Mortimer Adler – författare

Philosophy of everybody's business. As human beings, we all have the ability, and even the proclivity, to philosophize. We all engage in philosphical thought in the course of our daily live. What is philosophy? Why is it important? The importance of philosophy can be summed up in two words: Great Ideas. Great Ideas are the ideas that have been captured and developed in what are often called the Great Books of Western Civilization. They are common concepts that are a part of everyone's vocabulary and ordinary conversation and important, basic ideas that we think about throughout our lives - as children, adolescents and adults. What does it mean to be Good? How do we decide the Right thing to do? What is Love? The same question may appear to have different answers; the journey through the conflicting answers to a resolution is called philosophy. The Great Ideas are Art, Beauty, Change, Democracy, Emotion, Freedom, God, Good and Evil, Government, Justice, Labour, Language, Law, Learning, Love, Man, Opinion, Philosophy, Progress, Punishment, Truth, and War and Peace.Although everyone has a basic grasp of these Great Ideas, not everyone understands them as well as he or she could or should. In "How to Think About the Great Ideas", renowned philosopher Mortimer J. Adler guides readers to an understanding of these fundamental ideas and their practical applications to our daily lives. Not only does he clarify what the Great Ideas are, he helps readers understand the immediate role/application and importance of these ideas in our lives. These essays are based on the famous television lecture series by Mortimer Adler.

One of the great tasks of Mortimer Adler's illustrious life was his search for a watertight proof of the existence of God. Adler believed that his search had been successful. Adler spent years studying the classic proofs of God's existence, especially Aquinas's Five Ways, and found shortcomings in all of them, as conventionally understood. But he thought that some of them contained ideas which, if properly developed, could be improved, and he continued to search for a satisfying and logically unassailable proof. Toward the end of the 1970s, he believed he had arrived at such a proof, which he presented in his historic work, How to Think about God (1980). In the writings assembled in How to Prove There Is a God, Adler gives us his approach to the question of God's existence in fresh and popular form. He defends his position against critics, both believers and skeptics.The book includes a transcript of one of Adler's appearances on William Buckley's Firing Line, Adler's revealing interview with Edward Wakin, the exchange of views on natural theology between Adler and Owen Gingerich, and John Cramer's eloquent argument that the trend of modern cosmology supports Adler's early struggles with the question of God's existence.

Psychology is a field of many paradoxes. Since its earliest beginnings as a natural science, psychologists have been in search of their proper subject matter. Today they are in less agreement than ever. In this classic text, originally published as What Man Has Made of Man, Mortimer J. Adler goes to the root of the problem. He shows that psychology is simultaneously a particular social science and a branch of philosophical knowledge.These two parts must be distinguished from, yet related to, each other if sound philosophical analysis is to replace bad "philosophizing," which scientific psychologists too often use to describe their research findings. Adler also examines the scientific contribution of psychoanalysis by distinguishing it from Freud's meta-psychology, which he shows to be an inadequate statement of the traditional or classical philosophical positions.Adler believes that psychology is crucially important in modern culture. It is theoretically important because it is central to the errors of modern philosophy. It has practical significance because economic, moral, and political doctrines are determined by the view that man reviews his own nature. To understand the history of modern times, and to correct its normative deviations, we must, according to Adler, consider what man has made of man. This engaging analytical study will be a valuable tool for psychologists, psychoanalysts, philosophers, and sociologists.