| Home | Famous Actors | Famous Musicians | Famous People in the News | Popular Famous People | Latest Famous People | Famous Quotations |
|
| Famous People | Most Popular | Latest Famous | ||
Megan Fox Elizabeth Taylor Hilary Duff Jennifer Love Hewitt More Hot Famous Actors |
Lil' Wayne Lisa Marie Presley Chris Brown Madonna More Hot Famous Musicians |
Oprah Winfrey George W. Bush Barack Obama John McCain More Famous People in the News |
Nicanor Abelardo Frank Abagnale Rosemary Kennedy Dr. Theodore Seuss Geisel 100 Most Popular Famous People |
William Langland William Pickens William Pitt the Younger William Allen Last 100 Famous People Added |
| Famous People: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z |
Mortimer Adler Biography
Mortimer Jerome Adler was an American philosopher and author. Adler was born in New York City. After dropping out of high school at age 14, he worked as a copy boy for the New York Sun. Wanting to become a journalist, he took writing classes at night where he discovered the works of men he would come to call heroes: Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, John Stuart Mill and others. He went on to study philosophy at Columbia University. Though he failed to complete the necessary physical education requirements for a bachelor's degree, he stayed at the university and eventually was given a teaching position and was awarded a doctorate in philosophy. Adler was appointed to the philosophy faculty at the University of Chicago in 1930, where he met its president Robert Hutchins, with whom he founded the Great Books of the Western World program. He founded and served as director of the Institute for Philosophical Research in 1952. For a long time he was Chairman of the Board of Editors of the Encyclopædia Britannica, and influenced many of the policies of the 15th edition. He introduced the Paideia Proposal which resulted in his founding the Paideia Program, a grade-school curriculum centered around guided reading and discussion of difficult works (as judged for each grade). With Max Weismann, he founded The Center for the Study of The Great Ideas. Adler long strove to bring philosophy to the masses, and some of his works (such as How to Read a Book) became popular bestsellers. Adler was often aided in his thinking and writing by Arthur Rubin, an old friend from his Columbia undergraduate days. Adler took a long time in his own life to make up his mind about theological issues. He considered himself a pagan when he wrote How to Think About God in 1980. In Volume 51 of the Mars Hill Audio Journal (2001), Ken Meyer includes his 1980 interview with Adler, conducted after How to Think About God was published. Meyer reminisces, "During that interview, I asked him why he had never embraced the Christian faith himself. He explained that while he had been profoundly influenced by a number of Christian thinkers during his life, ...there were moral—not intellectual—obstacles to his conversion. He didn't explain any further." Meyer goes on to point out that Adler finally "surrendered to the hound of heaven" and "made a confession of faith and was baptized" only a few years after that interview. Offering insight into Adler's conversion, Meyer quotes Adler from a subsequent 1990 article in Christianity magazine: "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." In 2000, Adler became a Roman Catholic. He can be considered a Catholic philosopher due to his lifelong participation in the Neo-Thomist movement, despite not being a Catholic for most of this time. In his 1980 interview, Meyer playfully asked Adler which single book he would want to take on a desert island. Adler responded with: 1. Thucydides' The History of the Peloponnesian War 2. 5 or 6 of Plato's Dialogues 3. Augustine of Hippo's Confessions In the summer of 1981 Adler conducted a seminar at the Aspen Institute in Colorado based on his book Six Great Ideas. It was filmed by PBS for a popular television series hosted by Bill Moyers the following year. Adler was a controversial figure in some circles who saw his focus on the classics as eurocentric and dogmatic, and he was never afraid to speak his mind. Adler was also a world federalist. |
Mortimer Adler Famous QuoteNot to engage in the pursuit of ideas is to live like ants instead of men.More famous quotes by Mortimer Adler Mortimer Adler NewsCreating the Canon Wall Street Journal Or as Mortimer Adler once wrote, "Exclusive preference for either the past or the present is a foolish and wasteful form of snobbishness and provinciality. ... A Defense of the Lecture Inside Higher Ed See Mortimer J. Adler, The Paidea Proposal (1998) for the best argued and most practical set of distinctions between lecture, coaching, and discussion. ... Coming Soon to a Shelf Near YouDo books really need Hollywood-style trailers? Slate This is not perhaps what Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren had in mind when devising their Great Books list, but Roger Sterling and Bert Cooper would ... and more ... Great reads: 'Outliers,' 'The Shack,' 'Truman's Excellent Adventure' News Sentinel Once upon a time Dr. Mortimer Adler from the University of Chicago was the guru of reading. I even learned how to speed read, thanks to him. ... Years later, Mom's 'doodles' still bring smile to my face Mail Tribune Mortimer Adler often is quoted. The past is relived in renderings of our old Linda Vista neighborhood, back as it was in her early 1900s childhood. ... Psychology for business BusinessWorld Online Some interviewees were the philosopher Mortimer Adler, biologist Jonas Salk, musician Ravi Shankar, and paediatrician Benjamin Spock. ... PODi AppForum speaker line up and program announced What They Think Doyle Mortimer of Alexander's Print Advantage will describe how their company is creating value with digital printing without having to become a marketing ... Scorer's Tent The Ledger ... Ranney/Diane Rubish 73, Babe Kirschman/Joan Klingerman/Elaine Lockwood/Jean Splinter and Judy Bruce/Rosalie DeLeo/Ae Rim Kim/Beat Mortimer tied at 80. ... vivre-a-chalon.com "Blake et Mortimer": arrêtez le massacre ! RTBF Dargaud jette son dévolu sur René Sterne, auteur d'une série au succès modeste, "Adler". Pendant deux ans, Sterne va s'échiner à tenter de copier Jacobs et ... "La Malédiction des tren... Le Post Le nouveau Blake et Mortimer, J-7: enfin un album totalement réussi? Le Post En revanche, chez Adler... La sortie de l'album aidant (c'est le 20 novembre), on en sait beaucoup plus sur ce qui nous attend. Et je crois fermement qu'on ... | |||||
|
Mortimer Adler Books Mortimer Adler Music Mortimer Adler Posters Mortimer Adler Videos |
|
It is believed that all material on this web site is in the public domain. Basic Famous People Copyright © 2004 - 2006 By Steven J. Hayes. All rights reserved. Basic Famous People is part of the 21st Century Basics family of sites. Privacy Statement |
| Devotions | Famous People | History | Holidays | Jokes | Music | Quotes | Recipes | Weather |