Heritage; 115; Mortimer J. Adler. Part 1: Autobiography

page time twenty nine age twenty six adam the number one take number one final k etc st last november the fifth nineteen sixty from the vantage point of my presentation i can see their interest in these exploration of it is has been the controlling for small events of my life developed for my first study of the dogs are quite know which ideas are discussed for the work i did on the same topic on where we dealt with hundred and two made it is to my present work at the institute of those other research really concerned with clarifying some of the basic ideas of weston thought i spent most of my days you know it is going to the man and his ideas were to merge episode

is introduced for the national educational television encyclopedia britannica washington university the first question we might ask is why we're here till is a rather why are interested in spending on par with him i might try and answer that question myself i'm an educator and i feel

myself very definitely am the midst of a kind of educational revolution i think you had something to do with starting and what i mean is this when i went to college generation ago i did a lot of reading that day saints less than worthwhile i read the latest novels not very good ones and they latest broadway play as dai freshman don't read this kind of thing they're reading the rating great books and the same thing is true in many parts of the curriculum you have an awful lot of their with us and it varies to know how you got started boy what was the inception of this with you and on the ball back to colombia but i was only registered man nineteen twenty one twenty two twenty three diners

can initiate cause of reading two year course protestantism the college reading the great books of the western tradition cost that once a week through two years american was a magnificent teacher i took those in the first class that burst into what then i graduated from climate in june nineteen twenty three and i remember that summer i think i was and comes from a boys' camp in maine reflect a little bit about what college meant me what happened recently that of all the things i've done college most of the textbook losses and manual courses this two years of reading and discussing the basic works of western civilization was the only thing that stood out as having concluded that my job in my mind all i think though that nothing would happen if another accident hadn't given i was invited to join the faculty in the year after my graduation came back in september

twenty three and only top experimental psychology and robert elder vertical one of the sections of great books taught whitlock and are then i discovered something that these books and i thought i'd read and done very well with that have to reckon with animation on them i haven't really read all those dogs we and to teach them to the first time i realized that it was a body of materials that would take a lifetime to get through and that have been like spirit of a sense in the course of all the years since then gradually and twenty three in but on teaching the wake of the columbia but chicago or del corso the country i read these books over over again i find that i really don't want to lose time they can to the problem which fascinates me about your life is this you were he went to columbia college in intercourse with john our skin and there you were you were you were young college student in and then today we have one article a

kind of educational revolution it awfully interested in and what happened before you took the clothes with giant can because lots of other people took tours to an imam something about what happened afterwards reminded me that's something that does contribute to the story i went to high school with no intention of going to college will become a teacher or a philosopher fact my whole ambition in life was to become a journalist and i hear manifest this by becoming a lot of my high school paper we know there was a fairly broad vision among the things i thought about and it was added a run in the school i came into conflict with the principal and by agreeing that he stayed and i left and i got a job for myself and the ox on top of oil and working for the elderly son and two but advance myself in this view i thought that some i can supplant in english literature at the one cost which we had read your biography of john stuart mill not in the majority and here was the

orbiter this remarkable boy whose father john james known as french or even from infancy to be most remembered this day that oil rig at the age of three and a quarter the biography of the mail tells himself he was reading plato in great at the age of five and could distinguish between the socratic method and become a guide is an invasion in line he'd read a long list of books and i'd never heard of i was now fifty years old least three times over the male lives hope so competitively agitated by this summer when i was a mentor to find the money by some as dodd reply to this point only of journalism i was so fascinated by the socratic decision it is an exploration of it like a man is that i decided to go to college and i i resettled a bit of loss of her son went to columbia as i think most

boys don't go to college with a definite partisan given up the idea of an experiment going on the west wing and then this one little thing is reading the dogs sent me to college with a kind of determination to study and study particularly in the field of philosophy so that when the scores of ratings cannot risk and i think i was set for me was an accidental thing that affect the music that was fairest thing to an arab about the impact on bail today they autobiography of mel how we want to hear something about your autobiography weed weed weed we still have the whole chain of events leading from the time that you sat americans class too long time and i thought the great books at the university of chicago which was the thirties with her early forties and really what happened was all things academy and it's a new mccain briefly even as more detail about and i talked with lots of

columbia from nineteen twenty three nineteen twenty nine in nineteen twenty seven when scott you can within isis directed viewers to reset the first adult son was in the grip of a fifteen of them actually read the great books with adults and with their votes in college mr hutchins begin to present the list of chicago it is ending at a law school can only option we talk about education or what would you make a public college college education and eliminating the maintenance the duma go was this great books cause we will begin to have me on the bloggers in the bottoming out chicago teaching across with israel are lots of options on iran nonstarter of them together in the first of a new president biden the fact that beginning in nineteen thirty in iconic maples was at the college in the high school in the graduate school of law school for the whole period of the negev and this led to be established to st

john's college in the region would say just how as the army can have the pictures all around the great books in the early forties the start they don't work in chicago that led to the formation of a book foundation which unite directors and i was engaged in the first training elite is that multiplied known that these horses then and forty three the tibetan protestants and the us would like to engage in areas of reports that was part of the britannica and that led to that because we're gong on the production side and the provision and the set was published vincent up and finished in fifty fifty two and the final chapter in the story is the establishment is a true philosophical research center just don't work and in a sense they are effective i think we've got a picture of a family tale li yeah but as i say in your life is really divided on certain phrases first you read the

great books on your arm and you read them and their skins climb get yours you're and eisenstein of the rebels than you were teacher of the great works that same straight when you add chicago essentially camp an entrepreneur a guy with a monocle a promoter know like i've been doing nothing is the last two years and running around the country but in one of the plays it have done now that if if i am understand what word goes out the us to become half philosopher yourself will that isn't what could be well i like teams are becoming a philosopher for alaska's of my life and i'm still in gays in the study of the idea we're not sure if i do in the region for was often work that will come stiller as the obvious or two it's nonsense philosophical work as a kind of examination of philosophical work that had been done in the west for the last twenty five

hundred and seven thats up but let's talk a little bit about the same topic on to settle questions i've asked about it i take it that it's associated with the attackers decision to publish the great books but but but what what really is it and what's it good for oh mac at that moment the military how we're hiking think about it yes that would guess so when when the publishers are tentative with curtains and they do on the question of aiding the set and spending the new time and that was when the group many bring about mr hutchings what about negatively he fought the law and seven housing so difficult books like the purchase they're just widely but not read widely unless something accompany them that served as an instrument for helping people to read and reading and man is interested then a non academic with it the river drops may mean a lot of people in school with instruction

and so that some of the some of that the spartans under consideration i was given the test of picking up what kind of a of an instrument might be attached to the set as they are held as it is a guy in a victory this imposing fireworks company historian as likely happen that was the summer's dow and they're all things i was and is writing a book about warren case the conditions are and prepare myself for the book i saw a look at iran stalin facilities and played on lock and cicero and hobbes to see what they said on the subject of the causes of warm conditions or a trapeze and i discovered to my amazement and pages i had read because of the markings on the pages as elizabeth was saying before so it occurred to me in the reading any book when mrs all the things one is now asking questions about an idea that came the thought that if one would read through the whole set of great books is time asking one question what did they say about what do they say about taxation what did they say about immortality was about

freedom one and in detail one would bring out from the minority a systematic way to complete recovery of their contacts and i said but this idea that i've wanted to do it with the bad and the ugly by saying what we needed was a systematic index of their ideas and topics and things are the type of content we smiled and said do it but this is not this is not as aaron mr abell no and to indicate how we understood that we said about a fifty thousand dollars in about eighteen months of thing to be done seminar it took just eight is the cost a million dollars to a most grueling is workable putting that and what we did was to construct a set of the three thousand topics well organized systematic way about a hundred and two had a few people that it is in each of these topics was a kind of an almost there with the camera that was a huge topic spotted focused on one thing one thing

being discussed about to set an example ortiz for example that the topic will be the economic the intimate basis of law malaysian government to peace in on a given subject of the causes of autism the effects of war on family life and one of his top it'll be a film that ran through the great books under which we would collect all the pathogens in the political books the philosophical book sleep historical books that dealt with that theme so that for three thousand copies could send the reader to be part of the great books we've discussed that thing and this enabled him that we even invented the phrase the horse and topical reading as a really great books by people like not ready for that yet and if he is sent out that major downgrade the horrible

because that would worry me well you're quite right about a concern listen topic been able to start reading in the book before you read them through and the idea behind that is if you start really in the u visa do speed reading more seductive about this as a stark and it all about the fraught with no one would know it's a red anywhere in the set will prevent this week about the problems of mary about the palms of taxation about the nature of god strider i'd like to do a little bit more what i just go way out of the entrepreneurial are promoting phase of their work since may that the practical outcomes of your interest in the great books and the ideas contained in the mob at things that have happened and formal education to the current curriculum

just can't discuss in detail than they are they either of discussion groups among other are the great books and the simplot going to set to go with them i don't have to tell you but the critics for example but there may have made people i do business with some of the members of my faculty present would say there's a kind of basic defect in this in this whole scheme or whether we're talking about formal education adult education or the use of the great books by individuals not simply a lack of really ugly of expertise though is these books are being read and in a sense talk white people who don't know enough about they don't really know what they're what they're dealing with cotton clay with the crimson and i gladly accepted because it's true

one except to say that it is precisely this is what is the virtue of the great book kind of thing no one no one can be an expert in this set of books no one could master the and they're all of us what they are devoted to the reading and discussion of them the teaching and propagating them musk gladly accepted kind of the incompetence we read them all at colombia by the way because after john ashton carter music preservation but he was willing to discuss darwin on oh galileo as well as shakespeare and milton and canada announced on because it is our literature and it should be read by any man that without revealing specialization what's going on mastery and i don't think that was the spirit of it i read them with him initially like i did make other people approached them with music that no one's going to be perfectly competent and discussion all understanding of any of these books

they are our common property our common heritage and our job is to do was in cities them will be discussions just help other people get into the one i have not been a lot of critics on this current as i find that they both spend evenings reading the great books are probably doing something much better than they might otherwise be delighted for example playing bridge or canasta that's a race related to something that we might talk about later which is your notion of a little education something to prepare one for leisure zhao has another kind of questions people ask which has dare with with your ability to share tips and to organize lots less than the song love on they sent out found your mom as i'm stan rogers said you have something like three thousand ranchers not a magic number you think one of the recent topics and these topics

are complements major roberto chat to come out of the country to live in nineteen seventy six exactly what the question is whether there is over there as an organization were there is a floor are and whether you impose this fall she now one rather is back here steve because three thank god that is about terrorism that's her docket as a carjacked and justices laughter that nothing is written by getting a decision on the least mystical maybe that he says a big question is whether this know whether the farm and the selection is something you impose something you maybe get a little bit of the start of work on this topic on twitter and service thought about when and how do you pick the idea didn't sit down and make up in our priority list oh we we we have medical is about seven hundred and fifty or eight hundred terms of looked like potential candidates and

he began experimenting with of taking these terms to the literature and say which of these are mostly to be discussed and that was about a year after years the oil that first initial list of a hundred years down two hundred and fifteen and down on twenty five and we stopped in and two with their solitary it might've been a hundred and twenty years a dataset out edgier side what topics that is and then taking a given turn would say in both to visitors liberty are the by looking at the actual discussion by reading and re reading and really what the great books at on the subject of man's freedom god has written so far we found what the themes were the distant arctic on for each of them how to do it it's because about one of topics i can tell you without exaggeration and most of those outlined some time during twenty twenty five thirty lines in outline form or revised redrafted fifteen twenty twenty five tend to drive a lot i had a staff about fifty fifty been working on and

i would phrase these topics and want to say that's that's not advocate care doesn't discuss it that way kids approach as follows revise the top easily to caricature we continually adjusting the state and of the public's admiration one know that to be true to the way the discussion to question the great parts of it these are closed during our all of american sense of trying to draw out in the people from the discussion what the shape of the idea was not that one more thing you know the thing that fascinated me during his eight years of where both in the construction of the outline of topics including references and writing a's and into essays on that is a huge idea the mandate an individual treatment there was no family letters of having the money to apply the formula i run into another enjoy it as like a large house with its own interior architecture the shape of the rooms the carters the wind is the outlook on it that if i don't know why this is so i can tell you why for example the idea of freedom is so different from the idea of math but it so this is very reassuring and

ice so it's awfully important to understand about you know and about your autobiography that this is this is not something that you fail you got from up in the sky and you're imposing on someone else it's there but you're gonna find out and help you find out what is there his territory it has a supply your work in the institution how does that differ from it is the writing that will be done and the ama is this for the soft or searched differ from writing down some talk in this environment and time in the case of the heart into it or during workouts and other than i did i wrote essays on its money into autism by five thousand words long i did that in about eighteen months one idea after another only have spent at the institute in the first period the city's life eight years on one of those ideas at its of work on freedom where it

will listen topic on us and freedom is about fifteen pages we have published two volumes and for you know for two hundred pages your project with day if possible to go through the whole hundred to get in violence and five and his life out of a lot of that affecting what we started to do that was the idea of a recall at the summit i like to do a dialectical summation of questions for which meant doing this job of clarifying taking stock of what had been said and get on it it for it about it do it but it takes too long to do how you feel i feel about it now that you find that you can't do it in your life so i think oh sorry started no no i think if given in my lifetime before i stop this kind of thing and the last tuesday of loss if we turn out the institute in the next ten years and where the vote would still above they direct and clarification about

six or seven major audience freedom began working on love now justice lot of progress it is that order then we were shown the method to show how to do this and there is a trick to doing it that we knew about that time i think i have won some appreciation of the value of this kind of work and then it's up to the universe is that all that if if the graduate schools of universities which candidate in the monastic study we do this kind of work i think it was in university and taken the rest of the continent to be done you could divide the work up and covered up into it stratton is another strain important sector of your interest that we really have scarcely touch recently when very interested in and capitalism jessica something you deeply liane hansen for a positive id is about to tell us how you got interested in them well during the way is the image of chicago i did have an interest in the great

books and reading between nineteen twenty seven and nineteen forty for about ten eleven books on the lake i've thought of the region mainly in logic not the metaphysics and probably late thirties became tremendously aggressive political theory i would guess the beginning of my life i was anything but a democrat i had the usual you for aristocratic protection for the masses know we were there as i grew older and was a i began to see that the proposition that all money who really are a trooper found proposition and that it had to have been understood in terms of political citizen became there was a reasonable fear of democracy the server

let lets leave it there is terribly fascinating we're going to have to do to develop a whole half hour this is what i think i got out of what we said assaf finance doing great first ratner is a person who's spent his life of ideas he has cheated managed to them great works is not the great poets with great box is a vehicle of these ideas you devote himself to the great books as a student throughout his life as a teacher throughout whether since he first saw him as doctrinaire and ultimately we hope is a philosopher i hope so i are anger who lure

well monty nico the peak this is at a national educational television