A Man of Ideas: The Legacy of Mortimer Adler

A Man of Ideas: The Legacy of Mortimer Adler | Andrew Svenning | Catholic World Report



More than a decade after his death, Dr. Adler’s work of bringing philosophy to everyone continues. Max Weismann discusses the mission of the “Philosopher at Large” and his own work at the Center for the Study of the Great Ideas.

Mortimer
J. Adler passed away in June of 2001, having left an indelible mark on 20th century
philosophy. A standard history of philosophy text might place him under the
subheading of the Aristotelian and Thomistic revivals of his time, but his
contributions extend far beyond the narrow confines one might associate with
academic philosophy. He acted as the founder and director of the Institute for
Philosophical Research, Chairman of the Board of Editors for the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and co-founded
both the Aspen Institute and the Center for the Study of the Great Ideas. Adler
truly was the “Philosopher at Large,” the title of his 1977 intellectual
autobiography, because unlike many in the discipline, he spoke to a wider
audience. His interlocutors were not a close-knit circle of elite intellectuals
and his published works were not technical tracts, laced in jargon accessible
only to fellow professional academics. Adler was always more interested in the
average person, who by nature possessed the ability to think and, therefore, to
philosophize. This notion is best summed up by a phrase he came back to over
and over again throughout his life: “Philosophy is everybody’s business”—a
proposition upon which he staked his career.

“To
be a human being is to be endowed with the proclivity to philosophize,” says
Max Weismann, who co-founded the Center for the Study of the Great Ideas with
Adler back in 1990. “To some degree we all engage in philosophical thought in
the course of our daily lives.” And what is it we all should be philosophizing
about? Weismann and his mentor have a reply: “The answer, in a word, is
Ideas.  In two words, it is Great Ideas—the ideas basic and indispensable
to understanding ourselves, our society, and the world in which we live.”

These
Great Ideas form the basis for Adler’s philosophic enterprise, an enterprise his
best student is now carrying on. The center operates as the resource for
accessing Dr. Adler’s works, providing members with subscriptions to weekly and
quarterly journals, lectures, DVDs, and an array of information on Great Books
programs.

Weismann’s
journey as a student of Adler began after an epiphany he had discussing Plato’s
Apology at a Great Books seminar in
1959.

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