Too many people don't realize what a genius Adler was

A twentieth-century delusion posted by MD: That's the subtitle of an essay by Mortimer Adler (my favorite philosopher) that begins his monumental book, The Great Ideas: A Lexicon of Western Thought. Here are the first five paragraphs:

A cultural delusion is widespread in the 21st century. The extraordinary progress in science and technology that we have achieved in this century has deluded many of our contemporaries into thinking that similar progress obtains in other field of mental activity. They unquestioningly think that the twentieth century is superior to its predecessors in all efforts of the human mind.

Some of our contemporaries make this inference consciously and explicitly. They do not hesitate to declare that the twentieth century has a better, a more advanced and sounder, solution of moral and political problems, that it is more critically penetrating in its philosophical thought, and that it is superior in its understanding of, and even in its wisdom about, the perennial questions that confront human beings in every generation.

This book of essays about the great ideas and isues and about the great conversation concerning these ideas that can be found in the great books is not for them. Their minds are closed to the possibility that they may be wrong in the inference they have made without examining the evidence to the contrary that this book provides.

But there may be some — perhaps many — among our contemporaries of which this is not true. They may be prone to the twentieth-century delusion as a result of indoctrination they received from an inadequate schooling, or as a result of the current of journalistic opinion that fill the press, the radio, and the television. But they may still be open to persuasion that they have mistakenly believed in the superiority of the twentieth century in all fields of intellectual endeavor. It may be possible to show them that, though the twentieth century has made some contribution to the understanding of the great ideas, the significance of that contribution cannot be understood without seeing it in the light of the greater contribution made in earlier epochs of the last twenty-five centuries.

This book is for them because that is precisely what it does. It is the apt remedy for what I have called the twentieth-century delusion, which psychiatrists would call a grandiose delusion. The 102 essays on the great ideas that this book contains dramatically exhibit the great conversation that has been going on across the centuries, in which any unprejudiced and undeluded mind will see the merit of what has been thought and said. Such wisdom as has been achieved is in no way affected or conditioned by time and place.

Adler's book is a grand achievement of scholarship and erudition. It is the result of an "extreme close analysis of 434 works by 73 authors from Homer to the twentieth century." It is a genuine intellectual treasure.

And as far as the developing project called 'round these parts as Great Artistry, its literary and paideia dimensions have no better foundation than Adler's book. For like all of the great works of art and thought, it rewards repeated readings, and (as far as I can tell) can be akin to a friend throughout all of one's life — challenging, renewing, reminding. Too many people don't realize what a genius Adler was. I'll have to help change that. Labels: Great Artistry, Great Ideas 3:53 PM