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Mortimer
Adler and the "Great Books"
"Mortimer Jerome Adler, born
1902 in New York City, was an American philosopher, educator, and
author. He began his career as a secretary and copywriter for the
NEW YORK SUN and through a program of formal and self education
was awarded a Phd. from Columbia University (1928). Adler, who became
associate professor there in 1930, continued to participate in the
Honors program, instituted by John Erskine, which focused on the
reading of the classics. His tenure at Columbia included study with
such eminent thinkers as Erskine and John Dewey. This kind of environment
inspired not only his interest in reading and the study of the "great"
books of "Western Civilization," but his insistence on the establishment
of an integrated philosophy of science, literature, and religion.
"In 1930 he was appointed to the Philosophy faculty at the University
of Chicago. Because of the innovations he proposed for the curriculum,
his appointment led to a conflict with the faculty. These changes
were based on Adler's central interests in the reading, discussion
and analysis of "classic" literature and an integrated philosophical
approach to the study of separate disciplines. By 1931 these "interdepartmental
wars" resulted in Adler's reassignment to the Law School as Professor
of Philosophy of Law. While he continued his educational reforms
on a more conservative basis, the concept of seminars on "great
books" and "great ideas" continued to gain inroads at other universities.
In 1952, his work culminated in the publication by BRITANNICA of
the "Great Books and Great Ideas" series.
"His earliest work resulted in the publication of Dialectic
(1927), which focused on a summation of the great philosophical
and religious ideas of "Western Civilization" -- ideas influenced
by his fascination with medieval thought and sensibility. The work
on which he had concentrated since his Columbia University days,
together with a lecture series and essays produced in Chicago, resulted
in several publications: The Higher Learning in America (1936),
. What Man Has Made of Man: A Study of the Consequences of
(1937), Platonism and Positivism in Psychology. Art and Prudence:
A Study 1940, in Practical Philosophy (1937) and, in December.
How to Read a Book: the Art of Getting a Liberal Education.
His interest in the liberal education of the "common man" came to
fruition in How to Read a Book."
--Source: Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University
of Texas Austin.
See also the transcript of Adler's speech "The
Great Books, the Great Ideas, and a Lifetime of Learning" given
at Harvard School of Continuing Education in 1990.
Below: "A Recommended Reading List". Appendix A from How
to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren. (1972
edition; original publication date, 1940).
This is in chronological order, as published; see also version of
the list by author.
Homer. Iliad, Odyssey
The Old Testament
Aeschylus. Tragedies
Sophocles. Tragedies
Herodotus. History
Euripides. Tragedies
Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War
Hippocrates. Medical Writings
Aristophanes. Comedies
Plato. Dialogues
Aristotle. Works
Epicurus. 'Letter to Herodotus';'Letter to Menoecus'
Euclid. Elements
Archimedes. Works
Apollonius. Conic Sections
Cicero. Works
Lucretius. On the Nature of Things
Virgil. Works
Horace. Works
Livy. History of Rome
Ovid. Works
Plutarch. Parallel Lives; Moralia
Tacitus. Histories; Annals; Agricola Germania
Nicomachus, Gerasa of. Introduction to Arithmetic
Epictetus. Discourses; Encheiridion
Ptolemy. Almagest
Lucian. Works
Aurelius, Marcus. Meditations
Galen. On the Natural Faculties
The New Testament
Plotinus. The Enneads
Augustine, St.. On the Teacher; Confessions; City of God; On
Christian Doctrine
The Song of Roland
The Nibelungenlied
The Saga of Burnt Njal
Aquinas, St. Thomas. Summa Theologica
Alighieri, Dante. The New Life; On Monarchy; The Divine Comedy
Chaucer, Geoffrey. Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales
Vinci, Leonardo da. Notebooks
Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Prince; Discourses on the First Ten
Books of Livy
Erasmus, Desiderius. The Praise of Folly
Copernicus, Nicolaus. On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
More, Sir Thomas. Utopia
Luther, Martin. Table Talk; Three Treatises
Rabelais, Francois. Gargantua and Pantagruel
Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion
Montaigne, Michel de. Essays
Gilbert, William. On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies
Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quixote
Spenser, Edmund. Prothalamion; The Faerie Queene
Bacon, Francis. Essays; Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum,
New Atlantis
Shakespeare, William. Poetry and Plays
Galilei, Galieo. The Starry Messenger; Dialogues Concerning Two
New Sciences
Kepler, Johannes. Epitome of Copernican Astronomy; Concerning
the Harmonies of the World
Harvey, William. On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals;
On the Circulation of the Blood; On the Generation of Animals
Hobbes, Thomas. The Leviathan
Descartes, Rene. Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse
on the Method; Geometry; Meditations on First Philosophy
Milton, John. Works
Moliere. Comedies
Pascal, Blaise. The Provincial Letters; Pensees; Scientific Treatises
Huygens, Christiaan. Treatise on Light
Spinoza, Benedict de. Ethics
Locke, John. Letter Concerning Toleration; 'Of Civil Government';
Essay Concerning Human Understanding; Thoughts Concerning Education
Racine, Jean Baptiste. Tragedies
Newton, Isaac. Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy;
Optics
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm von. Discourse on Metaphysics; New
Essays Concerning Human Understanding; Monadology
Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe
Swift, Jonathon. A Tale of a Tub; Journal to Stella; Gulliver's
Travels; A Modest Proposal
Congreve, William. The Way of the World
Berkeley, George. Principles of Human Knowledge
Pope, Alexander. Essay on Criticism; Rape of the Lock; Essay
on Man
Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, Baron de. Persian Letters;
Spirit of Laws
Voltaire. Letters on the English; Candide; Philosophical Dictionary
Fielding, Henry. Joseph Andrews; Tom Jones
Johnson, Samuel. The Vanity of Human Wishes; Dictionary; Rasselas;
The Lives of the Poets
Hume, David. Treatise on Human Nature; Essays Moral and Political;
An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Rousseau, Jean Jaques. On the Origin of Inequality; On the Political
Economy; Emile, The Social Contract
Sterne, Laurence. Tristram Shandy; A Sentimental Journey through
France and Italy
Smith, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments; The Wealth of Nations
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason; Fundamental Principles
of the Metaphysics of Morals; Critique of Practical Reason; The
Science of Right; Critique of Judgment; Perpetual Peace
Gibbon, Edward. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; Autobiography
Boswell, James. Journal Life of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D.
Lavoisier, Antoine Laurent. Elements of Chemistry
Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander. Federalist
Papers
Bentham, Jeremy. Introduction to the Principles of Morals and
Legislation; Theory of Fictions
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Faust; Poetry and Truth
Fourier, Jean Baptiste Joseph. Analytical Theory of Heat
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. Phenomenology of Spirit; Philosophy
of Right; Lectures on the Philosophy of History
Wordsworth, William. Poems
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Poems; Biographia Literaria
Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice; Emma
Clausewitz, Karl von. On War
Stendhal. The Red and the Black; The Charterhouse of Parma; On
Love
Byron, George Gordon, Lord. Don Juan
Schopenhauer, Arthur. Studies in Pessimism
Faraday, Michael. Chemical History of a Candle; Experimental
Researches in Electricity
Lyell, Charles. Principles of Geology
Comte, Auguste. The Positive Philosophy
Balzac, Honore de. Pere Goriot; Eugenie Grandet
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Representative Men; Essays; Journal
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter
Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America
Mill, John Stuart. A System of Logic; On Liberty; Representative
Government; Utilitarianism; The Subjection of Women; Autobiography
Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species; The Descent of Man; Autobiography
Dickens, Charles. Works
Bernard, Claude. Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine
Thoreau, Henry David. Civil Disobedience; Walden
Marx, Karl. Capital
Eliot, George. Adam Bede; Middlemarch
Melville, Herman. Moby Dick; Billy Budd
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment; The Idiot; The Brothers
Karamazov
Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary; Three Stories
Ibsen, Henrik. Plays
Tolstoy, Leo. War and Peace; Anna Karenina; What is Art?; Twenty-Three
Tales
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; The Mysterious
Stranger
James, William. The Principles of Psychology; The Varieties of
Religious Experience; Pragamatism; Essays in Radical Empiricism
James, Henry. The American; The Ambassadors
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Thus Spoke Zarathustra; Beyond
Good and Evil; The Geneology of Morals; The Will to Power
Poincare, Jules Henri. Science and Hypothesis; Science and Method
Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams; Introductory Lectures
on Psychoanalysis; Civilization and Its Discontents; New Introductory
Lectures on Psychoanalysis
Shaw, George Bernard. Plays and Prefaces
Planck, Max. Origin and Development of the Quantum Theory; Where
Is Science Going?; Scientific Autobiography
Bergson, Henri. Time and Free Will; Matter and Memory; Creative
Evolution; The Two Sources of Morality and Religion
Dewey, John. How We Think; Democracy and Education; Experience
and Nature; Logic; the Theory of Inquiry
Whitehead, Alfred North. An Introduction to Mathematics; Science
and the Modern World; The Aims of Education and Other Essays; Adventures
of Ideas
Santayana, George. The Life of Reason; Skepticism and Animal
Faith; Persons and Places
Lenin, Nikolai. The State and Revolution
Proust, Marcel. Remembrance of Things Past
Russell, Bertrand. The Problems of Philosophy; The Analsysis
of Mind; An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth; Human Knowledge, Its
Scope and Limits
Mann, Thomas. The Magic Mountain; Joseph and His Brothers
Einstein, Albert. The Meaning of Relativity; On the Method of
Theoretical Physics, Physics; The Evolution of.
James Joyce, 'The Dead' in Dubliners; Portrait of the Artist as
a Young Man; Ulysses
Maritain, Jaques. Art and Scholasticism; The Degrees of Knowledge;
The Rights of Man and Natural Law; True Humanism
Kafka, Franz. The Trial; The Castle
Toynbee, Arnold. A Study of History; Civilization on Trial
Sartre, Jean Paul. Nausea; No Exit; Being and Nothingness
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I.. The First Circle; The Cancer Ward
see also version of the list sorted by author.
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