Editing Mortimer J. Adler (section)

== Biography ==
=== Intellectual development and philosophic evolution ===
While doing newspaper work and taking night classes during his adolescence, Adler encountered works of men he would come to call heroes: [[Plato]], [[Aristotle]], [[Thomas Aquinas]], [[John Locke]], [[John Stuart Mill]], and others, who "were assailed as irrelevant by [[Counterculture of the 1960s|student activists in the 1960s]] and subjected to '[[politically correct]]' attack in later decades."<ref name=word-gems>{{Citation|url=http://www.word-gems.com/philos.adler.died.html |title=Mortimer Adler: 1902–2001 – The Day Philosophy Died |publisher=Word gems |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110410224053/http://www.word-gems.com/philos.adler.died.html |archive-date=2011-04-10}}</ref> His thought evolved toward the correction of what he considered "philosophical mistakes", as reflected in his 1985 book ''[[Ten Philosophical Mistakes: Basic Errors in Modern Thought]]''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Adler |first=Mortimer J. |url=https://archive.org/details/tenphilosophical0000adle_g0l0 |title=Ten philosophical mistakes |publisher=Macmillan |year=1985 |isbn=0025003305 |location=New York, N.Y.}}</ref> In Adler's view, these errors were introduced by [[Descartes]] on the continent and by Thomas Hobbes and [[David Hume]] in Britain, and were caused by a "culpable ignorance" about Aristotle by those who rejected the conclusions of dogmatic philosophy without acknowledging its sound classical premises. These modern errors were compounded and perpetuated, according to Adler, by [[Kant]] and the [[Idealism|idealists]] and [[Existentialism|existentialists]] on the one side, and by [[John Stuart Mill]], [[Jeremy Bentham]], and [[Bertrand Russell]] and the English [[Analytic philosophy|analytic tradition]] on the other. Adler held that he corrected these mistakes with reference to insights and distinctions drawn from the [[Aristotelianism|Aristotelian]] tradition.

=== New York City ===
Adler was born in [[Manhattan]], New York City, on December 28, 1902, to Jewish immigrants from Germany: Clarissa (Manheim), a schoolteacher, and Ignatz Adler, a jewelry salesman.<ref>[[Diane Ravitch]], ''Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform'', [[Simon and Schuster]] (2001), p. 298</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/history/historians-miscellaneous-biographies/mortimer-j-adler|title=Mortimer J. Adler &#124; Encyclopedia.com|website=www.encyclopedia.com}}</ref> He dropped out of school at age 14 to become a [[copy boy]] for ''[[The New York Sun]]'', with the ultimate aspiration of becoming a journalist.<ref name=McInerny>{{Citation | first = Ralph | last = McInerny | url = http://radicalacademy.com/adlerarticlemcinerny2.htm | title = Memento Mortimer | publisher = Radical academy | url-status = usurped | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20101127005042/http://radicalacademy.com/adlerarticlemcinerny2.htm | archive-date = November 27, 2010 }}.</ref> Adler soon returned to school to take writing classes at night, where he discovered the [[Western philosophy|western philosophical tradition]]. After his early schooling and work, he went on to study at [[Columbia University]] and contributed to the student literary magazine, ''The Morningside,'' a poem "Choice" (in 1922 when Charles A. Wagner<ref>{{Citation | url = https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE2DC1738F933A25751C1A960948260 | title = Charles A. Wagner | type = obituary | newspaper = The New York Times | date = December 10, 1986}}.</ref> was editor-in-chief and [[Whittaker Chambers]] an associate editor).<ref>{{Cite book |title = The Morningside |publisher = Columbia University Press |date=April–May 1922 | volume = x | number = 5–6 |page = 113 |isbn=0-300-08462-5}}</ref> Though he refused to take the required swimming test for a bachelor's degree (a matter that was rectified when Columbia gave him an honorary degree in 1983), he stayed at the university and eventually received an instructorship and finally a doctorate in [[psychology]].<ref>{{Citation | contribution-url = http://c250.columbia.edu/c250_celebrates/remarkable_columbians/mortimer_j_adler.html | title = Remarkable Columbians | publisher = Columbia U | contribution = Mortimer J Adler}}.</ref> While at Columbia University, Adler wrote his first book: ''Dialectic'', published in 1927.<ref name="Mortimer Adler">{{Citation | contribution-url = http://www2.selu.edu/Academics/Faculty/nadams/educ692/Adler.html | contribution = Mortimer Adler | title = Faculty | publisher = Selu}}</ref>

Adler worked with [[Scott Buchanan]] at the [[Charles_Sprague_Smith#People's_Institute|People's Institute]] and then for many years on their respective [[Great books|Great Books]] efforts. (Buchanan was the founder of the Great Books program at [[St. John's College (Annapolis/Santa Fe)|St. John's College]]).<ref name="Adler">
{{cite book 
 | first = Mortimer J. 
 | last = Adler 
 | author-link = Mortimer J. Adler
 | title = Philosopher at Large: An Intellectual Autobiography
 | publisher = Macmillan 
 | url = https://archive.org/details/philosopheratlar00mort
 | url-access = registration
 | page = [https://archive.org/details/philosopheratlar00mort/page/58 58]–59 (St. John's College), 87–88 (People's Institute), 92–93 (rift), 113–116 (1929 collaboration)
 | date = 1977
 |access-date = January 12, 2018}}</ref>

=== Chicago ===
In 1930, [[Robert Maynard Hutchins|Robert Hutchins]], the newly appointed president of the [[University of Chicago]], whom Adler had befriended some years earlier, arranged for [[University of Chicago Law School|Chicago's law school]] to hire him as a professor of the [[philosophy of law]]. The philosophers at Chicago (who included [[James Hayden Tufts|James H. Tufts]], [[E.A. Burtt|E. A. Burtt]], and [[George Herbert Mead|George H. Mead]]) had "entertained grave doubts as to Dr. Adler's competence in the field [of philosophy]"<ref>{{Citation | title = A Statement from the Department of Philosophy | place = Chicago}}, quoted on {{Citation | page = 186 | first = Gary | last = Cook | title = George Herbert Mead: The Making of a Social Pragmatist | publisher = U. of Illinois Press | year = 1993}}.</ref> and resisted Adler's appointment to the university's Department of Philosophy.<ref>{{Citation | first = Charles | last = Van Doren | author-link = Charles Van Doren | url = http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/nov02/nov02_forum_adler.php | title = Mortimer J. Adler (1902–2001) | journal = Columbia Forum | edition = online | date = November 2002 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070609175739/http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/nov02/nov02_forum_adler.php | archive-date = June 9, 2007 }}.</ref><ref>{{Citation|first=Peter |last=Temes |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20010703/ai_n13917760 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071104012348/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20010703/ai_n13917760 |url-status=dead |archive-date=November 4, 2007 |title=Death of a Great Reader and Philosopher |place=Chicago |newspaper=Sun-Times |date=July 3, 2001 }}.</ref> Adler was the first "non-lawyer" to join the law school faculty.<ref>{{Citation | url = http://www.law.uchicago.edu/centennial/history/archive/ | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20041026154116/http://www.law.uchicago.edu/centennial/history/archive/ | url-status = dead | archive-date = October 26, 2004 | title = Centennial Facts of the Day | publisher = U Chicago Law School | type = website }}.</ref> After the Great Books seminar inspired Chicago businessman and university trustee [[Walter Paepcke]] to found the [[Aspen Institute]], Adler taught philosophy to business executives there.<ref name = "Mortimer Adler" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=A Brief History of the Aspen Institute |url=https://www.aspeninstitute.org/about/heritage/ |access-date=2022-05-03 |website=The Aspen Institute |language=en-US}}</ref>

=== Popular appeal ===
Adler long strove to bring philosophy to [[Commoner|the masses]], and some of his works (such as ''[[How to Read a Book]]'') became popular bestsellers. He was also an advocate of [[economic democracy]] and wrote an influential preface to [[Louis O. Kelso]]'s ''[[The Capitalist Manifesto (1958 book)|The Capitalist Manifesto]]''.<ref>{{Citation | first1 = Louis O | last1 = Kelso | first2 = Mortimer J | last2 = Adler | year = 1958 | url = http://www.kelsoinstitute.org/pdf/cm-entire.pdf | title = The Capitalist Manifesto | publisher = Kelso institute }}.</ref> Adler was often aided in his thinking and writing by Arthur Rubin, an old friend from his Columbia undergraduate days. In his own words:
{{Blockquote | Unlike many of my contemporaries, I never write books for my fellow professors to read. I have no interest in the academic audience at all. I'm interested in Joe Doakes. A general audience can read any book I write – and they do.}}

[[Dwight Macdonald]] once criticized Adler's popular style by saying "Mr. Adler once wrote a book called ''How to Read a Book''. He should now read a book called ''How to Write a Book''."<ref>Rosenberg, Bernard. "Assaulting the American Mind." ''Dissent''. Spring 1988.</ref>