suggesting that “the fundamental question of political philosophy” is not how government should be organized but "whether there should be any state at all," Nozick offers an adaptation of John Locke’s doctrine that government is legitimate only to the degree that it affords greater security for life, liberty, and property than would exist in a chaotic, pre-political “state of nature.” More emphatically than Locke, however, Nozick concludes that the need for security justifies only a minimal, or "night-watchman," state, since it cannot be demonstrated, he believes, that all rational individuals would find any more extensive government necessary to secure their rights.

(via Arts & Letters Daily)

--Terrence Berres

Adler On: Beauty

2008-04-06T12:00:00.000-05:00

The Liar and the Skeptic
Six Great Ideas (1981, 1984), Chapter 5

Admirable Beauty
Six Great Ideas (1981, 1984), Chapter 16

The Goodness of Beauty and the Beauty of Truth
Six Great Ideas (1981, 1984), Chapter 17

Defined
Adler's Philosophical Dictionary (1995)

--Terrence Berres

Adler on C-Span, 1990

2008-04-01T22:32:00.002-05:00

Dr Adler discusses his then current book Truth In Religion, takes some viewer calls, and comments on the second edition of Britannica's Great Books of the Western World.

Adler On: Beatitude

2008-03-30T13:24:00.001-05:00

Idling and Rest
A Vision of the Future (1984), Chapter 2, fifth part

Defined
Adler's Philosophical Dictionary (1995)

--Terrence Berres

James Monroe -- Political Philosophy

2008-03-28T12:27:00.000-05:00

I have found some good, but what I think are obscure quotes by James Monroe. He seems to be consider a kind of "ex-officio" founding father -- but was also a member of Virginia's anti-Federalists movement. Then a few years later he was elected from Virginia as a U.S. Senator under our current Constitution (he was also a delegate to Congress from Virginia under the Articles).

Famous Quotes by James Monroe

"It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising their sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin."

"The best form of government is that which is most likely to prevent the greatest sum of evil."

"Never did a government commence under auspices so favorable, nor ever was success so complete. If we look to the history of other nations, ancient or modern, we find no example of a growth so rapid, so gigantic, of a people so prosperous and happy."

"In this great nation there is but one order, that of the people, whose power, by a peculiarly happy improvement of the representative principle, is transferred from them, without impairing in the slightest degree their sovereignty, to bodies of their own creation, and to persons elected by themselves, in the full extent necessary for the purposes of free, enlightened, and efficient government."

America anti-intellectual? Now, let's think this out

2008-03-25T10:18:00.001-05:00

Carlin Romano in The Philadelphia Inquirer with a review of Susan Jacoby's new book.

the greatest flaw of The Age of American Unreason, a spirited, provocative polemic by a veteran freelance journalist and author who writes books on weighty subjects usually handled by professors (e.g., justice, the history of secularism), is that it feeds the notion of American anti-intellectualism as a no-brainer truth.

(via Arts & Letters Daily)

--Terrence Berres

How liberalism can collapse into nihilism through materialism or false idealism

2008-03-24T06:09:00.000-05:00

Leo Strauss, the father of Neoconservatism, predicted that liberalism must give way to relativism and that relativism must eventually give way to nihilism.

Adler On: Autonomy

2008-03-23T12:25:00.000-05:00

Defined
Adler's Philosophical Dictionary (1995)

--Terrence Berres

On the Reading of Books

2008-03-22T15:53:00.000-05:00

Montaigne speaks of “an abecedarian ignorance that precedes
knowledge, and a doctoral ignorance that comes after it.” The
one is the ignorance of those who, not knowing their ABC’s,
cannot read at all. The other is the ignorance of those who have
misread many books. They are, as Pope rightly calls them,
bookful of blockheads, ignorantly read. There have always been
literate ignoramuses who have read too widely and not well. The
Greeks had a name for such mixture of learning and folly, which
might be applied to the bookish but poorly read of all ages.
They are all sophomores.

Being well read too often means the quantity, too seldom the
quality, of reading. It was not only the pessimistic and
misanthropic Schopenhauer who inveighed against too much
reading, because he found that, for the most part, men read
passively and glutted themselves with toxic overdoses of
unassimilated information. Bacon and Hobbes made the same point.
Hobbes said: “If I read as many books as most men, I should be
as dull-witted as they.” Bacon distinguished between “books to
be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be digested.”

Are You Happy?

2008-03-22T15:48:00.000-05:00

Review essay by Sue M. Halpern, The New York Review of Books, April 3, 2008

(via Arts & Letters Daily)

--Terrence Berres

Firing Line -- How to Think About God

2008-03-21T22:21:00.003-05:00

A partial transcript (in video dissolves) of Dr. Adler's appearance on Firing Line in support of the publication of How to Think About God (1980).

-Mark Brawner

Firing Line -- Intellect: Mind Over Matter

2008-03-21T22:02:00.005-05:00

Audio/slide show of William F. Buckley's interview with Mortimer Adler on the occasion of the publication of Intellect: Mind Over Matter. This is the second half only of the program, in which moderator Michael Kinsley engages Adler and his host.

The audio is, alas, of poor quality. See also, for ease of reference:

Part two and part three.

-Mark Brawner

Kierkegaard in '08

2008-03-20T12:21:00.001-05:00

video by greyshino at YouTube

--Terrence Berres

The founding of the 20th century conservative movement: The restoration of traditionalism

2008-03-17T18:20:00.001-05:00

Hutchins promulgated the idea of the "great ideas" and the "great conservation." According to Hutchins, a set of great ideas has been enthusiastically discussed by Western thinkers in every generation from Homer to Hemingway. These ideas have an everlasting quality because men in every generation and every place are interested in them. This is where Hutchins' perennialist philosophy came into play.

Hutchins' younger colleague Mortimer Adler identified 102 great ideas, and Hutchins' committee identified 130 great Western thinkers and writers. Adler's Synopticon summarizes what these great thinkers said about each of the great ideas.

Adler On: Art

2008-03-16T06:36:00.000-05:00

Defined
Adler's Philosophical Dictionary (1995)

--Terrence Berres

Nietzsche Attack Ad

2008-03-12T09:34:00.001-05:00

video by stookes at YouTube (viewer discretion is advised)

(via Pertinacious Papist)

--Terrence Berres

Good Instincts

2008-03-10T14:30:00.000-05:00

Jim Holt in The New York Times, March 9, 2008

By the logic of natural selection, any tendency to act selflessly ought to be snuffed out in the struggle to survive and propagate. So if someone seems to be behaving as an altruist — say, by giving away a fortune to relieve the sufferings of others — that person is really following the selfish dictates of his own genes.

(via Arts & Letters Daily)

--Terrence Berres

Libertarian primer on the Constitution

2008-03-05T09:24:00.002-06:00

Today's Wisconsin State Journal includes some items unrelated to the retirement of Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre, including this column by Louise Dotter of Spring Green in which she quotes Mortimer Adler.

(via WisOpinion)

--Terrence Berres

Mortimer mention in WSJ Books page

2008-02-29T15:29:00.004-06:00

"Gertrude Stein once described Ezra Pound as a "village explainer," which, she said, was fine if you were a village, "and if not, not." Arthur Goldwag, seeing the global village crowded with abstractions, wants to do some explaining of his own. The result is "-Isms and -Ologies," a lexicon of more than 450 enduring truths, cast-off notions, newly minted ideas and historical chimeras, from Abolitionism to Zoroastrianism. . .

". . .Mr. Goldwag manages to keep his erudition lively and his scope wide indeed. Perhaps only the late Mortimer Adler at his top-loftiest could have sallied forth so bravely against the cognitive monsters of collective experience. The subtitle of "-Isms and -Ologies" offers a broad, Adler-like claim: "All the movements, ideologies, and doctrines that have shaped our world."

-Mark Brawner

William F. Buckley RIP

2008-02-27T11:41:00.006-06:00

William F. Buckley Jr. Is Dead at 82 Douglas Martin, NY Times February 27, 2008

- Buckley's 2001 obit of Mortimer in National Review [Edit: fixed the link. -MB]

- Adler's appearances on Firing Line:

http://www.thegreatideas.org/adler.html

http://hoohila.stanford.edu/firingline/programList.php

-Mark Brawner

Teaching Plato in Palestine: Can Philosophy Save the Middle East?

2008-02-24T18:50:00.000-06:00

Carlos Fraenkel, Dissent, Spring 2007

--Terrence Berres

Socrates in the 21st Century

2008-02-18T10:11:00.000-06:00

Is the endlessly examined life still worth a look?

Carlin Romano, Critic at large, in The Chronicle Review, February 15, 2008

(via Arts & Letters Daily)

--Terrence Berres

The calculus of virtue

2008-02-16T21:45:00.003-06:00

Based on the ideas I previously presented that 1) basing justice on the definitions of subjective quantities leads, at best, to unproductive debate and more commonly, to coercion and that 2) there is a class of goods which, by their nature, cannot be obtained by stealth, deception or coercion (virtues) and that this class of goods can be identified objectively, I submit the following as a tentative definition for justice:

Justice is that art which seeks to maximize the ability or opportunity of all concerned parties to seek virtue.

I'll give an example:

Suppose person A robs person B. Possible responses could be: do nothing; punish A arbitrarily (current American jurisprudence); force A to restore the goods to B; punish A arbitrarily and restore goods to B; allow B to exact revenge.... Which of these responses would maximize the ability of all parties to seek virtue? Nothing would leave B without the goods and likely angry and likely to do something unvirtuous. It would also enable A to continue to obtain goods in such a manner. Arbitrary punishment of A, perhaps incarceration, would certainly prevent unvirtuous behavior for a time, but likely not result in any increased capacity in A. It also does not begin to address B's feelings. Likely, the final answer would involve A restoring goods to B and perhaps some amount of punishment. The important point in this essay is not a particular answer, but the calculus of ability to seek virtue.

Notice that this approach to justice avoids the whole revenge thing and what A or B "deserves" and whose "rights" were or were not violated and whether those rights were natural or derived. It also avoids pejorative labels like "criminal" and avoids static judgements like "evil", "guilty" or "innocent".

Another example: Free transactions in the market. Economics theory only specifies THAT people set a value in the market, it does not delve into why. Justice based on virtue helps us understand. Producing needed products by labor and free agreements is a virtue. If the price is too low, then the seller can't continue seeking virtue in this manner - he would go out of business. If the price is too high, then the buyer has her resources consumed disproportionately and is thus impeded in her search for virtue that needed products would enable.

I would love to hear responses as to whether the calculus of virtue is clear or if you find it too muddy to apply.

I would also be happy to apply the calculus of virtue to any specific examples anyone would care to conjure up just to show the lines along which I am recommending people think about justice.

The Ring of Gaiges

2008-02-15T18:58:00.001-06:00

This post has been copied from the Great Ideas Forum

In Book V of the Republic a definition of justice was proposed based on the legend of the Ring of Gaiges. Gaiges found a ring that would make him invisible so that he could obtain information and goods by stealth without fear of punishment or reprisal. Justice is proposed as the compromise between our desire to BE Gaiges and obtain all goods for free and our desire to NOT be his victim. This definition is debated a little in the Republic and then discarded without being formally refuted.

Frankly, that definition of Justice strikes me as perverse and hideous. It was hard to put my finger on what made it so awful to me. Then it hit me: Not all goods could be obtained by Gaiges using his magic ring.

There is a class of goods which cannot be obtained by stealth, theft or coercion: things like bodily strength, wisdom, friendship, love, self-discipline, honesty. Most of these kinds of goods are unlimited in the sense that my intelligence does not detract from yours. My honesty does not subtract from the available honesty to be had. For lack of a better word, I will call these goods virtues.

Just for clarification, note that one can steal money to get into a university, or perhaps to obtain a diploma, but knowledge must be obtained the old fashion way - by ones own effort. Knowlege is the virtue. A diploma or school attendance are not necessarily virtuous. Thus, there is a class of goods which, by their very nature, can only be obtained through what we would call "just" means. Note that we dont' need to agree on a definition of "good", "right", "happiness" or "fairness" to recognize there is something unique about the class of goods I am calling "virtue".

Next post, I will propose a definition of justice based upon the unique properties of this class of goods.

How do you find the definition of justice based on the Ring of Gaiges ?

What would you include in a list of goods that cannot be obtained by stealth, deception or coercion?

Looking at your list, do you sense that there is indeed something unique about these goods. Can you put your finger on what it is?

Is there any correlation between your list of virtues and what makes your life rich and meaningful?

The problem with Justice

2008-02-15T18:54:00.001-06:00

This post has been copied over from the Great Ideas Forum.

I was interested in the general topic of Justice but not willing to only speak when spoken to or limit my posts to less than 250 words so I thought I would outline what I see as the problems with discussions on Justice, Dr. Adlers essay in the Syntopicon included and then propose a way to cut the Gordian knot.

Dr. Adler points out that discussions about Justice have been very similar for thousands of years. That is sign #1 that these discussions are generally unproductive. Dr. Adler correctly points out that we generally have natural justice and might makes right on one side and then social justice and inalienable rights etc on the other side. There is no great way to reconcile these two - a system of justice entirely created socially would be arbitrary and artificial. A system of justice entirely natural would simply be "justice is the will of the sovereign". These tensions permeate all modern jurisprudence.

The problem with both positions is that justice is defined in terms of subjective quantities that generate endless unproductive debate. Aristotle suggested that Justice should be defined in terms of happiness. Guess who got to define what "happiness" is? For every definition of happiness, I can show you a whole bunch of people who claim that they wouldn't be very happy living that way. Others define justice in terms of "fairness", "good", or "right". No wonder these discussions have gone on for over two millenia. Just as for "happiness", for every definition of "fairness", "good" or "right", I can show you a whole bunch of people who will claim that the definition is unfair, not good and wrong. Then what happens is people get reactionary about their opinions and start making up terms like "true happiness" so that anyone who disagrees with them gets their position labelled "false happiness". Doctrinarians, such as Dr. Adler, strive to argue that their really is only one universal definition of these things and then argue about whose definition is really universal. Everyone has their own universal definition of all of these subjective ideas.

I have an idea to cut through this Gordian knot of unproductive debates over subjective quantities. It begins with a refutation of the definition of justice proposed in book V of the Republic based on the legend of the Ring of Gaiges. Continued in next post.

Does anyone care to comment on the general proposition that arguments over definition of subjective quantities are or are not productive?

Can you see how attempts to establish universal definitions of subjective quantities has enabled coercion - physical or intellectual - in the past?

Do you have an emotional reaction to my suggestion that thinkers have defended their positions by making up pejorative terms for the opposition?

Adler On: Angels

2008-02-13T20:20:00.001-06:00

The Reality of Angels:
(1) Why Try to Prove the Existence of Angels?
(2) The Reason God Created Angels
(3) The Great Chain of Being
(4) The Best of All Possible Worlds
The Angels and Us, Chapter 4

The Possibility of Angels:
(1) The Crux of the Matter
(2) Who Says That Angels are Impossible?
(3) Reasons for Affirming Their Possibility
The Angels and Us (1982), Chapter 7

Philosophical Exploration of that Possibility:
(1) Angelology and Mathematics
(2) The Mutability of Angels
(3) The Differentiation of Angels
(4) Angelic Occupation of Space and Movement Through It
(5) Angels as Knowers
(6) Angels as Lovers
(7) The Community and Communication of Angels
The Angels and Us (1982), Chapter 8

If Men Were Angels:
(1) Angelistic Politics
(2) Angelistic Psychology
(3) Angelistic Linguistics
(4) Angelistic Ethics
The Angels and Us (1982), Chapter 11

Man on the Boundary Line:
(1) Straddling the Line or Reaching Over It?
(2) The Weakness of the Human Mind
(3) The Middle Ground
(4) The Resurrection of the Body
The Angels and Us (1982), Chapter 12

Defined, Adler's Philosophical Dictionary (1995)

--Terrence Berres

Apostle translations of Aristotle

2008-02-06T14:10:00.000-06:00

Online order form to get Hippocrates Apostle translations of Aristotle from the source, Upstart Crow Books / Peripatetic Press, Des Moines, IA.

I just got a snazzy black hardcover of Nicomachean Ethics. Shrink-wrapped, as new.

-Mark Brawner

Morality Studies

2008-02-03T18:00:00.001-06:00

Paul Bloom reviews Experiments in Ethics by Kwame Anthony Appiah, The New York Times, February 3, 2008

--Terrence Berres

Adler On: Anarchy

2008-02-03T08:39:00.001-06:00

The Necessity of Government, The Common Sense of Politics (1971,1996), Chapter 6

The Anti-Political Philosophers, The Common Sense of Politics (1971,1996), Chapter 8

Defined, Adler's Philosophical Dictionary (1995)

--Terrence Berres

Adler On: Analytic and Synthetic Judgments

2008-01-27T10:42:00.000-06:00

Defined, Adler's Philosophical Dictionary (1995)

--Terrence Berres

Adler On: Analogical Speech

2008-01-20T07:22:00.000-06:00

Its Distinction from Univocal and Equivocal Speech, Adler's Philosophical Dictionary (1995)

--Terrence Berres

The Magnificent Contrarian

2008-01-15T15:09:00.000-06:00

Harold Bloom speaks out!

Adler On: Abstract and Concrete

2008-01-13T10:31:00.000-06:00

Can all universal objects of thought be instantiated by perceived or perceivable particulars? Some Questions About Language (1976), Chapter VII, Question 3

Defined, Adler's Philosophical Dictionary (1995)

--Terrence Berres

Adler On: Absolute and Relative

2008-01-06T12:32:00.000-06:00

Milder Forms of Skepticism, Six Great Ideas (1981), Chapter 6

The Realm of Doubt, Six Great Ideas (1981), Chapter 7

The Restriction of Pluralism, Truth in Religion (1990, Chapter 1

The Logic of Truth, Truth in Religion (1990, Chapter 2

Defined, Adler's Philosophical Dictionary (1995)

--Terrence Berres