From the Center: Adler on reading and in school

This past week's communications to members of the Center for the Study of The Great Ideas included:

• Mortimer Adler on how to approach reading difficult material;
• Adler's school days; and
• a request for volunteer technical help.

What the Fate of The New Republic Reveals

Russ Douthat at The New York Times.

"The New Republic as-it-was, the magazine I and others grew up reading, was emphatically not just a 'policy magazine.' It was, instead, a publication that deliberately integrated its policy writing with often-extraordinary coverage of literature, philosophy, history, religion, music, fine art.

"It wasn’t just a liberal magazine, in other words; it was a liberal-arts magazine, which unlike many of today’s online ventures never left its readers with the delusion that literary style or intellectual ambition were of secondary importance, or that today’s fashions represented permanent truths."

P.S. Any suggestions of other print or online publications that could be considered a 'liberal-arts magazine'?

From the Center: Derbyshire on Goldstein's Plato, Adler on Immortality

This past week's communications to members of the Center for the Study of The Great Ideas included:

• Jonathan Derbyshire reviews Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away, by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein; and
• Mortimer Adler discusses the Great Idea of Immortality .

NY Court: Chimps not 'persons' with human rights

Today, a three-judge panel of the NY State Appellate Division ruled unanimously to deny personhood to a chimp named Tommy. Last year, the Nonhuman Rights Project filed a writ of habeas corpus to deliver the chimp from private captivity.

In the amicus curiae brief I filed with the appellate court earlier this year, I contended that the writ of habeus corpus has only ever applied to human beings and that no non-human animal can be equated with a human being:

"Jurisprudentially, rights follow from duties....If a creature cannot intelligibly be said to have obligations, it cannot be said to have rights."

For support, my brief cited two of Mortimer J. Adler's books: The Difference of Man and The Difference It Makes (Henry Holt 1969) and Intellect (Macmillan 1990). 

Today, the court agreed on the same grounds:

"Needless to say, unlike human beings, chimpanzees cannot bear any legal duties, submit to societal responsibilities or be held legally accountable for their actions. In our view, it is this incapability to bear any legal responsibilities and societal duties that renders it inappropriate to confer upon chimpanzees the legal rights – such as the fundamental right to liberty protected by the writ of habeas corpus – that have been afforded to human beings."

The Nonhuman Rights Project has vowed to appeal to New York State's highest court. If they do, I will follow with another amicus brief. Stay tuned...

What Competency-based Education Cannot Do: Part I

Christopher B. Nelson, president of St. John’s College in Annapolis, argues at SignPosts for Liberal Education that

"for liberal education, teachers and classes are essential. Why? Because it’s not just about information, but about dialectic."

He opposes education based on testing student competency in various areas.

"In particular, the highest goal of dialectic—namely, dependable judgment based on thorough consideration of issues that really matter in life—is not assessable by 'objective' testing instruments. It can only be assessed by competent dialecticians who watch students’ progress over time as they grapple with ideas, listen to others, join with others in inquiry, become proficient at asking insightful questions, become deft at working through premises and consequences, and so on."

Thomas Aquinas College Offering New Two-Year Program In The 'Pretty Good Books'

As 'reported' at Eye of the Tiber,

"Thomas Aquinas College describes their new program syllabus as, composed exclusively of the just barely adequate texts that have, for good or for ill, kinda-sorta animated, for the lack of a better word, Western civilization."

(via Jay Gold)