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How to Think About the Great Ideas: From the Great Books of Western Civilization By Mortimer J. Adler ( Open Court )
Release Date: 2000-03-28
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List Price: $24.95
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Product Description
Time magazine called Mortimer J. Adler a "philosopher for everyman." In this guide to considering the big questions, Adler addresses the topics all men and women ponder in the course of life, such as "What is love?", "How do we decide the right thing to do?", and, "What does it mean to be good?" Drawing on his extensive knowledge of Western literature, history, and philosophy, the author considers what is meant by democracy, law, emotion, language, truth, and other abstract concepts in light of more than two millennia of Western civilization and discourse. Adler's essays offer a remarkable and contemplative distillation of the Great Ideas of Western Thought.
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How to Think About the Great Ideas by Mortimer Adler ( joemath )
This is an excellent book for academicians, journalists, historians,
philosophers, linquists and a whole host of thinkers in the
arts and sciences. The author discusses theoretic universals
in some level of detail. For instance, he roughly equates
consistency with truth. In mathematics, a proof is not complete
without enough consistent examples of an application and no
deviations from the theorem. The author discusses the distinction
between knowledge and opinion. He states succinctly that ignorance can be preferable to academic errors. In addition, he points out that opinions are accepted voluntarily. Emotions are
likened to instinct in that they are not learned. Freud discussed things to avoid; namely, bad love, pride and too much
reliance on monetary things to the exclusion of aesthetics.
The good thing is desirable over the bad. Goods are classified
into wealth, goods of the body, goods of the soul or spiritual
domain, knowledge, truth and wisdom which is the highest
form of knowing. Children spend much time learning skills;
while adults and elders develop and impart wisdom. Learning is
discovery and discussion. We learn things in the natural sciences
by observing them in a lab. For instance, a drop of blood may
be examined under the microscope for specific characteristics.
A frog may be dissected and examined under the microscope to
learn more about the vital organs-their placement and functioning.
This book is a wonderful acquisition for a continued discussion of philosophical, theoretical and scientific techniques and processes. It is a good value for the price charged.
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A great "Cliff Notes" version of Adler arguments ( paulbaier )
I found this book very helpful.I was introduced to Adler's writing about a year ago and have read 4-5 of his books, his two autobiographies, and 30 or so of his papers through the TGI website with Max W. This book is a great summary of basic ideas in very accessible manner, such as: definition of truth; the moral *obligation* not just the right, to be controversial; crystalization of Adler's arguments against Darwin of why man's mental capabiliteis are a difference in kind and not degree from apes and other animals, etc. The consice presentation clarified earlier readings and more than made up for any shortcomings due to editoral sloppiness, lack of charts, and difficulty in general with transcripts of a TV show. A good book for those just beginning their reading of Adler's summary and critique of philosophy and a good reference summary book for those well read with Adler's books. Paul Baier
Boston, MA
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 Basic introduction to some of Adler's Great Ideas.
Each chapter represents one program and most consist of a dialogue of sorts between Adler and Luckman, with Adler also answering viewer questions. But as it must already be clear what this book is, I will seek to establish why I gave it only three stars. Firstly, because Amazon does not permit assigning 3 and 1/2 stars. Second, that it is rather long considering how much there is to actually gain from it. The number of subjects that he attempts to cover reduces most of the discussions to a rather elementary introduction. This is good in the sense that it might whet the appetite, before you might get bored by a tedious analysis, but often you get a sense that Adler's final word is good enough before he moves on. Some of the brevity and incompleteness is a function of the presentation, and this limits how much you might actually gain in understanding the topics. The accurate presentation of dialogue adds nothing to the book. Probably it would be most interesting to those who are fond of Dr. Adler and like reading his other books. It is hard to recommend another book that would fulfill the same function that this one does, and this is the first of his that I've read.
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Enlightening history and nice reference ( clansullivan )
This work is a handy reference to which I refer often. Adler provides a very useful "history of ideas". Each section covers what the some of the greatest thinkers have said about a particular idea, ideas such as "justice", "knowledge", "truth","God", etc. This book is a must if one wants to get a quick "birds eye" view of ideas and what great thinkers have said about them, and provides a nice springboard and direction for further study.
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Summary Without Loss of Depth ( scarpenter@ptwww.com )
How do you summarize a summary of 2500 years of thought? Great! Mortimer Adler was one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th Century, primarily because of the literally ecyclopaedic nature of his knowledge. I say literally encyclopaedic because he edited the Encyclopaedia Britanica and wrote The Synopticon, a summary of Western philosophy, among the scores of other books bearing his name. He is best known for popularizing the Great Books theory of education. This is based on his own original reseach distilling the essence of Western Thought into 102 "Great Ideas." How To Think About The Great Ideas is a condensation of transcipts of a popular TV show of the 1950's, but the superficiality such an origin suggests does not permeate the book. The TV show covered only 21 of the great ideas, while the book deals with about half of the 102. The somewhat colloquial style will surprise readers who may have read Aristotle, Decartes, or Kant in full. We are not accustomed to hearing about philosophy from TV. But the simplicity of the presentation only serves to heighten the clarity of the ideas. The Great Ideas which you struggled over in college really can be discussed in ordinary language, and this is the real achievement of this book. The ideas build from the basic question of "What is truth?" to a consideration of the nature of man, human freedom, society and even a review of the arguments for the existence of God. Adler himself came to faith from agnositicism in his 80's before his recent death at the age of 98. Even so, the book is more of an invitation than an argument. It is best approached as a string of pearls, a series of thoughtful but isolated studies, rather than an essay in how to approach life or a true philosophical treatise. Refer to the Synopticon the academic treatment. But Adler never wrote just for academics. He believed philosphy is for everyone, and this book proves it. Now that Mortimer Adler has recently passed away, How To Think About The Great Ideas will remain as his exortation for all of us to lead thoughful lives.
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