Six Great Ideas with Bill Moyers & Mortimer Adler; 101; Truth

I. TRUTH

BILL MOYERS: Six great ideas – truth, goodness, beauty, liberty, equality, justice. Why these six?

Dr. MORTlMER L, ADLER: One answer, Bill, is the Declaration of Independence - the document that every American should understand - and five of those six ideas are in the first four lines of the second paragraph. Let me recite those four lines:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they're endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" - which is the ultimate good - "That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

I. TRUTH

BILL MOYERS: Six great ideas –truth, goodness, beauty, liberty, equality, justice. Why these six?

Dr. MORTlMER L, ADLER: One answer, Bill, is the Declaration of Independence - the document that every American should understand - and five of those six ideas are in the first four lines of the second paragraph. Let me recite those four lines:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they're endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" - which is the ultimate good - "That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

There are five of the six ideas, and the sixth is in another great document, Pericles' famous speech at the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian War in which he was comparing Athenian civilization and culture with the militaristic state of Sparta, and said, "We Athenians cultivate beauty without effeminacy." There's the six of them.

Now, there's a second reason. Three of these ideas - the first three, truth, goodness and beauty - are the values by which we judge everything in the universe - our ideas, our thoughts, human conduct, the world of nature and the world of artistic products. The second three ideas - liberty, equality and justice - are the ideas that relate you and me, relate people in society. Their equality, their freedom to relate to one another, their just or unjust treatment of one another - they are the ideas that govern our actions. They are the ideas by which we evaluate governments and societies and laws.

MOYERS: One of the oldest of all questions: what is truth?

Dr. ADLER: Truth consists in the agreement between what we think and what is in the world, what is real.

MOYERS [voice-over}: Here comes Mortimer Adler, with great ideas - six, to be exact. He aims to make us think about truth, beauty and goodness, liberty, equality and justice. And the first of these is truth.

MOYERS [voice-overl: Aspen, Colorado, home every summer for the Aspen Institute. To its seminars come people from all over the world, to take part in intellectual free-for-alls over the classic ideas of Western thought. In their midst, that most demanding and controversial provocateur of all, the philosopher and teacher Mortimer Adler. He's been disturbing the peace of mind in this valley for 30 of his 80 years.

to Dr. Adlerl You've been coming out here a long time.

Dr. ADLER: Yes, indeed, more than 30 years.

MOYERS: You've spent a lot more of your time than that with the great books.

Dr. ADLER: The great books for me now goes back more than 60 years, back to the 1920s, when I was a student at Columbia University and began reading them under the marvelous guidance of a great teacher, John Erskine. And in fact I've been reading, studying and teaching the great books ever since then.

MOYERS: What led you to them?

Dr. ADLER: Well, the attractiveness of this teacher and the course he offered. It took two years; we read about 60 books in two years, and discussed them once a week on a Wednesday night. And I learned, I think, how to discuss the great books and how to lead discussions of the great books from him. Marvelous teacher, John Erskine. And the more I read them, the more I

studied them, the more led discussions of them, the more I discovered that the heart of the great books of the great ideas - the great ideas they discuss - there in those books is the Western discussion, the Western consideration, the Western examination and exploration, and the controversies about the great ideas.

MOYERS: What in particular grabbed you in those early days, when you were just a student?

Dr. ADLER: Well, the issues raised, they used to be the most important intellectual issues; and often the most important practical issues that any human being can face are stated in teI:Il1s of ideas like liberty and equality and justice, or truth, goodness and beauty, man, God, immortality, sin, virtue, happiness. I mean, the great ideas are at the heart of our lives in some sense, certainly, our intellectual lives, no question about that at all.

MOYERS: You're most known to many people for your work in Aspen with this institute.

Dr. ADLER: Yes, well, it was in 1950 that Walter and Elizabeth Paepcke first brought me to Aspen, and I've been coming ever since. Walter in 1950 established the Aspen Institute and in the next year we started the first executive seminars that I've been moderating for the last 30 years. And in those executive seminars the central ideas have been liberty, equality, justice, rights, property, tragedy - ideas that I've been considering all my life. And I must say that these Aspen seminars have been the most refreshing and fruitful summers I can possibly spend.

MOYERS: But in addition to moderating the seminars, you've written a lot, haven't you?

Dr. ADLER: Oh, yes. In that house there, for example, I wrote two books - the book on the existence of God, and a book on moral philosophy. Back there in the house from which we started, I wrote the book on--some of the book on angels, and a book on the great ideas; and in this house we're coming to along here in a moment, I wrote a book called The Time of Our Lives. a book called The Common Sense of PolitiCs. and a book called The Difference (!(Mall and theDifference It Makes. So that along this street, just within these few hundred yards, I've written seven books in Aspen.

MOYERS: What was the idea behind the executive seminars and of bringing adults to the table to discuss these ideas?

Dr. ADLER: Well, all, all the people that come to these executive seminars - top executives from our corporations, top persons in United States public life and the professions - they've all become, shall I say, narrow specialists in their fields, and Walter's idea and the idea of the Aspen Institute under Joe Slater has been to open their minds to the great truths, and the great discussions - to make them generalists as well as specialists.

MOYERS: Try to re-educate them.

Dr. ADLER: Re-educate them, and they all, I think, appreciate that re-education. I've known. almost no one who has come to an Aspen executive seminar that hasn't regarded it as one of the , .. ' most profitable two weeks in his life. . ..•.. :.'

MOYERS: Is it your feeling that adults can deal with these later in life more easily than they could--

Dr. ADLER: It's been said that you can't teach an old dog new tricks, but a human adult is not an old dog. And a human adult can learn very much more than children can. In fact. as you grow- as you become more mature, learning is more fruitful because you have wider experience, wider background to increase and improve your understanding. I've always thought that adult learning was the 'very- the very essence of human education.

MOYERS: The seminars we're going to be in over the coming days will include people from different cultures. What is your feeling about the cross-cultural exchanges that take place?

Dr. ADLER: I think we're still at that stage in the world's development when there is no trans-cultural community. I think we're going to have difficulty having the Easterners and the Westerners, the non-Westerners, talk to one another. But it'll be, even though difficult, the fact _ the appearance, the emergence of those difficulties will teach us what we have to do to achieve in the course of time a world cultural community.

MOYERS: But you do think that truth is global?

Dr. ADLER: I think that truth is trans-cultural; I think. all the fundamental values are.

SOEDJATMOKO, Indonesian philosopher/rector, United Nations University, Tokyo: The capacity to comprehend truth has something to do with one's capacity to love.

Dr. ADLER: I have to say, Koko, I disagree with you completely. I couldn't disagree more. Love has nothing, loving has nothing to do with truth. [laughter} Just a moment – I'm not against loving, I'm just saying it has nothing to do with truth.

BETTY SUE FLOWERS, Associate Dean of Graduate Studies, University of Texas:

And yet the etymology of "philosopher" is the love of wisdom.

ADLER: Wisdom - that's another question entirely.

Ms. FLOWERS: The love of wisdom is different from the love of truth?

ADLER: Oh, yes. Wisdom isn't the same as truth, no. No, the love of truth is a much broader term than wisdom. Wisdom is a very special kind of truth, and philosophers are those- I'm not saying that people shouldn't love the truth; I'm just saying I'm not saying that one shouldn't love the truth, in fact, if one didn't love the truth, one wouldn't try to pursue it. We only pursue what we love.

ALAN BULLOCK, historian, Fellow of the British Academy: And we only pursue

what we'll never find.

Dr. ADLER: The pursuit is endless, yes, the pursuit is endless, and all I'm saying is that one goes on with it endlessly.

MOYERS [voice-overj: Nothing so becomes the human being, says Mortimer Adler, as our mind; and nothing gives him more joy than provoking us to use it. His latest book, Six Great Ideas, will engage and enrage these men and women who have gathered to debate. You'l1 meet each by name during this series of films, including a Native American author, an Indonesian philosopher, an oil producer from Texas, a physicist, a lawyer, a judge - 14 in all, of diverse experience and opinion, in the company of Six great ideas and one Mortimer Adler.

Why the pursuit of truth?

Dr. ADLER: It's the deepest human aspiration; it's the thing that distinguishes mankind from all other animals. In fact, in his pursuit of truth man is-in contemplation of truth , man is most

like God.

MOYERS: Most like God?

Dr. ADLER: The contemplation of truth - Aristotle thinks of God as being concerned only with the contemplation of truth.

MOYERS: Is it merely - or only - an intellectual pursuit?

Dr. ADLER: I think it is. I think it's the mind of man- it is not a matter of the heart, it's not a matter of feeIings _ it's a matter of the mind, the reasoning mind, the understanding mind that

we use to pursue truth.

MOYERS: But are there not works of art, the literature of Carlos Casteneda, for example, that may not be truthful but is meaningful?

Dr. ADLER: Oh, yes. I mean, the great- there is poetic truth, of course, but poetic truth is of a totally different kind and I think you're correct in saying poetic truth lies most in its significance rather than in its, shall I say, factual accuracy.

MOYERS: An example?

Dr. ADLER: Well, just take for a moment the extraordinary poetic truth in the satirical writing of Jonathan Swift, Gullilver'sTravels. Obviously not true in fact, but extraordinarily true in meaning.

MOYERS: What difference do you-- or what distinction do you draw between objective truth and subjective truth?

Dr. ADLER: Objective truth is truth that is independent of individual differences, differences in circumstance, time and place. What is objectively true is always true and true tor all men everywhere at all times.

Baron RUDIGER VON WECHMAR, Ambassador to the U.N., Federal Republic of Germany:

I have a problem with the basic definition that you give in your book.

Dr. ADLER: Which is?

Baron VON WECHMAR: Which is, truth is an agreement or a correspondence with or in your own mind, which you control, and reality.

Dr. ADLER: Right.

Baron VON WECHMAR: Now, I question, who determines what is reality?

Dr. ADLER: I'm glad you asked the question, Rudi, because if anyone supposes, if anyone supposes that the so-called correspondence theory of truth, which says truth consists in having in one's mind opinions or thoughts or judgments that agree with reality - means"" that we have in one hand reality and know what it is, and in the other hand have a mind and compare them - that's utterly absurd. No one ever said that. No one can even think it it's ridiculous. There is no- you can't ever test the truth by direct comparison, by looking at what it's in your mind and looking at reality, because you have nothing but your mind. Reality is out there. That is why William James at the beginning of the century developed what was called the pragmatic theory of truth, which is, after all, merely a formulation that goes way back: in history, but he gave it great impact and force. The definition of truth as the correspondence or the agreement of our minds with reality doesn't tell you how you test, how you test, by what criteria you measure the truth and falsity of the particular statement.

I gave one example in the book I'd like to mention. Two men are in a boat, rowing downstream, and they think that the cataract they're rowing toward is four miles off. And thinking that, which is false, because in fact the cataract is two miles off, they doze in the sun, and in two miles go over the cataract. The test of their wrong judgment is their death in this particular case. When William James says the truth is what works, he meant a true judgment in one's mind is one which, if followed out, doesn't bring you into violent conflict with reality, in which you get hit in the face by an opposing state of affairs. When you have the truth in your mind, it works successfully if you carry it out. This is another way of saying two things: that in science we have confirmatory evidence and we have what's called falsification. When men said - as they did say, and men are prone to vast generalizations - "All swans are white," suddenly someone in some remote part of the world said, "That's a swan and it's black." That one instance, that one instance of a black swan refutes that generalization. Reality has denied the generalization. Because you don't know in advance what reality is and then say, "Let me look at my mind and look at reality, I can say what's true and false." It is by a process of testing, of acting. of following out the consequences, that you find out what's true and false. May I go on this side of the table for a moment - yes?

MOYERS: What is the difference between truth and reality?

Dr. ADLER: Truth is a property of our thought, reality is what measures that property.

MOYERS: Explain that.

Dr. ADLER: Well, "true" and "taJse" are adjectives that apply to the acts of our mind- our judgments, our opinions, our thoughts or our statements. Reality is what those thought~, opinions or statements are about. And when the statements, thoughts or opinions we have agree with reality as tested by the pragmatic consequences of acting on our judgments, you see, then reality, which is independent of our minds, and is what it is regardless of what we think about it, sometimes supports our action when we think truly - and lets us go on - and when we think falsely it blocks us, frustrates us, and often does us in.

ROBERT MOSBACHER, independent oil producer, Houston:

Truth and reality itself seem to me to be more relative than absolute, at least that's the way the world appears. For instance, using the basic concept - going back to the Declaration of Independence and other things - .. All men are created equal." Well, that seems to me to be a relative statement rather than an absolute statement.

Dr. ADLER: One thing we must not forget is, when I say truth is immutable, I'm not saying our judgments are unchanging. We give up things that we thought were true and now regard as untrue. We reach new truths. But when a proposition is true, if it ever is true, because it does conform with the way things are, either at that time or always are, then it always is true. Even if we change our minds about it - our changing our minds about it doesn't make it true or false. We're not- if you and I, for example, were to disagree about the height of Mount Everest or the population of Denver, our disagreement wouldn't affect the facts about the matter. You might be right and I might be wrong, but the facts remain the same at a given time.

Mr. MOSBACHER: Are they ascertainable?

Dr. ADLER: Yes, Francis.

FRANCIS MADING DENG, Sudan Ambassador to Canada: Let me [unintelligibleJ come to his defense somehow. I think if we take the examples given here. they tend to be illustrative of something that is physical, that is identifiable. and that to a large extent even though there' may be variations of the sort that was mentioned before. could be more or less assessed as to whether it is true or not. But I think the problem as I see it, is that it claims to be an exclusive, or inclusive, rather, definition of truth. And that is where I come to share his point. That it seems there are many areas where you cannot be talking about something tangible. something physically identifiable. We speak of truth or falsehood in relation to moral issues. or value judgments.

Dr. ADLER: Francis

Mr. DENG: So would it not help if you say this is only part of the truth? That there's a lot we

Dr. ADLER: When we come - as we will come shortly in another session - to the discussion of goodness, I'm going to defend the proposition that there are moral truths; that value judgments are not subjective, but objective; that one can talk about good and bad, right and wrong, in a manner which make the statements true and false in another meaning of truth. I agree, this is- the area of truth which we're here discussing is descriptive truth. and not prescriptive truth. Nothing to do with oughts or ought nots, shoulds or should nots. goods - that's why I left off the question of all men being equal, because it's a judgment that belongs to another area. Now, I'm not disagreeing with you, nor am I disagreeing that there's another kind of truth called poetic truth, nor am I begging the question whether or not moral judgments are true or false. or philosophy and theology and religion are true and false - leaving that all in abeyance.

All I'm trying to say is, we must begin with a notion of truth that is exemplified, I think, in our pursuit of truth in mathematics and the empirical sciences, and I say also, in our jury trials and in the conduct of our daily affairs. I want to call your attention- I don't want you to forget. In our Anglo-American culture at least, what happens in a jury trial when a jury brings in a verdict and says this is true and that is false - the plaintiff at the bar is guilty or not guilty. Usually the jury is answering a question of fact, not a question of law. The meaning of true and false I'm using is not limited to science or history, but is the meaning of truth which we operate in our daily intercourse with one another.

ROBIN DUKE, business and population advisor, New York: When you talk about a jury trial, just bring it down to the simplest situation and talk about-- you have a fight among the children in the family - who hit who first, and who makes the decision about whether one is guilty or innocent.

Dr. ADLER: I often say to my children and to my wife as well, who argues with them in the wrong way, that there shall be no arguments about questions of fact. No arguments. because questions of fact are not settled by arguments.

Ms. DUKE: What's the facts? Who's determining the facts? Who did hit first?

Dr. ADLER: It isn't settled by the two persons who--- one of whom says "I hit first," and the other fellow says, "I hit first ... You have those two contrary statements of fact and if you've no other evidence, you better let it go at that. You can't settle it that way. Now, if you have observers, and in a jury trial that question of fact is settled by testimony, lots of testimony on both sides, often other kinds of evidence, sometimes real evidence is brought into the court all I'm saying is that merely contrary assertions about fact can't be resolved by doing anything about it.

BETTY SUE FLOWERS: Even limiting myself to the notion of truth as descriptive truth--

Dr. ADLER: Descriptive truth, yes.

Ms. FLOWERS: And using your purest example, that of the mathematician, I still have difficulty with the notion of correspondence. Let me explain what I mean by the difficulty. You say that truth of thought consists in the correspondence between what one thinks

Dr. ADLER: And what is the case.

Ms. FLOWERS: And what is the case. And my question is, what is the nature of that correspondence? Is it in itself what one thinks, an object of thought

Dr. ADLER: No, no.

Ms. FLOWERS: Or is it, well, does it belong to the world out there?

Dr. ADLER: Neither. That is, let me say, both Plato and Aristotle at the very beginning of our Western tradition - and it is Western - define truth in the following way, and it's a very simple statement. They said a man thinks truly or has a true opinion if he asserts that that which is, is, and that that which is not, is not. And he thinks falsely, or holds and judges a false opinion if he asserts that that which is, is not, or that that which is not, is. See? That's- now, that's what the correspondence is. Now I went on to the point that you don't- to find out whether what you're asserting is true or false, you have to use all kinds of empirical tests. You have to--- the correspondence merely means what you're aiming to find out. You're trying to find out whether what you think, the opinion you have, is one that does correspond. And you find it out, James has said, by making experiments, by acting out - following the line of your thought and seeing if it works - all kinds of empirical tests are required to find out whether the

correspondence exists. You can't inspect it, there's no inspection -:- direct inspection - of the correspondence between your mind and reality, because you don't have in one hand your mind. and on the other hand reality. It's not like two pictures you're- it's not like, does this picture correspond to that picture - you don't have two pictures in front of you. You only have the one picture, and to find out if that picture corresponds with the thing that isn't pictured, that you don't have a picture of but is the thing you're trying to correspond with. you've got to do all kinds of indirect tests.

Ms. FLOWERS: Then what happens to the subject-object distinction?

Dr. ADLER: It isn't involved. The objective aspect of truth lies in the correspondence or non-correspondence between your mind and reality. The subjective aspect of truth lies in the judgments you make, which are either right or wrong. At any given moment that correspondence either is or is not, whatever you think. You may be right or wrong in your judgments, and it's your judgments that change. not the truth that changes.

Ms. FLOWERS: There are certainly different modes of reality, and I think the language misleads us here, because we use reality, or we've been using it in this discussion, as a noun. as an "it," out there. What if it's an activity? What if it is, as the poet said, "an activity of the most august imagination"?

Dr. ADLER: Well, look. Betty Sue, we must never argue about words. You are privileged, a~ I am privileged, to use words any way you wish. I use the word "reality," and I could use the word "glug"-

Ms. FLOWERS: But I'm not arguing about that, I'm arguing about your assumption that it is an "it."

Dr. ADLER: No, but I have to repeat what I said, because it hasn't been understood yet. I may be wrong in this assertion - my only assertion is that there exists things that are independent of the mind, would exist if we didn't think about them at all, and are what they are and are not what they are not, regardless of how we think about them.

Baron VON WECHMAR: So it is you who determines what is the reality?

Dr. ADLER: No. No one- no one can possibly do that. Our whole

Baron VON WECHMAR: Or defines whether it is real

Dr. ADLER: No--

Baron VON WECHMAR: Whether it is a reality or not.

Dr. ADLER: No, sorry, no-didn't say that, either. All I said about reality is, ifI use the word reality, I'm saying that there is, there exists, something. All I'm- now, this, you may challenge this, but the basic presupposition of my understanding of truth is this: that there exists something independently of our mind, that would exist if we had no minds at all and there were no human beings thinking about it, and that it is what it is, regardless of how we think about it. That's what I mean by an independent- and our whole effort in the pursuit of truth is to get better and better and better approximations _. and only approximations, too - to descriptive statements about that reality.

Baron VON WECHMAR: But it is still your judgment and not a generally shared judgment. You can be utterly wrong in judging the reality can't you?

Dr. ADLER: Precisely. I ~aid at one point, didn't I, that in the 18th century most scientists of repute thought that the atom was indivisible. Were they right or wrong at that time? Rudi, were they right?

Baron VON WECHMAR: At that time they were right. absolutely.

Dr. ADLER: No, they were wrong - the atom was

Baron VON WECHMAR: I'm sorry, if the

Dr. ADLER: They were wrong, were they not?

Baron VON WECHMAR: That's right, yes, absolutely.

Dr. ADLER: Though at that time that was the received expert opinion. The atom hasn't changed. It was divisible in the 18th century. it', divisible in the 20th century. but the scientists

were wrong and what we've done by our additional physical knowledge, by 20th century atomic theory and elementary particle theories is to refute a wrong view about the structure of the atom.

Baron VON WECHMAR: But you're proving my point, you're arriving at the judgment of yourself whether the reality is a reality or not. True or false - you decide.

Dr. ADLER: That's what the pursuit of truth is! How do we find it out? By experiment, by testing - all I'm describing is the normal, in the most common-sense terms, not the most elaborate terms - the normal process of investigation.

MOYERS: You say in the book, "If a given statement is ever objectively true, it is true forever and immutably true." What does that mean?

Dr. ADLER: Let me give you an example. For centuries, most men and even most scientists thought that the earth was the center of the solar system, that the sun, the moon and the planets revolved around a stationary earth. That was Ptolemy's astronomy, and the Greek astronomy - Aristotle's astronomy. And Copernicus came up with the opposite view - the so-called heliocentric view - that in our solar system, not in the universe at large, the sun is the center and the moon and the planets including the earth revolve in orbits around the sun. It then took some time to prove the correctness of the Copernican theory. It took the time until we got to the Foucault pendulum, which really registers the motion of the earth. Now, that didn't suddenly become true - it always was true. For all the centuries when men thought otherwise it was true that the earth revolved around the sun even though it took until the 17th and 18th centuries for us to come to know that to be true and generally acknowledge it. The truth is always the same when we know it- when we have it. The fact that men change their minds, that what scientists and other men think is true at a time when it is wrong, doesn't make it true.

MOYERS: What determines whether a statement, for example, is true or false?

Dr. ADLER: As in this case, the evidence. I mean, the evidence of the Foucault pendulum absolutely shows the rotation of the earth.

MOYERS: And that will therefore be true forever.

Dr. ADLER: Well, no, not forever- as long as the solar system lasts. Not forever, I'm sorry. I can't guarantee the eternity of the solar system.

MOYERS: Do you believe in the reality of the imagination?

Dr. ADLER: I don't like the word reality. Do you mean, do men have imaginations? Yes.

MOYERS: But do you believe that in their imagination there is truth?

Dr. ADLER: No.

MOYERS: The truth of experience? If I imagine that something is so.

Dr. ADLER: No, imagination--

MOYERS: What men see in their minds that you can't see - that's not true?

Dr. ADLER: Well, if, on the basis of what they imagine they make a statement about what they imagine, and the statement is about the real world. though they've come to it by the imagination, then that statement is either true or false. But it isn't their imagination that is true, it is the statement they make on the basis of their imagining. Imagination as such is neither true nor false.

Mr. SOEDJATMOKO: Part of the search for truth is the search for meaning. And to leave meaning out of the search of truth reduces truth to the level of our capacity or incapacity to deal with- to develop the instrumentalities to comprehend it.

Dr. ADLER: I don't think- I have some difficulty with your statement. Koko, because no statement can be true or false or judged that is not significant. Meaningless statements are neither true nor false:, all true and false statements and all considerations of truth involve meaning, and I haven't left meaning out. I do understand what you're saying in other terms. I agree with you. That the sense of truth in which I proposed it at the beginning of the discussion, is the sense of truth which in the West - and I'd like to come back to you with another question, if I may - which in the West is the truth we try to achieve in our efforts to improve our mathematical reasoning, our empirical sciences - and I'll raise questions about whether there's truth in philosophy, truth in religion. And I'm going to hold you to the question of whether or not when we talk about human rights, there are statements that are true or false about human rights, trans-culturally.

JAMAKE HIGHWATER, author & artist: It seems to me you're trivializing truth to such a degree that it's totally unacceptable. In fact, you're using it as a weapon. And what we're finding here is exactly what we find in the world at large; 14 people are having very little input because of the fact that your concept of truth limits what we are able to say and what we are able-- our input. Now, let me go on, please. There is in the 1928 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica this statement: It is not simply that they are disorganized and that they are new at being nations that makes the federation of Central American nations create such upheaval, but the fact that they are racially inferior. " Now, that was in the Encyclopedia Britannica in 1928, and was perpetuated - it was truth used as a weapon. And it is always used as a weapon.

Dr. ADLER: But it wasn't true. And I say, Jamake, as quickly as I can, the Encyclopedia Britannica - of which I've been chairman of the board of editors for some time - makes lots of errors. We correct them all the time. We continually- no human book is not full of errors. I wish I could say that every word in the encyclopedia-- every sentence in the encyclopedia was true, but can't dare say that, I know that's not true!

Mr. HIGHWATER: But that isn't my point. My point isn't that the world is open to revision

Dr. ADLER: Sure it is.

Mr. HIGHW A TER: My point is that the concept of truth as Westerners have perpetuated it and as they have made it ultimate, fixed, singular, has not only- has upheld monotheism, which is the bottom line as far as missionaryism, it has upheld all of the most negative aspects of the Western relationship with other cultures. And we're doing it again here today.

MOYERS: But are you looking at the world from a peculiarly Western center?

Dr. ADLER: I have found that the ideas that- the great ideas that I've been concerned with are Western i4eas. I think it is-- I think I'm talking not about the great ideas of world culture, which doesn't exist yet, but the great ideas of Western culture. I have to admit that this is parochial. In fact, I've had some experience with Far Eastern colleagues at the East-West Center in Honolulu, and I have tried to find out whether we had any common ground in discussing such simple ideas as liberty and justice, and we don't. They have a totally different, totally different vocabulary. In fact, justice is not nearly as important for them as another idea, which is harmony, which doesn't count for very much in the West.

Mr. HIGHWATER: History is written by the dominant culture. There would be no holocaust if the Nazis had won the Second World War. The reason that there is no American holocaust is that Indians didn't win. I mean, the point simply is is that history is a viewpoint, it is not a reality, it is not a truth. And we have been overwhelmed by Western certitude for centuries.

Dr. ADLER: There are two aspects of history, not one. There are statements, simple statements of fact in history, some of which can be ascertained to be true or false, and there's lots of interpretation - history is a mixed thing, it's a mixed bag. I often think of history as a curious mixture of science and poetry. Simple-- simple descriptive statements of fact, and narrative interpretations. And whether a good statement of historical events like the conquest of Mexico should include as many different interpretations as possible

Mr. HIGHWATER: But there you go with' 'conquest of Mexico. " It was not a conquest, it was an invasion. But you understand that banns us, that mentality betrays--

Dr. ADLER: I agree with you, I don't disagree with you.

Mr. HIGHWATER: You've also used the word "mankind" about seven times, and I don't know of who that- I mean, that excludes a great many people, and I'm not sure who mankind is.

ALAN BULLOCK: Jamake, can I just-see if we can't find one thing on this. Surely there is common ground here in this respect, that the events described - and I will not even attempt to put them together, but which can be called the invasion, the conquest or whatever you want - took place in the 16th century and not in the 12th.

Mr. HIGHTOWER: Right.

Mr. BULLOCK: The order of those things temporally is such they preceded the industrialization of the world.

Mr. HIGHTOWER: Right.

Mr. BULLOCK: I think that actually in history there are the nuggets that you can hold on to. They are difficult to describe.

Mr. HIGHTOWER: Excuse me, Alan, but let me just give you an example, because I don't mean to drive this into the ground, but I think for those of us who differ, it didn't happen in the 16th century, in 1519 at all, in happened in the year one.

Mr. BULLOCK: All right, then just take priority.

Mr. HIGHTOWER: And it is a different concept of time as it is a different concept of space.

Dr. ADLER: Please, Francis.

FRANCIS MADING DENG: It seems to me that one of our problems here is that truth viewed as facts cannot be viewed in isolation. It is a selective process in which our objectives and our preferences become relevant. If you take the court example you gave before, in the Western concept of jurisprudence, the function of the court is to identify the facts and apply the law to the facts and decide on right and wrongs, and litigants go in different directions. In the African concept of litigation, the objective of the court is to find a settlement that reconciles the conflicting parties so that they can go back and live together in harmony. In our process, if somebody volunteers some information which tends to pull the people away from one another instead of helping them come together, the court will shut that person up. The court is not interested in that fact. This has led some people to conclude that the African concept of truth is profoundly different from the Western concept of truth.

Dr. ADLER: I don't think so.

Mr. DENG: Well, this is what some people have said. I mean, you know. some commentators on African custom and law have said that. 1 think it's different conceptions of truth determined by certain objectives of society.

Dr. ADLER: I think- I'm having a great difficulty in agreeing with all of you, because I do, really do agree with almost everything that's been said, and yet you will not allow me to do it. In your case, I agree with you entirely that courts can operate with quite different objectives, and they will therefore undertake to investigate different facts. exclude-- our Western view of what's relevant or germane to a trial is not your African view. But in any case, when you have set the criteria for the facts you want to investigate, the investigation ascertains as much as possible which facts are facts and which are not, which is what is true and false, and the true and false about the facts you've selected for your purpose is the same true and false about the facts we've selected for our purpose.

MOYERS: Can there be false knowledge?

Dr. ADLER: No, there can't be-- you see, when you use the word true and false, you have to use the word opinions. There can be true and false opinions, but knowledge by its very nature carries the connotation of truth.

MOYERS: SO when the ancients said the world is flat, it was a false opinion, not false knowledge.

Dr. ADLER: Right, it was not knowledge at all, it was a false opinion.

MOYERS: Why do you think we prefer the opinions - and I'm quoting from your book here - why do you think we prefer the opinions to which we are attached on emotional, not rational, grounds?

Dr. ADLER: Well, it's simply that our emotional attachments are strong. We like to attach ourselves to opinions that favor our feelings, that favor our desires, that favor our temperamental inclinations. I don't think that's difficult to explain at all.

MOYERS: So opinion is stronger than truth.

Dr. ADLER: In many cases, yes. In fact. stronger than even ordinary opinions are deep-set prejudices. much stronger.

MOYERS: Even when we know that all men are created equal, and all men are by nature equal, we retain our prejudice that some men are inferior to others.

Dr. ADLER: Oh, no question about it.

MOYERS: How do you explain that - why is truth so often the victim?

Dr. ADLER: Because, because men in general are not given to using their minds as instruments for rational assessment of what is true and false. Most men just simply are persons who harbor opinions, cherish opinions, and don't submit them to tests or investigation. That's the reason, I think.

MOYERS: Does this invalidate the pursuit of truth?

Dr. ADLER: No. It does

MOYERS: If you know that emotions are going to finally triumph?

Dr. ADLER: No. It simply means that we should try, I think - just as we should try to cultivate in every human being a good moral character, which is a moral character inclined habitually to making right rather than wrong choices, so we should try to cultivate in all human beings a rational mind. And a rational mind is one which suspends judgment when it doesn't have evidence or reasons for affirming something is true or false, and only judges in the light of evidence and sound reasons. And most people are not rational. They are capable of being rational, but- just as most people are capable of being good, and haven't got- do not have good moral characters cultivated - so most human beings, capable of being rational, do not have their minds rationally disciplined to assess evidence and reasons for affirming or denying.

Mr. SOEDJA TMOKO: It would seem to me totally unimportant whether you or ( agree on your definition of truth. What is important for the purposes of our discussion is, can we share, can we enrich each other in our comprehension of truth in its varieties of meaning. and in the varieties and of the modalities of the search for truth? If We can agree on that. then it doesn't matter from what premise as to- what narrow premise, if you'll forgive me. of truth you start, and from what other premise (start from. Can we-l mean. after all. we are here not to discuss the correctness of a particular premise of truth, we are here together because somewhere there is this yearning for us to illuminate our own understanding of what we are about as human beings - driven by this yearning for truth.

Dr. ADLER: I have to say, that what you just said is an eloquent statement of what I disagree with. Now, I mean, you and I are really worlds apart. and we might as well frankly admit that.

Mr. SOEDJATMOKO: Sure, no problem, no problem.

Dr. ADLER: I think the search for truth is an intellectual undertaking and it doesn't involve the human relationships and human aspirations you're talking about. beyond the aspiration to get a better knowledge of reality, better understanding of what the world is.

Mr. SOEDJATMOKO: Sure, but what kind of reality? You know. if you ask the mystic, let's say, take a Christian mystic and ask him - well. there is literature there - ask him about his perception of truth and ultimate reality. You know, it goes way beyond the narrow - definition and methodology and research of truth that you use.

Dr. ADLER: I agree completely. ( think I've been perfectly clear that I'm not talking about- if there is mystical truth, which (might question, I'm not saying if there is mystical truth it isn't quite different from scientific truth, mathematical truth, and philosophical truth. They're all different - and historical and poetic - many modes of truth. I couldn t disagree with you about that.

Mr. SOEDJATMOKO: Sure.

Dr. ADLER: And all I'm saying is that in all the modes of truth in which there's a pursuit of truth, an advance of truth by the cooperative efforts of mankind, as exemplified by the improvement of our grasp of mathematical truth or as exemplified by the improvement of our grasp of scientific truth, there the meaning, the definition of truth I have given is the

guiding definition of truth.

Mr. HIGHTOWER: Hannah Arendt, you know, said something marvelous, (think. and I'm sure we agree that she made some achievements. She said that the use of reason should never be towards the discovery of truth, but towards the discovery of meaning, and that truth and meaning are not the same thing.

Dr. ADLER: I think Hannah Arendt is wrong on that point.

Mr. HIGHTOWER: Right, yes.

MOYERS: Thomas Jefferson believed, I think he believed, that every generation has the right to a revolution, and I often think he meant the right to alter the view of the world.

Dr. ADLER: The pursuit of truth is a continual process of correcting errors, enlarging inadequate grasps of the truth. There are two ways, by the way, in which the pursuit of truth is carried on. On the one hand, an error is corrected, a falsehood is rejected and is replaced by a truer statement. And I say truer- when I say true. I always mean truer rather than completely true - no. ( doubt if any statement we make is rich enough to be completely true; and truer at this time, not absolutely true or finally true, because every statement except for the self-evident ones are in the realm of doubt and are subject to enlargement and correction by further evidence and better reasoning in the future.

Judge JON O. NEWMAN, U.S. Court of Appeals, Hartford, Connecticut: As I understand what you're trying to posit. it is that there is a reality to many. many things, not merely mathematical formulas, but many things. Many things beyond the scientific ken. things as we'll see that have to do with liberties, justice - matters that are quite uncongenial to the traditional scientific analysis. But you still maintain there is a reality there. You have been criticized by our friends across the table for suggesting that we don't know that reality. And it seems to me whether we know the reality, whether there have been misperceptions in history, is a quite different matter from whether the reality is there. Jamake put to you that truth has been used as a weapon. It seems to me the real meaning of his point was not that truth was the weapon, but that different viewpoints, different dogmas indeed, were used as weapons. But what you're suggesting was not truth in his terms at all. However varied the views were about historical events that Alan and Jamake put, I'm persuaded by you that there was a reality at that time in history. Whether we can now reconstruct it and know it is a quite different matter. Whether we can perceive it, whether we can use our minds to know, to me is a different inquiry from whether the fact exists.

Dr. ADLER: I think that is the case, Jon, at least that's my view of the matter, that what all our efforts are is to make better in the sphere of doubt. And I'm mainly concerned with the sphere of doubt, where our judgments and assertions and denials have a future subject to change with new evidence and better reasoning.

Judge NEWMAN: I will add, though, I hope at some point we'll come back to your uses of the trial context, because I frankly think that's the worst example for your own proposition.

Dr. ADLER: Wouldn't you say that a jury- ]

Dr. ADLER: I know that jury trials in this country are often not well-conducted, but a jury- all I mean to say is, however badly conducted they may be or well-conducted in some cases, the jury is bringing an answer to a question of fact in the light of evidence adduced, witnesses examined, documents examined and so forth. They've reached- after they've deliberated in the jury room, they've come to a conclusion, either by the order of the court beyond a reasonable doubt, or by preponderance of the evidence

Judge NEWMAN: That's the point, that's the point. Your text at various points suggests that the jurors have confidence that they can by weighing the evidence know which is so.

Dr. ADLER: Not "know" in the full sense of know , they have an opinion. which they hold to be the right opinion, that's right.

Judge NEWMAN: I'm not even sure of that. At least, I don't think the law imposes that obligation on them, to have that opinion. And you put the other ingredient in the response you just made to me: there is a standard there, a degree of certainty

Dr. ADLER: That's exactly what I meant.

Judge NEWMAN: And that's quite different from them saying either the person did the crime or did not do the crime. I don't think the law in difficult cases has confidence that the fact-finder can tell whether it happened. All the law says is, the fact-finder can determine whether the likelihood is so to a sufficient degree that we as a society are willing to impose consequences.

Dr. ADLER: I am completely mystified, I must say, by my understanding of what I said and your understanding. What you've just said is exactly what I said.

Judge NEWMAN: Then we have no problem.

Dr. ADLER: Right. I insist we almost always-- in the practical world we can't act on certitude - we never act on anything else but probability. But it's a probability- there are no degrees-- let me put your point in another way. There are no degrees of truth; a statement is either true or false. But our judgment about it is more or less probable.

ALAN BULLOCK: The real issue, I think, comes to this: you believe, and I think Jon does. that reality is unambiguous. And I believe that in certain respects it is ambiguous as well as unambiguous. I believe the ambiguity is there, and I believe this is not only true of the physical sciences. but I believe it is true of a great many things in life. And I will give a my example the perfectly well-known psychological phenomenon of ambivalence _ love and hate mixed together. Now, that is a fact of reality to me as well as of my perception of it.

Dr. ADLER: Let me say once more just for the sake of whatever clarity- when I say there is a reality, and there may not- I'm willing to have that, and I want to be clearly understood, I'm saying that there is something outside our minds and our emotions and our persons which is what it is, regardless of how we think about it, or regardless of whether we're thinking about it or not. If there were no human beings on earth right now. no thinking minds, there would be a world, a nature, with all the elements that now are in it. acting exactly as they're acting, and our thinking about it makes no difference. How we think about it makes no difference to it at all. That's what I mean by being independent. and by being as determinate I mean that it is what it is regardless of what we think about it. And when it's mixed and difficult and combined, that's what it is. and our judgments must respond to that. Now. I'm. I hope you're

Mr. BULLOCK: Now, I don't agree with that, Mortimer. That is the real disagreement amongst many.

Dr. ADLER: I think that disagreement is as fundamental

Mr. BULLOCK: As we can be.

Dr. ADLER: Is as fundamental as we can be:

Mr. BULLOCK: Yeah.

Dr. ADLER: And I think, I have to go on to say. that the theory of truth that I'm defending depends upon my side of that disagreement; no question about it. If I'm not correct in holding that there is an independent reality which is determinate. is what it is regardless of what we think about it, then my view of the truth as an agreement with it, confOrmity toit. and my view of how truth is tested would not be the case.

MOYERS: You write in Six Great Ideas. "Disagreement about matters of truth is not. in the final reckoning, to be tolerated." Now, that strikes me as consistent with what a tyrant would say, who has said, "This is the truth and there shall be no disagreement. "

Dr. ADLER: The crucial words in that statement are. "in the final reckoning. " If it's a matter of truth, at the end of time all men should be able to agree about it. That's the goal. If it's a matter of truth, agreement is the ideal to be pursued. -

MOYERS: But how do you pursue that agreement?

Dr. ADLER: Oh. by the continual effort to get better reasons. correct errors. you get better evidence. Look. if something is true, if something is objectively true in the system which we 've been talking about it, all men should agree about it. If they don't. someone is in error. and the error must be corrected. I'm not saying who is in error. But when there is disagreement about a matter of truth, someone is wrong.

MOYERS: Doesn't that bespeak the totalitarian mentality?

Dr. ADLER: No. you don't force it. You only mean that you must- not to be tolerated means no one should give up on it, no one should say, ··Oh. well. let's not argue any longer." We should never give up the argument. Ifa matter of truth is disputed. you and I are obligated to the pursuit of truth. to go on arguing with one another. going out and getting more evidence. my correcting your errors of reasoning, your correcting mine. on 'til the end of time. as long as we live.

MOYERS: That's the pursuit of truth.

Dr. ADLER: That's right.

MOYERS: And it is in this.

Dr. ADLER: That's right.

Mr. DENG: Now, if you cannot define truth in the absolute sense, if you cannot identify truth as has been mentioned all along here, and what Alan was saying, that this is an act of faith - if you cannot get the total truth, the whole truth, so that you are continuously investigating, then how do you know it exists, that reality exists, is the question I want to ask?

Dr. ADLER: Well, let me put it this way. I don't know that it exists, but in my practical life and as an investigator and as a thinker, person who's been engaged in the pursuit of truth all his life, I have found myself in error, and I've found myself seriously in error and have made great mistakes. And all of these errors and mistakes that I've corrected have come about because reality says "No" to me. Reality says "No" to me-says it in various ways that hurt, interfere, stop me. Now, if there were no independent reality, reality couldn't say no to me in that way. If reality is dependent on me, it can't say no to me, I control it. What I don't control can stop me, and it's being stopped, held up, frustrated, that is the test of truth, and that is the evidence at the basis of my thinking - there is an independent reality out there that finds me in error and finds me in falsehood.

Mr. BULLOCK: You've spoken quite happily of the variety of truths, I think that is the phrase you have said. I simply want to say, I can't understand when you say a variety of truths, why you think there is a, single, homogeneous reality. I think there is a reality - I think there's more than one reality, and I think that as poetic truth is different from scientific truth, so I think poetic - that reality that corresponds to is too. I think reality is not homogeneous, I think it is capable of- I don't deny there's a reality, but I do not see any reason why you should confine it to one sort of truth. And I think the kind of reality may be multiple.

Dr. ADLER: You see, what I'm emphasizing is what is common to everything real, and you are not looking at that and talking about the differences among all the things that are real. Both are quite right. Among all the things that are real there are many differences. Among all the things that are real there's a common trait, independence of the human mind, that's all I'm saying.

Mr. BULLOCK: Well, I don't find it's a very helpful thought.

Dr. ADLER: Well, it is helpful for this reason. The reason why you don't find it helpful is because you aren't accepting why I say it.

Mr. BULLOCK: Because you wish to show there's objective truth.

Dr. ADLER: That is precisely- all I'm trying to say is, your point about the different kinds of reality, the hetero- doesn't change my point at all. That there can be many different kinds of real things as long as they're alI- the only thing that's required for objective truth, the only thing that's required for objective truth is that everything that is real be independent of the human mind, because if it isn't independent, it can't test the mind.

Mr. BULLOCK: Mortimer, no, because I believe there are different kinds of objectivity. I don't see why I have to accept one kind of objectivity.

Dr. ADLER: Well, let me disagree with you on that point. All these disagreements are useful. Did you disagree when I said that the objective- define the- or to clear the distinction between the objective and the subjective? I said the objective is in any case, in this area, in the area of goodness, in the area of beauty , in the area of morals - wherever we go - the objective is what is the same for everybody, and the subjective is what differs from individual to individual. Now, if- there may be nothing objective, but if there's anything that is the same- the other day at an Aspen conference, Alexander Copague made a remark that I wrote down because it was relevant here. He said, "Circumstances differ from place to place and time to time, but human aspirations are the same the world over. " Now, I'm not saying it's true, but if he was right- if he was right in saying that- I'm not saying it's true, if he was right in saying that human aspirations are the same the world over, then I would say human aspirations are objective. Because whatever is the same for all men everywhere is objective, and that which differs for men individually, individually, cultural ly, is what's subjective.

Mr. BULLOCK: All right, may I come back?

Dr. ADLER: Yep.

Mr. BULLOCK: I find the difficulty here that- the notion of objectivity, of shared objectivity, I accept, but the way in which we share it is different. The way in which I share agreement with you upon logical truth is different from the way in which I share agreement from you on the music of Mozart and the truth contained in that. That's a different kind of objectivity.

Dr. ADLER: Could I postpone, Alan, argument on this?

Mr. BULLOCK: All right, but my point stays.

Dr. ADLER: I would like to talk about the music of Mozart when we get to beauty, then I'll think I'Il

Mr. BULLOCK: It's a form of truth for me.

Dr. ADLER: I will be agreeing with you, not disagreeing with you, because beauty is a different problem, and the problem of truth about beauty is a very difficult problem indeed, in spite of Keats.

MOYERS: In lectures and conversations and in personal meetings, I've heard you affirm the existence of God. Suppose I were an atheist, and I said after hearing you say God exists, "No, Mortimer Adler, you're wrong, God does not exist."

Dr. ADLER: I would have to proceed differently than I would in the case of the fish I caught is larger than the fish you caught. That we can put to the test by getting a tape measure out and putting the two fish on the ground and measuring them, observing the measurement. In the case of a disagreement about God's existence, there is nothing but an appeal to reason. I would have to say to the atheist, I have grounds for affirming God's existence, I think grounds beyond a reasonable doubt for affirming God's existence, would you listen to my arguments? All I could do, in fact I've written a book that tries to do this, to set the arguments forth as clearly and plainly as possible. Now, the atheist will raise objections to my arguments. I must then answer his objections. I may or may not succeed in persuading him. Suppose I fail, suppose he remains an atheist and I remain a theist, a person who affirms God's existence. One of us is right and the other is wrong, because either God does exist or God does not exist, and if the atheist is wrong, he's wrong forever, not just tonight, just now, for if God does exist, He's always existed and always will exist.

MOYERS: But in matters of religion, you say there is finally no way to decide which is true and which is not.

Dr. ADLER: About all matters of faith, articles of religious faith are beyond argument. If there were any way, if there were any way at all to offer evidence or reasons in support of one faith or another, it wouldn't be faith. Faith is that which goes beyond the evidence of things seen.

MOYERS: And that's very personal.

Dr. ADLER: Yes. I'd go further and say it isn't William James' "will to believe," something I do voluntarily. I think that the proper doctrine is to say it's a gift of God. Those who have faith have it as God's gift.

MOYERS: But you can't prove that.

Dr. ADLER: No, I can 't prove it, that itself is unprovable. That itself is an article of faith.

MOYERS: SO, then, in the final analysis, who determines truth?

Dr. ADLER: There is no answer to that question; no one determines truth. Truth is always a matter of the arbitrament of men arguing with one another. No one determines- the truth is determined- the truth of opinions is determined by reality; when two men disagree about what they think is true, that must be submitted to argument, to evidence, to observation, to reason.

MOYERS: So the pursuit of truth is not a destination; it's a process.

Dr. ADLER: Precisely. And one that will go on to the end of time. I don't believe it ever will stop. And I only hope that, though I think there is some backsliding, that if we have a long life for the human race on earth, if we live the 100 million years the planet will endure, that we will accumulate more and more truth, correct more and more error, enlarge our grasp of the truth. But we will always fall short, we'll always fall short of the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

MOYERS Mortimer Adler. In our next episode, the idea is beauty.

I'm Bill Moyers.