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Summary: Review of Adler, _Ten Philosophical Mistakes_
Review: Review of Adler, _Ten Philosophical Mistakes_The thesis of this book is that Western philosophy has been for the most part in serious error for the last three centuries. Many people would consider that a sufficient reason to render the well-known judgment, "I couldn't pick it up." I note, though, that E. F. Schumacher makes a very similar claim at the very beginning of _Small is Beautiful_, and that book is so popular that our local university library has three copies. And there are other such cases in which courage is rewarded. In any event, Adler's general argument is this: the important modern philosophers, beginning with Descartes, made certain errors which have had disastrous results for contemporary notions of the objects of consciousness, the nature of the human mind, the nature of language, of knowledge, of moral principles, of free will, and even the nature of happiness. Succeeding philosophers, especially Kant, instead of ferreting out these initial errors, tried instead to circumvent their consequences, thus in a sense compounding the errors. The errors were made due to ignorance on the part of modern philosophers of ancient and medieval philosophy, especially Aristotle and Aquinas. This ignorance in turn was due to the stultifying way in which the earlier doctrines were taught in late scholasticism, and also, no doubt, due to an over-zealous rejection of the past in the light of the new advances in material science. Nearly all of the errors to which Adler points consist of failing to make certain distinctions. Locke failed to distinguish between those "ideas" which are truly private and do not point to things beyond themselves - sensations, feelings, emotions - and the "true ideas" which point to public things beyond themselves - percepts, memories, images. (This distinction was made by the scholastics.) Hobbes, Hume and Berkeley failed to distinguish between intellect and sense. (This distinction was made by Aristotle and Aquinas but carried to excess by Plato, Descartes, Kant and Hegel.) Locke also made the error just mentioned, and also failed to distinguish between pure or formal signs and other signs. Kant failed to distinguish between common experience and specialized experience. Everybody since the medieval period failed to make Aristotle's distinction between practical truth and descriptive truth. Dewey failed to make the distinction between terminal goals and normative goals. And so on. Obviously it is important in each case to show that the distinction in question is not ad hoc - trumped up merely to resolve a single issue. For if we are allowed to create any distinctions we like, then nearly any position can be "refuted." Adler for the most part does note that the distinctions to which he appeals were made prior to the present difficulties, usually in ancient and/or medieval philosophy. But he does not do this in every case, and for me that is a weakness of the book. However, a single book cannot do everything; and a huge apparatus of footnotes would probably frighten away the very readers Adler hoped to reach. In addition to the method of drawing distinctions that I have mentioned, Adler also often notes that the results of a given position are counter to common sense. He even makes the very strong statement "There is little if any sound philosophy that conflicts with our common-sense knowledge, for both are based on the common human experience out of which they emerge." p 106. This is problematic but by no means a weakness. In my field (linguistics) we very often had recourse to the expression "counter-intuitive." It would be rash to conclude that since many findings of science defy common sense, we can simply do without this notion. There definitely is something there. Why else should nearly everyone reject multiple universes, the most straightforward interpretation of QM, and one which preserves the normal meaning of probability? Why are the "brain-in-a-vat" idea, or the "Satan put the geological data there to deceive us" argument, never taken seriously for more than a few minutes, even though they are well within the realm of the logically possible? Since I recommend the book highly - it is must reading for anyone who wants to understand what the leading philosophical issues are and have been; and it is the only book I know of that really does lay out the issues for the non-specialist - I will close by mentioning a few more negative points: Adler treats the emotions as completely subjective; yet it seems to me arguable that some emotions - e.g., fear - have public objects. On p. 15 he abruptly switches from the term "thought" to the term "concept." On p. 20 he introduces the expression "modes of apprehension" which we are not sure is synonymous with the earlier "instruments of cognition." Three notions are abruptly introduced into the book with no explanation; these are "the will" (part of intellect?), "theoretical construct" and "theoretical philosophy." Finally, in this book and elsewhere in his writings Adler regards philosophical theology as part of metaphysics; but in his recent work, _Adler's Philosophical Dictionary_ (1995), metaphysics is identified with philosophical theology. After this book I would recommend Adler's _Aristotle for Everybody_ (1978) and then perhaps Peter Kreeft's _A Summa of the Summa_ (Ignatius Press, 1990). Ken Miner
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Summary: Celebration of common sense
Review: The previous reviewer, I'm afraid, is all wet. Adler's book points out where thinkers of the past couple of centuries have arrived at conclusions which are simply wrong (i.e. nobody really thinks that way) because of flawed premises. Instead of re-examining the premises, as Adler does, said philosophers have made absurd claims about reality. Adler's central premise is that the ancients were equipped with minds as good as ours, and therefore their philosophical conclusions deserve respect (their science is, of course, subject to correction). Adler, by the way, is a neo-Thomist.
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Summary: All Wet
Review: The reviewer below criticizes the reviewer before him, saying that he (she?) is "all wet." I find this deliciously ironic, since I have come to my computer straight from the bathtub, where I have just been reading "Ten Philosophical Mistakes"--and as it happens, I am indeed a little on the damp side. I do not, however, come shouting "Eureka!" like Archimedes in the old story. I am in a somber mood, having spent an exasperating hour with a smug, tedious little book that has proven a waste of my time and money. In fact, I found Adler so annoying that after fifty pages I threw him into the tub, mistakes and all, to make sure I wouldn't return him to my bookshelves and thus be in danger of wasting my time on him again. I realize that to do full justice to the book, I should read the whole thing, but that is hardly feasible now, what with the pages all smooshed together in a soggy mess. I will limit myself, then, to explaining why "Ten Mistakes" got dunked after a mere two chapters, and let readers of this review decide whether it seems worth pursuing the matter further. Many of the things philosophers say seem "repugnant" (a favourite word of Adler's) to common sense. This makes it easy to be dismissive of the whole project sometimes. However, if there is one thing to be learned from the study of philosophy, it is that common sense is not as simple or as straightforward as it seems. For example, common sense tells us that our perceptual experiences are (qtd. from a soggy page 16) "the means, not the objects, of apprehension; that _by which_, not _that which_, we apprehend." In other words, when you see a dog, you see a dog, not the image of a dog in your brain. It's hard to argue with that. But when you stop to consider precisely what is happening when you see a dog--how you "know" that you are seeing a dog--then it becomes very difficult to say how one should distinguish that "perceptual experience" from any other brain state, subjectively considered. Adler appeals to the public nature of the "external world" (my friend Mortimer here sees a dog, and I see a dog, so there must be a dog), but needless to say, there is no sure way of knowing, however useful the assumption may be for practical purposes, that shared experiences are in fact the same (Mortimer and Steve simultaneously hallucinate different dogs). Voila! You are transformed from a committed commonsensicalist into a raving, solipsistic empiricalist in one easy argument. Of course, the sane person sticks to common sense for everyday tasks. But that's not the point. When faced with an argument that seems to lead to outlandish conclusions, rather than simply dismiss it as "repugnant" to common sense, it is always worthwhile to consider why the philosopher in question might have dreamed up such a notion in the first place. In other words, to consider the argument and the premises it is founded upon. This is precisely what Adler, pace the reviewer below, consistently fails to do. Again and again (I will not trouble you with more examples), Adler sketches out a "mistaken" position, only to dismiss it summarily as nonsense. Perhaps these ideas are contrary to common sense, but if they follow as inescapable conclusions to apparently sound arguments (and the various positions of British empiricism do fit the bill), then clearly more is needed to refute them than an appeal to prephilosophical prejudice. This, then, is why Adler got his dunking. His book may be good "common sense," but it is very bad philosophy.
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Summary: All Wet
Review: The reviewer below criticizes the reviewer before him, saying that he (she?) is "all wet." I find this deliciously ironic, since I have come to my computer straight from the bathtub, where I have just been reading "Ten Philosophical Mistakes"--and as it happens, I am indeed a little on the damp side. I do not, however, come shouting "Eureka!" like Archimedes in the old story. I am in a somber mood, having spent an exasperating hour with a smug, tedious little book that has proven a waste of my time and money. In fact, I found Adler so annoying that after fifty pages I threw him into the tub, mistakes and all, to make sure I wouldn't return him to my bookshelves and thus be in danger of wasting my time on him again. I realize that to do full justice to the book, I should read the whole thing, but that is hardly feasible now, what with the pages all smooshed together in a soggy mess. I will limit myself, then, to explaining why "Ten Mistakes" got dunked after a mere two chapters, and let readers of this review decide whether it seems worth pursuing the matter further. Many of the things philosophers say seem "repugnant" (a favourite word of Adler's) to common sense. This makes it easy to be dismissive of the whole project sometimes. However, if there is one thing to be learned from the study of philosophy, it is that common sense is not as simple or as straightforward as it seems. For example, common sense tells us that our perceptual experiences are (qtd. from a soggy page 16) "the means, not the objects, of apprehension; that _by which_, not _that which_, we apprehend." In other words, when you see a dog, you see a dog, not the image of a dog in your brain. It's hard to argue with that. But when you stop to consider precisely what is happening when you see a dog--how you "know" that you are seeing a dog--then it becomes very difficult to say how one should distinguish that "perceptual experience" from any other brain state, subjectively considered. Adler appeals to the public nature of the "external world" (my friend Mortimer here sees a dog, and I see a dog, so there must be a dog), but needless to say, there is no sure way of knowing, however useful the assumption may be for practical purposes, that shared experiences are in fact the same (Mortimer and Steve simultaneously hallucinate different dogs). Voila! You are transformed from a committed commonsensicalist into a raving, solipsistic empiricalist in one easy argument. Of course, the sane person sticks to common sense for everyday tasks. But that's not the point. When faced with an argument that seems to lead to outlandish conclusions, rather than simply dismiss it as "repugnant" to common sense, it is always worthwhile to consider why the philosopher in question might have dreamed up such a notion in the first place. In other words, to consider the argument and the premises it is founded upon. This is precisely what Adler, pace the reviewer below, consistently fails to do. Again and again (I will not trouble you with more examples), Adler sketches out a "mistaken" position, only to dismiss it summarily as nonsense. Perhaps these ideas are contrary to common sense, but if they follow as inescapable conclusions to apparently sound arguments (and the various positions of British empiricism do fit the bill), then clearly more is needed to refute them than an appeal to prephilosophical prejudice. This, then, is why Adler got his dunking. His book may be good "common sense," but it is very bad philosophy.
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Summary: The Importance of Philosophy
Review: We have all heard people say, as if it were a message from the divine, words to the effect that philosophy is either dumb or not needed and one can't make any sense from it. Mortimer Adler made it his life's work attempting to demonstrate the importance of philosophy in leading a civilized life. Adler has been criticized for his conservatism, his allegedly Euro-centric viewpoint, and his refusal to adapt many of the nouveau philosophical ideas currently floating in and out of favor. Adler demonstrated one truth: COMMON SENSE IS NOT ALL THAT COMMON. Drawing strength from Aristotles laws of logic, he traces the development of philosophical mistakes that over the course of time have been compounded into mass errors. He shows that many times it is easier to take the simpler way out, philsophically, rather than fight for the ultimate truth. Adler views humankind differently than many philosophers, seeing us as differnt in kind (rather than just degree) from the animals. And like his mentor, Aristotle, he teaches that what distinguishes us from other animals is our ability to reason and think analytically. Not only has he been involved in philosophy in general but he has also been active in applying such a viewpoint to the real world. His educational proposals have wrought incredible results when implemented. His proposals on teaching ideas have resulted in thousands of young philosophers armed with a new knowledge for facing the world. Starting in the Medieval times, he identifies several errors in philosophical thought that have changed not just how we think but how we think about ourself as individuals and as a species. Mortimer Adler is a national treasure!
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Summary: The Importance of Philosophy
Review: We have all heard people say, as if it were a message from the divine, words to the effect that philosophy is either dumb or not needed and one can't make any sense from it. Mortimer Adler made it his life's work attempting to demonstrate the importance of philosophy in leading a civilized life. Adler has been criticized for his conservatism, his allegedly Euro-centric viewpoint, and his refusal to adapt many of the nouveau philosophical ideas currently floating in and out of favor. Adler demonstrated one truth: COMMON SENSE IS NOT ALL THAT COMMON. Drawing strength from Aristotles laws of logic, he traces the development of philosophical mistakes that over the course of time have been compounded into mass errors. He shows that many times it is easier to take the simpler way out, philsophically, rather than fight for the ultimate truth. Adler views humankind differently than many philosophers, seeing us as differnt in kind (rather than just degree) from the animals. And like his mentor, Aristotle, he teaches that what distinguishes us from other animals is our ability to reason and think analytically. Not only has he been involved in philosophy in general but he has also been active in applying such a viewpoint to the real world. His educational proposals have wrought incredible results when implemented. His proposals on teaching ideas have resulted in thousands of young philosophers armed with a new knowledge for facing the world. Starting in the Medieval times, he identifies several errors in philosophical thought that have changed not just how we think but how we think about ourself as individuals and as a species. Mortimer Adler is a national treasure!
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