How to Think About the Great Ideas: From the Great Books of Western Civilization

A humanities professor or a serious reader of academic works on intellectual topics might find this collection a little basic or shallow, but this is actually an excellent refresher for those kinds of readers if they want to clarify major ideas from the human tradition in their minds. The ideal audience is actually a thoughtful and self-reflective person who is not an academic, per se, but is interested in the "big ideas" that various human cultures have thought about and wrestled with since the beginning of recorded history--especially in the West (there is a predominant focus on Western authors from the ancient Greeks forward, but really, these ideas overlap with all human cultures).The main reason to read this, I think, is because it will help you become a more precise thinker, and think deeper about notions that contemporary culture rarely examines with any care. You'll learn why, for example, a compelling case can be made that democracy is the best form of human governance (and what values are used to evaluate it as "best") despite the fact that most intellectuals now seem to espouse cultural relativism and deny that some values are better than others. Adler is extremely learned, but even more impressive is that he can distill his encyclopedic knowledge into simple, productive insights that originally took human culture whole centuries and tomes of argumentation to produce. In short, he offers here a Cliff Notes overview of what some of the best minds have thought about, but he also retains enough specific examples and citations to give you at least a small glimpse of the sources and fuller ideas he is working with.Highly recommended for the avid reader who would like to take a refreshing intellectual journey through some of the most interesting ideas that have ever occupied the mind of man (and woman), while being guided by someone who is sufficiently knowledgeable to point out the salient bits that remain most relevant to how we think (or could think better) today.

How do you summarize a summary of 2500 years of thought? Great! Mortimer Adler was one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th Century, primarily because of the literally ecyclopaedic nature of his knowledge. I say literally encyclopaedic because he edited the Encyclopaedia Britanica and wrote The Synopticon, a summary of Western philosophy, among the scores of other books bearing his name. He is best known for popularizing the Great Books theory of education. This is based on his own original reseach distilling the essence of Western Thought into 102 "Great Ideas." How To Think About The Great Ideas is a condensation of transcipts of a popular TV show of the 1950's, but the superficiality such an origin suggests does not permeate the book. The TV show covered only 21 of the great ideas, while the book deals with about half of the 102. The somewhat colloquial style will surprise readers who may have read Aristotle, Decartes, or Kant in full. We are not accustomed to hearing about philosophy from TV. But the simplicity of the presentation only serves to heighten the clarity of the ideas. The Great Ideas which you struggled over in college really can be discussed in ordinary language, and this is the real achievement of this book. The ideas build from the basic question of "What is truth?" to a consideration of the nature of man, human freedom, society and even a review of the arguments for the existence of God. Adler himself came to faith from agnositicism in his 80's before his recent death at the age of 98. Even so, the book is more of an invitation than an argument. It is best approached as a string of pearls, a series of thoughtful but isolated studies, rather than an essay in how to approach life or a true philosophical treatise. Refer to the Synopticon the academic treatment. But Adler never wrote just for academics. He believed philosphy is for everyone, and this book proves it. Now that Mortimer Adler has recently passed away, How To Think About The Great Ideas will remain as his exortation for all of us to lead thoughful lives.

Mortimer Adler teaches us philosophy, through the greatest philosophers ideas of the Western civilization. It is a great introduction to philosophical approach that perhaps is the best approach to an efficient (and always) maturing life.