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Dr. Adler's Briefing Room - 4 |
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Many of Dr. Adler's books are available through The Radical Academy Bookstore. Books
by Mortimer J.
Adler
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Index:
"Human beings and some other nonhuman animals are gregarious and are naturally impelled to associate with one another. But while man is not the only social animal, humans are the only political animals. Because they have intellects and free will, they voluntarily constitute the societies in which they live--their domestic, tribal, and political associations. All animal societies or groupings are instinctively determined, and thus they are all purely natural societies, differing from species to species but everywhere the same in the same species. Only human societies are both natural and conventional, natural by natural need, not by instinctive determination. Motivated by natural need, they are conventionally instituted by reason and free will; and so, within the same species, they differ at different times and places. The most important of the modern philosophical mistakes about society is to be found in the theory of the social contract as the conventional origin of the state or civil society. It rests on two myths. One is the myth that goes by the name of "the state of nature." This phrase, when used by Hobbes, Locke, or Rousseau in their slightly varying accounts of the origin of civil society, signifies a condition of human life on earth in which individuals live in isolation from one another and live anarchically with complete autonomy. What is called a "state of nature" is utterly mythical and never existed on earth. This should be manifest to everyone in the light of the incontrovertible fact that the human species could not have survived without the existence of families for the preservation of infants unable to take care of themselves. The second myth, inseparable from the first, is the fiction that human beings, dissatisfied with the precariousness and brutality of living in a state of nature, decided to put up with it no longer and to agree upon certain conventions and rules for living together under some form of government that replaced anarchy and eliminated their isolation and autonomy. Of the three modern exponents of this social contract theory, Rousseau at least concedes that the social contract and the state of nature have no historical reality, but only constitute a hypothesis to explain how civil society came into existence. That might take the curse off the theory if the hypothesis were necessary for explanatory purposes. But it is not. The origin of the state can be satisfactorily explained without any recourse to such fictions as the social contract and the state of nature. Therein lies the philosophical mistake that needs correction."
Belief in any religious community that has an articulated creed, the first words uttered when the creed is recited are "I believe." The various things thereupon recited are the articles of religious faith. That is the primary meaning of the word "belief." It stands for things affirmed that lie beyond all philosophical knowledge or opinion, as well as beyond science and history. The demonstration of God's existence, if it is valid philosophical knowledge, is said to be a preamble to faith rather than an article of faith. In the three great religions of the West--Judaism, Christianity, and Islam--the first article of faith is that sacred scripture is the revealed word of God. There are, of course, beliefs that are not religious faith. William James tells us about things he cannot affirm as knowledge but which he does affirm by exercising his will to believe. Unable to resolve the issue about the freedom of the will, a matter that troubled him greatly, he derived great comfort from willfully believing that human beings had freedom of choice. To affirm this freedom, in his view, was beyond all evidence and reason. Others similarly settle for belief in God, or in the immortality of the soul, by exercising what James called the will to believe. Such affirmations tend to be stronger and firmer convictions than the knowledge we have or the opinions we hold by empirical evidence and rational argument. The element that is common to religious faith and nonreligious belief is its voluntary aspect. Both involve an exercise of the will. Being willing to believe is what distinguishes both religious and nonreligious faith from knowledge and right opinion. The will moves the reason to affirm what reason cannot establish by its own power. When religious faith is thought of as a divine gift, the will is moved by God to affirm what lies beyond the natural powers of the mind to acknowledge. The will is supernaturally moved. For those who have a faith that is not religious, the factors that move the will are natural, not supernatural.
In our common speech we call a man wise either because he shows good judgment in the practical affairs of life, or because he has deep insight into the ultimate principles and causes of things. The term *wisdom* has both moral and intellectual significance for us today, as it has had throughout our tradition. The ancient Greeks conceive of two kinds of wisdom -practical wisdom, or *prudence,* and speculative or philosophical wisdom. They consider a man practically wise if he judges situations correctly and chooses the means best suited to secure his objectives. Aristotle, however, insists that the objectives must be morally good. In his view, practical wisdom is linked with moral virtue. The Greeks consider a man philosophically wise if he understands the first principles or causes of things. Wisdom in this sense is the highest form of knowledge. It is the culmination of man's pursuit of truth. It gives him the peace that accompanies perfect fulfillment. Plotinus states that wisdom brings perfect repose, for it is the knowledge for which our mind has sought. And Samuel Johnson notes the "the philosophically wise man" has no needs, for he is complete. Our religious tradition places a high value on wisdom. The Greeks consider it a divine attribute. Socrates says that God alone is wise and the man can love or seek wisdom but he cannot possess it. The Book of Proverbs extols wisdom as an eternal principle that sustains and guides the physical order and human life. The Bible also praises as wisdom the prudent and righteous conduct of everyday affairs, and the astute and just decrees of rulers. Here again wisdom is both a kind of knowledge and an aspect of moral character. But here God is the teacher, and wisdom is attained by listening to his teaching--not by intellectual inquiry alone. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," says the Bible. In this context, *fear* means hearkening to God's word. Aquinas explains that this is a filial, not a servile, fear--a true respect for the divine law, not dread of punishment. It rests on faith in God's revelation of His will to man. And it ends in wisdom, the perfection of the intellect that accompanies perfect love. For Spinoza, wisdom is a form of love, "the intellectual love of God." How do we attain wisdom? Wisdom is the ultimate aim of learning. Such learning is a long process, which involves a lifetime of thoughtful inquiry and wide experience. Book learning and good schooling help, but they are not enough to form this supreme virtue of mind and character. Yet experience and age alone are not the sole passports to wisdom. Some men remain foolish all their life long. Indeed, few men sustain the effort and have the devotion that are required to become wise. These few men teach the rest of us what wisdom is and what it means to be wise.
Adler on Capitalism and Socialism: Two Faces of the Same Coin The words "capitalism" and "socialism" are of recent origin in everyday speech -- as recent as the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The words are generally misused by most individuals. One flagrant misuse occurs when no distinction is made between socialism and communism. Then the latter is used to designate state capitalism as contrasted with private-property capitalism. The former Soviet Union and the countries controlled by it (what was then East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Hungary) were all capitalist countries in the descriptive sense. That is, they were all "capital-intensive economies" in the same way that the Western constitutional democracies are. The difference between these two kinds of capital economies was that in the eastern bloc, state capitalism prevailed. As prescribed by the Marxists-Leninist doctrine, the private ownership of capital was abolished. All capital, agricultural as well as industrial, was owned by the state and was administered by the Communist Party. The political result was a totalitarian state -- no private economy and no private institutions. The economic aspect of the Western democracies involved the private ownership of capital and market economy. Let us consider constitutional democracy as an ideal that the various countries in the West, as well as India and Japan in the Far East, approximate in different degrees. The ideal approximated can be stated as a society in which all adult human beings are political haves; all who have reached the age of consent are citizens with suffrage and have political liberty. They are governed with their own consent and have a voice in their own government. Citizens in public office have more political responsibilities to discharge and so have more power than ordinary citizens, but are equal as citizens. The economic counter part of this political ideal is socialism. Socialism is an ideal, as democracy is, and it is approximated in varying degrees. As an ideal it is the economic face of political democracy. The ideal is approximated in a society in which all mature citizens are economic as well as political "haves." It is a society with no economic "have-nots" -- no one deprived of a decent livelihood, to which every human being has a natural right. In the same way that all citizens are "political haves," they are all "economic haves." That is why democracy and socialism are two faces of the same coin. Among the economic haves, some will have more and some less in terms of the contribution they make to the economy. But all are equal at the baseline in which all have enough to live a decent human life. The mistake made by Marx and Lenin was thinking that abolishing the private ownership of capital was an indispensable step in the direction of the socialism ideal. On the contrary, private ownership of capital and a market economy are indispensable means to the socialism ideal. They are required for the production of enough wealth to distribute so that everyone's rights to a decent livelihood can be realized. Though Marx and Lenin had the socialist ideal in mind, they took the wrong steps to realize it. They ended up with a totalitarian state in a failing, nonprosperous economy.
Let us begin by asking the purpose of the question about the purpose of life. What do men have in mind when they ask this question? Asking it is a peculiarly human phenomenon. Other creatures just exist and go on unquestioningly to pursue their natural ends -- to be a tree or a bird. It is man's peculiar misery or glory that he perennially poses the question of the purpose of his own existence. What, then, are men who ask this question trying to discover? Are they asking about the destiny appointed by God for man to achieve through his earthly existence? Does man have an ultimate goal beyond the sphere of his temporal experience? And if so, what must he do to attain it? The Christian doctrine of the Kingdom of God as man's ultimate destiny is one of the answers to the question. Or are men asking whether human life can be made significant on earth by achieving all the perfections of which it is capable? In the philosophy of Aristotle, each kind of creature tends toward the perfection of its own nature. Thus, for man, the goal -- the purpose -- of life is to achieve the virtues that constitute happiness. As against these theological and philosophical ideas of human destiny, our question may arise from a conviction of the purposelessness of the physical universe as a whole. We look out on the world around us and see nothing but a whirl of atoms in a meaningless void. Whether we see the physical world as chaotic and "chancy" or as an orderly cosmos, human life may still seem meaningless and valueless. The pattern of material events is no answer to the questing human heart and mind. All of science remains silent when man asks, "What am I doing here? Where did I come from? Where am I going? What is the purpose of my life?" Many modern thinkers, faced with these urgent and disturbing questions, reject the traditional theological and philosophical views of the purpose and meaning of human life. They assert that men can and must set their own goals, and find meaning in the creation and transformation of their own nature. In their view, a man who is truly human must live for some transcendent goal that he sets himself. If he does not do this, he must be engulfed in overwhelming despair at the meaninglessness of life. I think we will all agree that the question is urgent and that it demands an answer and a life which is in accord with the answer. On the other hand, to answer the question requires us to take a comprehensive view of God, the universe, and man. An understanding of man and his nature is necessary, but it is not enough for a solution to the problem of the meaning of human existence. We must also understand the place of man in the universe and in relation to all the beings that there are. And we must see him in relation to the ultimate power that governs the universe and all that is in it. Man is not alone in the universe, and we cannot understand him apart from the rest of things. This sounds like a long-term program and it is -- as long as life itself. It requires the study of theology and metaphysics, as well as of psychology and ethics. It requires the experience and wisdom which can be acquired only after much living and much effort. This is what is so disturbing about the question. It is urgent, it calls for an immediate answer, and yet it demands the patient and careful reflection of a lifetime. But "that's life," as the popular saying has it. It has never been easy to be a human being.
Dear Dr. Adler, We are advised to be governed by reason and not to let our emotions run away with us. At the same time we are told not to suppress our emotions, lest we become mentally ill. Which is it to be? Are we to give our emotions free play or hold them in check? How do we corrdinate reason and emotion? Emotion, as the term indicates, moves us. Fear, anger, love, and joy stir us inwardly and usually move us to act outwardly. This intensity, excitement, and drive to action contrasts sharply with the detachment, balance, and calmness associated with reason. The great writers in our tradition discuss this contrast and advance different theories of the proper roles in human life to be played by reason and emotion. They express three main views: (1) reason should govern emotion; (2) reason should get rid of emotion; and (3) emotion should rule over reason. Aristotle and Plato held the first view. For them, reason is the specifically human faculty which judges rightly what is good and directs man to the right goals. They hold that emotion, too, is a part of man's nature and a necessary component of moral virtue and action. Emotion is good, in this view, when it is properly subordinated to reason and employed by it in the service of good ends. Indeed, for Aristotle, such cardinal moral virtues as temperance and courage are habitual emotional attitudes or responses which carry out the commands of reason. The second view, held mainly by Stoic philosophers like Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, is that we should try to suppress our emotions and eventually be rid of them. The ideal is a state of complete detachment or indifference -- literally apathy -- toward whatever might might excite and disturb us. Nothing must be allowed to shake the even tenor of our judgment or our inner calm. We should be "stoical" even when faced with the death of loved ones, our own sufferings, the attitude of the world toward us, public or private catastrophes. The Stoics aim at freedom from the passions, not their control and inclusion with the moral life. In modern times, Immanuel Kant voices a somewhat similar view. He holds that the truly good will must be utterly unaffected by the passions. Duty alone is the rationally justifiable motive of moral action. Inclination and delight are irrelevant in the moral sphere. The third view, that emotion should be supreme, is mainly a modern position. The German Romantic philosophers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries -- stress the primacy of emotion, imagination, and intuition in the attainment of knowledge and the fulfillment of life. They hold that analytical reason is inadequate and misleading in man's quest to attain the depths of existence. Sigmund Freud's view does not fit any of the three basic positions. Like the Greeks, he holds that the emotions should be controlled in order to achieve the goals of life. But his thinking is essentially biological rather than moral. Adjustment of emotional demands to the actual conditions of life, he says, "promises greater security and success" than unbridled indulgence. The suppression of emotion, on the other hand, results in abnormal mental states or neuroses. Freud counsels us to try to make the best possible adjustment of instinctive emotional impulses to the realities of nature and society. We must avoid both emotional indulgence and suppression. Freud's ideal is a wholeness and balance that withstands emotional storms within and social pressures without.
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The Adler Archive Index |
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