Mortimer J. Adler

Examines ten errors in modern thought and shows how they have led to serious consequences in our everyday lives. Tells how they came about, how to avoid them, and how to counter their negative effects.

The ideas Adler examines include those at the core of the Declaration of Independence -- human equality, inalienable human rights, civil rights, the pursuit of happiness, and both the consent and dissent of the governed. These are the ideas that form the basis for the ideals found in the Preamble to the constitution that bind us together as a nation -- justice, domestic tranquillity, the common defense, the general welfare, and the blessings of liberty.

Dr. Mortimer J. Adler, director of the Institute for Philosophical Research, author of How To Read A Book, How To Think About War And Peace GREAT IDEAS from the GREAT BOOKS with an introduction by William Benton, Chairman of the Board of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. Answers are drawn from the wisdom of the past to the problems about which we are most concerned in the world of today

Volume 20 of Great Works of the Western World Volume 19 is at

Primary source. Contains documents on slavery and the abolitionists, racism, emancipation, civil rights and Reconstruction, Black Power, the Civil Rights Movement, the Supreme Court and the schools, and discrimination in war and peace.

It’s set is an accessible introduction to Western literature.

In Greek and Roman antiquity, philosophy was supreme in the domain of learning. Philosophy was the name for the pursuit of truth about the most fundamental things to be known or understood. It was the most desirable of all the goods of the mind. But today we live in an age dominated by science and technology - an age that has witnessed not only the rise of positivism, but the retreat of academic philosophy to an analysis of language. Professorial philosophy has become as specialized a subject as logic and mathematics. If anyone asks why we should be concerned with the intellectual respectability of philosophy, this book provides the answer. Try to imagine a world from which philosophy is totally absent. Imagine a world in which no one philosophizes to any degree - that done almost unconsciously by ordinary men and women or inexpertly by scientists, historians, poets, novelists, and dramatists. Imagine a world in which philosophy is completely expunged. Philosophy is not taught, even poorly in our colleges. No philosophical books are written. In the Prologue to this book, Dr. Adler asks us to consider whether that deprivation would make any difference to us. Though we might not realize it, a great many of our opinions and beliefs would go unquestioned; for any enlightenment about those beliefs can come only from philosophizing about them, about the shape of the world and our place in it: questions about what we should be doing and what we should be seeking; questions that are not answerable by empirical science and historical research. What, then, are philosophy's four dimensions? Science gives us only partial knowledge and superficial understanding of the reality about which philosophy gives us a more penetrating analysis and a deeper understanding (Dimension One). Science gives us no knowledge or understanding of the good life and the good society. This moral and political philosophy gives us Dimension Two. Science gives us no understanding at all of the intelligible objects of thought - the great ideas (Dimension Three). It does not even enable us to understand science and history. This requires a philosophical understanding of all the intellectual disciplines and branches of learning (Dimension Four). The Four Dimensions of Philosophy not only explains why philosophy must be revived in the coming century, but it also throws light on what must be done to revive it, by overcoming all the obstacles to be found in philosophy's long past.

Dr. Adler, in his discussion, extends and modernizes the argument for the existence of God developed by Aristotle and Aquinas. Without relying on faith, mysticism, or science (none of which, according to Dr. Adler, can prove or disprove the existence of God), he uses a rationalist argument to lead the reader to a point where he or she can see that the existence of God is not necessarily dependent upon a suspension of disbelief. Dr. Adler provides a nondogmatic exposition of the principles behind the belief that God, or some other supernatural cause, has to exist in some form. Through concise and lucid arguments, Dr. Adler shapes a highly emotional and often erratic conception of God into a credible and understandable concept for the lay person. -- Publisher's description.

xxxviii, 958 p. ; 25 cm

First in a set of reading plans for the Great books of the Western world series. Study guide.