We have come down to the final two candidates in this series to determine who is “the most erudite person in history.”
Before launching into the final assessment, I need to provide an overview on Mortimer J. Adler. I think it is one that most readers will find interesting. Then, in the next post, I will assess the credentials for both candidates.
Mortimer Jerome Adler is a compelling candidate for the title of “Most Erudite Person in History.” Compared to C.S. Lewis, he has quite different credentials, but they merit serious consideration.
At first glance, one might conclude that the case for Adler seems more compelling than the case for C.S. Lewis—this based not so much on documented evidence of his erudition, but due to the sheer weight of his accomplishments in life. This includes the positions he held during his career and his enormous literary accomplishments.
No slouch, this one.
Adler was a philosopher, educator, editor, encyclopedist and popular author. He taught first at Columbia University, then at the University of Chicago. He served as Chairman of the Board of Editors for Encyclopedia Britannica and founded the Institute for Philosophical Research.
These are impressive credentials, but by no means were they his most compelling.
Adler’s Nonconforming Education
There is an amazing story about Mortimer Adler’s education. He is, to the best of my knowledge, the only person to graduate from college with a PhD, without ever graduating from high school, or receiving an undergraduate diploma, or earning a master’s degree. How is that possible?
As a teenager, Adler dropped out of high school at age 14 to become a copy boy for the New York Sun. His aspiration was to become a journalist. He never returned to high school. However, a few years later he did start taking writing classes at night, where he discovered the field of philosophy. As his interest in philosophy was triggered, he enrolled at Columbia University. Although he completed all the necessary course work for his bachelor’s degree, he flatly refused to take a “swimming exam” that was required of all students. That diploma was not bestowed.
Still, Adler hung around the university, eventually receiving an instructorship, and finally a doctorate in psychology, with the university waiving the requirement to first earn a Master’s degree. Three years later Adler was recruited by the University of Chicago to serve as a professor of the philosophy of law.
Adler’s Interest in Philosophy
As a young man, Adler encountered the works of Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, John Stuart Mill and many other philosophers. These great thinkers were being dismissed as “irrelevant” by student activists in the 1960s, and callously subjected to the scorn of “political correctness” in later decades. Adler resolved to reverse this trend toward the “dumbing down” of America. He endeavored to bring philosophy to the masses. And so, he did.
Adler was especially drawn to the ethics of Aristotle, which he saw not only as common sense but also as the only moral philosophy that is undogmatic and yet answers those questions that moral philosophy should answer. This led to his book Aristotle for Everyone, which became an immediate best-seller.
Adler sought to discredit the philosophical fallacies that began to take root in academia. C.S. Lewis had debunked as many as twenty different “philosophical fallacies” during his career–beginning with his successful effort to refute subjectivism and scientism in The Abolition of Man and proceeding to many other shorter essays on agnosticism, historicism, rationalism, pantheism, chronological snobbery, and moral relativism (among others).
In the same way, Adler sought to refute “philosophical fallacies” as reflected in his 1985 book, Ten Philosophical Mistakes. This mission he had in common with C.S. Lewis.
Adler’s Interest in Religion
Mortimer J. Adler (1902 – 2001) was born in New York City to non-observant Jewish parents of German descent. In his early twenties he discovered Thomas Aquinas and Summa Theologica. In time, the study of theology was highest among his philosophical interests.
He abandoned his parent’s tepid faith to become a “philosophical theologist” in the Thomist tradition, though he withheld his commitment to Christianity for years due to concerns about moral issues.
Decades later in 1984, he finally submitted to “the Hound of Heaven” and joined the Episcopalian Church of his ardently Episcopal wife, Caroline. In 1999, soon after her passing, he became the Roman Catholic he had been training to be all his life. In a way, Adler’s faith journey is like that of C.S. Lewis— exploratory, measured, protracted.
Adler’s explanation for becoming a Christian is illustrative:
“My chief reason for choosing Christianity was because the mysteries were incomprehensible. What’s the point of revelation if we could figure it out ourselves? If it were wholly comprehensible, then it would just be another philosophy.”
This sounds like something C.S. Lewis might have said.
In his book, How to Think About God (1981) Adler conceded that God’s existence cannot be proven or demonstrated, but only established as true beyond a reasonable doubt.
This, too, sounds like something C.S. Lewis might have said.
Adler’s Interest in Education
As an educator, Mortimer Adler not only taught at several of America’s top universities, but he also worked diligently to revolutionize education for young Americans. Like Lewis, Adler was an ardent advocate, not just of reading the right books, but reading books in the right way. In 1966, his famous work, How to Read a Book, became a bestseller, and remains so to this day.
In 1982 Adler published The Paideia Proposal, which led to the “Paideia Program” a few years later, a grade school curriculum centered around guided reading and discussion of difficult works. Adler believed that a system oriented primarily for vocational training has as its objective the training of slaves, not free men, and that the only preparation necessary for vocational work is to learn how to learn.
Adler’s Published Works
As an author Adler’s output was prolific AND popular. He wrote 52 books. His ten most renowned books are (in chronological order):
· How to Think About War and Peace (1944)
· The Capitalist Manifesto (1958)
· How to Read a Book (1966)
· Aristotle for Everybody (1978)
· How to Think About God (1980)
· Six Great Ideas (1981)
· How to Speak/How to Listen (1983)
· Ten Philosophical Mistakes (1985)
· The Paideia Proposal (1982)
· How to Think About the Great Ideas (2000)
· How to Prove There Is a God (2011)
In addition, Adler edited (or compiled) 9 others. His three most renowned encyclopedic compilations are:
· Great Books of the Western World (1952: 52 volumes)
· The Syntopicon: An Index to the Great Ideas (1952: 2 volumes)
· Gateway to the Great Books (1963; 10 volumes)
The “Great Books of the Western World”
Mortimer Adler and Robert Hutchins, the president of the University of Chicago founded the “Great Books of the Western World” program in 1952. Critics challenged the dogmatic selection of classics of Western civilization and proposed numerous worthy authors whom Adler omitted, notably non-white and female writers. Nonetheless, in 1954, he convinced Encyclopedia Britannica publishers to issue a bound set of Great Books of the Western World (GBWW), a 52-volume collection of 443 works by great thinkers from Homer to Solzenitzen.
Adler also conceived and directed the preparation of its companion two-volume index, The Great Ideas: A Syntopicon of Great Books of the Western World, a 2,000-page index to the set.
By any measure, this was Mortimer Adler’s masterwork.
Adler later edited for Encyclopedia Britannica the 10-volume Gateway to the Great Books (1963). Other books related to this program were later published, including How to Think About the Great Ideas (2000), which I just purchased as a Kindle book yesterday.
With this initiative, Adler and Hutchins became ardent advocates of the pursuit of liberal education through reading great books. Overall, his insistence on self-directed education never achieved the level of student enlightenment that he had originally envisioned.
However, it did lead to the founding of “great books curricula at St. Johns College, Thomas Aquinas College, Hillsdale College and elsewhere.
By any measure, Mortimer J. Adler was an extremely erudite person. He is a great man and a worthy candidate for “the most erudite person in history.” Many of his works warrant our attention.
With the next post, I will move forward with the final assessment.
Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31
Erudition Series Index
