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Mortimer J. Adler

American philosopher, author and educator (1902–2001)

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He resided for extended periods in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and San Mateo, California.

Biography

Early life and education

Adler was born in Manhattan, New York City, on December 28, 1902, to Jewish immigrants from Germany: Clarissa (née Manheim), a schoolteacher, and Ignatz Adler, a jewelry salesman.

Adler left school at age 14 to work as a copy boy for The New York Sun, with the ultimate aspiration of becoming a journalist. He soon returned to education to take night classes in writing, during which he became acquainted with Western philosophy.

Adler subsequently studied at Columbia University, where he contributed to the student literary magazine The Morningside. One of his contributions was the poem Choice, published in 1922, when Charles A. Wagner was editor-in-chief and Whittaker Chambers was an associate editor. Adler refused to take a swimming test required for a bachelor's degree; Columbia awarded him an honorary degree in 1983. He remained at Columbia, where he held an instructorship and later earned a doctorate in psychology. During this period, he wrote his first book, Dialectic, published in 1927.

Adler later worked with Scott Buchanan at the People's Institute and collaborated with him for many years on their respective Great Books projects.

Intellectual development and philosophic evolution

While working in journalism and attending night classes during his adolescence, Adler encountered writings by philosophers including Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, John Stuart Mill. These figures became central reference points in his intellectual development. Adler's philosophical views developed toward what he described as the identification and correction of errors in contemporary philosophy, a position he articulated in his 1985 book Ten Philosophical Mistakes: Basic Errors in Modern Thought.

In this work, Adler argued that certain foundational problems in modern philosophy originated with René Descartes in continental philosophy and with Thomas Hobbes and David Hume in British philosophy. He attributed these problems to what he characterized as insufficient engagement with Aristotle by thinkers who rejected classical philosophical frameworks. Adler further contended that these errors were extended by later philosophical movements, including Kantian idealism and existentialism, as well as by utilitarian and analytic philosophy associated with figures such as John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, and Bertrand Russell. Adler maintained that his own philosophical approach addressed these issues through concepts and distinctions derived from Aristotelianism.

Chicago

In 1930, Robert Maynard Hutchins, the recently appointed president of the University of Chicago and an earlier acquaintance of Adler, arranged for Adler to be hired by the University of Chicago Law School as a professor of the philosophy of law. Members of the University of Chicago philosophy faculty, including James Hayden Tufts, Edwin Arthur Burtt, and George Herbert Mead, expressed "grave doubts" about Adler's qualifications in philosophy and opposed his appointment to the university's Department of Philosophy. Adler became the first individual without a formal legal background to join the law school faculty.

Following the success of a Great Books seminar that influenced University of Chicago trustee and businessman Walter Paepcke, Paepcke founded the Aspen Institute. Adler subsequently taught philosophy to business executives at the institute.

Adler sought to present philosophy to a general audience, and several of his works, including How to Read a Book, achieved wide circulation. He also supported the concept of economic democracy and wrote the preface to Louis O. Kelso's 1958 book The Capitalist Manifesto. Adler frequently collaborated with Arthur Rubin, a longtime associate from his undergraduate years at Columbia University, who assisted him in his research and writing.

In Adler's own words:

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 literary 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."

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