The Radical Academy Discussion Forum

Kevin

Jan 7, 08 - 4:46 AM

Aristotle For Everybody --- Except Richard!!!

Mortimer Jerome Adler recommended "ARISTOTLE FOR EVERYBODY" in 1977, or thereabouts. It was, in fact, the title of the short book he wrote wherein he made that recommendation --- not that Adler recommended that people would KNOW more things as a consequence of understanding Aristotle's thought --- but, instead, so that Adler's readers might UNDERSTAND some of the things they already KNOW, more thoroughly, with Aristotle's help.

That was Adler's recommendation in the book's INTRODUCTION, as of December 28, 1977, dated at Chicago, U.S.A., per the book's immediately preceding "Preface" or prefatory remarks.

The back cover of my copy of Adler's "little gem" had the following words written on it as a sort of ADVERTISEMENT for the book, which had a picture of a sculptured bust of Aristotle on the front cover and a "subtitle", which read, "DIFFICULT THOUGHT MADE EASY".

The advertising words on the backcover read, quote, "NO IDEA IN THIS BOOK IS LESS THAN 2,400 YEARS OLD." ... then some regular size words and lettering, followed by these words, "ALL THE IDEAS IN THIS BOOK ARE RELEVANT TO CONTEMPORARY LIFE AND THOUGHT."

In between those 2 quoted UNIVERSAL propositions (one NEGATIVE; "No idea...IS..."; and the other POSITIVE; "All the ideas...ARE...), were the smaller words, quote:

"In the 4rth century B.C., Arisotle thought about our lives and our world. Today his thought can help you understand (.) The difference between your wants and your needs (.) How to pursue happiness (.) The right plan for a good life (.) Love and justice (.) The true, the good, the beautiful (.) Infinity, eternity and God."

Then there were some biographical remarks about the author, Adler, as (1) the Originator of "Great Books of The Western World", (2) noted philosopher in his own right, (3) Director of the Institute for Philosophical Research and (4) Senior associate of the Apsen Institute for Humanistic Studies. The advertising editor also mentioned some of M.J. Adler's other written works.

What "hooked me" about the book, however; without the advertising, or the references to Adler being arguably CREDIBLE; was the TITLE (Aristotle For Everybody) and Aristotle's "likeness" (Image; picture of a bust, allegedly "close" to physical descriptions of Aristotle and resembling other busts, also allegedly "Aristotle", primarily from Roman Antiquity collections).

I have a 2nd photograph of the same bust in a McKeon collection entitled THE BASIC WORKS OF ARISTOTLE. Mckeon was a University of Chicago professor, like Adler, and the IMAGE of Aristotle is from a bust in a Vienna museum.

My BANTAM BOOK "cheapo" paper back edition (1980) of the original hardcover edition (1978) assures me that NOT ONE WORD was changed from the original hardcover MacMillan edition. The book only runs 190 small pages, including Adler's EPILOGUE where he outlines the actual texts of Aristotle, from which he derived the 23 Chapters, in 5 distinct PARTS of his book. There were, as ususal, "xiii" (13) small pages of Title, copywrite, contents, Preface and Introduction --- so no more than 200 actual (and short) pages for the entire book.

On December 28, 2007, Adler's book had been in print for exactly 30 years and is certainly advertized at the "home base pages" of the RADICAL ACADEMY, of which this "e-thingy-site", hosted by Brave Net, is supposed to be "THE FORUM".

Although the Search Engine was "lousy", the Radical Academy Section on Adler and BOOKS BY ADLER provided information on newer REPRINTS of ARISTOTLE FOR EVERYBODY. Around 20-some dollars(?).

But by initially going through a "lousy" search route, some extremely "cheapo" versions of the original editions were available from Amazon beginning at 91 cents, plus $4.99 SHIPPING AND HANDLING. So the book is available for 6 dollars, and that would only be necessary if one couldn't find it at any given PUBLIC LIBRARY, which is where I first began reading Adler's books --- and if I recall correctly "Aristotle For Everybody" was one of the first library books by Adler I ever read --- in the mid 1980's

FOR EXAMPLE:
Your Amazon.com
Today's Deals
Gifts & Wish Lists
Gift Cards
Your Account | Help

Amazon.com Books Kindle Books Audiobooks Used Books Collectible Books Bargain Books Children's Books Spanish Books Magazines eDocs Amazon Shorts
0
Aristotle for Everybody: Difficult Thought Made Easy (Mass Market Paperback) by Mortimer Jerome Adler (Author)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All(1 to 9 of 9 offers sorted by : Price + Shipping)
Price + Shipping Condition Seller Information Ready to buy?

$0.91
+ $3.99shipping
LOW ITEM PRICE
Used - Good Seller: readalreadyusedbooks
Rating:91% positive over the past 12 months;
Shipping: In Stock. Ships from IN, United States Expedited shipping, etc.

contd.

KB

Kevin

Jan 7th, 2008 - 6:22 AM

Re: Aristotle For Everybody --- Except Richard!!!

Amazon's USED LIST of Adler's "Aristotle For Everybody" continued with 8 more entries, quote

AMAZON.COM:
(2 My number; KB):
or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.

$0.91
+ $3.99shipping
LOW ITEM PRICE
Used - Good Seller: once sold tales
Rating:94% positive over the past 12 months (21820 ratings.) 41541 lifetime ratings.
Shipping: In Stock. Ships from WA, United States See shipping rates
Comments: A nice copy. Gently used. All pages and cover clear. Softly worn around edges and corners. Binding solid and tight.

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering." etc.

COMMENT:
etc., etc. for 7 more listings increasing in price up to about $3-something dollars plus the $3PP.99 SHIPPING & HANDLING fee.

IN SUM "Aristotle for Everybody" may sell at prices between 5 and 8-9 dollars --- much less than 1 theatre ticked to a bad movie these days.

20 years after Adler published the book, Richard joined this forum, and still does not seem to have read the book after 10 more years at this FORUM! Incredible.

Is it simply because Richard holds a DIRECTLY CONTRADICTORY thesis to that of Adler's book that he doesn't seem to have read it, but actually has, so he is simply "needling people" (not very many people either --- just me) with his CONTRADICTION.

Or is he just plain LAZY; plain ILLITERATE; plain LONELY; or What???!!!!!!

Was a child of Richard's corrupted by modern or ancient philosophy?

Did Richard read ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE, by Robert Persig, and "swear off Aristotle" as dangerous to one's mental health, as seemed to be the case with Persig, who apparently attended the UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, where "somebody" broke him on an arguably "Aristotelian Rack".

I mean Persig really seemed to HATE Aristotle, which is absurd, since Persig obviously never KNEW Aristotle, although he seemed to have been "force-fed-Aristotle", with a severe reaction.

Persig admits to a mental breakdown in his "ZEN & THE ART..." book. I liked Persig' book, SO MUCH, that I wanted to KNOW about the "guy" (Aristotle) who seemed to be part of the CAUSE of Persig's breakdown. And that is WHY a photograph of a bust of Persig's apparent "mental tormentor", on the cover of Adler's "little gem", GRABBED my attention.

Don't kid anyone's "self":- Philosophy, even SCIENCE may contribute to some people having a "mental breakdown"! One of our 1st Year friends in a MEDICAL LABORATORY SCIENCE B.Sc. program [which I thought of as "B.S." and "Science Fiction" until we hit the actual Medical Laboratories in 2nd year] discovered in a 1st year PHYSICS course (required for Medical-Science-Types) that in about 5 Billion Years our sun's supply of HYDROGEN protons will be mostly turned into HELIUM ATOMS at around that future time --- 5 BILLION YEARS from now.

So the "HYDROGEN-to-HELIUM" nulear FUSION process will be mostly "done for" and HELIUM-Hydrogen nuclei will fuse more frequently; Helium to Helium; Lithium to Hydrogen and/or Helium etc., etc. until MODERATELY HEAVY elements like Nickel and Iron will be BEING RAPIDLY PRODUCED and "changing the basic CORE FUSION PROCESS" --- cooling the temperature of Sol with such larger-nuclei-fusions, while, at the same time the sun's MASS will be seriously depleted.

IN SUM:- Our happy little G-Type yellow burning star will COOL, expand greatly, and arguably become a RED GIANT, with the inner planets of our solar system, including earth, INSIDE OUR (possibly) FUTURE "RED GIANT'S" OUTER ATMOSPHERE.

IN SHORT:
Everything on earth, including the entire earth, may be BAKED TO A CRISP, even before earth end's up inside the hypothesized "Red Giant's" atmosphere, which will still be REALLY HOT (millions of degrees centigrade? More? Less?) even with a "cooled" and greatly expanded star.

At first our lady-friend refused to believe the story of old "g-type" SOL, becoming a red giant and SUPER-COOKING earth. It was entirely possible that SOL could blow up before it ever became a red giant too, with the same result, of course --- ALL LIFE of whatever kind on earth DIES in either event.

But she checked BOTH texts and Physics professors. All confidently assured her that THE EARTH was "toast" either some time before or certainly 5 Billion Years from now.

She couldn't take it --- all life on earth GONZO in "only" 5 Billion Years! "Only" 5 Billion years from now?!!! That is 5,000 MILLION years!

Even KNOWING that 100 years for her would be, alternatively, (1) an optimistic guess or (2) a depressing expectation (given the ailments and failing "systems" of human old age), she couldn't rid herself of the "fixation" that all life on earth will be "gonzo" --- 5 billion years hence. That "fixation" caused her mental BREAKEDOWN halfway into our 2nd year.

No appetite; couldn't sleep; received little sympathy; dropped school; off to hospital. A case of "DOUBTLESS-scientific-CERTAINTY" re. "1 Probable FUTURE".

contd.

KB

Kevin

Jan 7th, 2008 - 10:55 PM

Re: Aristotle For Everybody --- Except Richard!!!

Richard has the same sort of SCIENTIFIC CERTAINTY or, in other words, unequivocal "faith/belief" in SCIENCE, which helped cause my young fellow medical science student's breakdown and CERTAINTY in a limited future for all life on this planet!

But Richard's CERTAINTY is a different sort of "Schroedinger's Cat", from my young friend's certainty, caused by arguable KNOWLEDGE/science of a future possible event --- 5 Billion years hence --- when the earth MAY end up inside the outer atmosphere of a "Red Giant", with a severely depleted supply of hydrogen protons and a heavy accumulation of the heavier nuclei (Iron; Nickel; etc.) of THE PERIODIC TABLE.

Richard's CERTAINTY seems to run to the effect that nobody KNEW anything BEFORE the advent of MODERN SCIENCE! In effect All "ideas", prior to the advent of modern SCIENCE are, categorically, OBSOLETE or, in other words, a collection of FAILED IDEAS. How does Richard KNOW that? Well he just KNOWS it with "scientific certainty"!

Has he done any research on ancient ideas? Doesn't seem so. Has Richard any ACTUAL KNOWLEDGE of the ideas of an ancient philosopher such as Aristotle, for example? Doesn't sound like it. Has he read "Aristotle For Everybody", where all those who have offered Amazon COMMENTS on the book give it a full 5-star or 4-star rating, with several NOTES on how it is bereft of Academic "gobble-de-gook" and entirely readable by those with "non-philosophy" backgrounds???

Arguably NOPE! The Amazon commenters on the book seem to be, in some cases, genuinely suprized that the book doesn't read like "modern academic stuff"! Arguably that shouldn't be a suprize since one basic thesis of Adler's "little gem" is that we all have the ideas Aristotle KNEW and about which he taught. Aristotle certainly elucidated (Plato's "brought to light") and UNDERSTOOD such ideas more deeply and thoroughly than most of us do, according to Adler.

But, nonetheless, Adler's initial POINT is that we moderns share COMMON IDEAS with Aristotle --- simply by being alive and having the same sort of EXPERIENCES which were and are COMMON to both "everybody" and "Aristotle". Thus, 2 words of the book's title --- EVERYBODY and ARISTOTLE (have the same COMMON experiences; hence the same ideas).

At the outset we find Adler apologizing for using the word COMMON so often (p. xii) in his preface. He explains his multiple references to COMMON by explaining that Aristotle had the same COMMON EXPERIENCES as we all do, whereas MODERN SCIENCE consists of the SPECIAL EXPERIENCES of scientists in their laboratories (or, one could add experiences with archeological anthropological "digs", or experience in an astronomical observatory, including all the "Russellian data" obtained by means of very large array radio telescopes, etc. etc.).

The above sorts of "scientific EXPERIENCES" are not COMMON to either most of us or to Aristotle --- especially not Aristotle.

So what? We "moderns" have very little experience with sailing and/or rowing triremes around the Aegean while navigating by naked eye observations of the Constellations and Zodiac. There are arguably few moderns who could handle a Scythian Chariot and team either, let alone ride horseback into a cavalry battle equipped with sword, spear and shield, without simply falling off a horse and hurting ourselves, probably severely (witness Chris Reeves's (?) the former Movie "Super Man"'s equestrian accident; and he KNEW how to ride a horse; but still broke his neck.) before getting anywhere near the opposition's guys on horseback. Most moderns don't have such SPECIAL EXPERIENCES either.

Adler comments that Aristotle didn't KNOW about or drive an automobile --- which is true. But most moderns don't KNOW how to "drive a chariot" or "navigate by the stars", like the aristocratic captains and navigator-steersman of triremes in Aristotle's time.

So we're all "tied" on various sorts of ignorance of SPECIAL EXPERIENCE, whether one calls such experiences "scientific", as do moderns, or "special", as did Aristotle, albeit in translation. Thus the reference by Aristotle to "special studies", in his amplification of the LAW OF THOUGHT and how people ought to NEVER FORGET the basic Law of Thought, which has governed the formation of all knowledge they have learned prior to coming to a "special study".

contd.
KB

Kevin

Jan 7th, 2008 - 11:04 PM

Re: Aristotle For Everybody --- Except Richard!!!

AS TO SPECIAL vs. COMMON EXPERIENCE:
Incidentally, nobody knew how or how well an Athenian TRIREME worked until a few years ago (1987) when some archeologist-reconstructors, British financiers and the Greek government BUILT a trireme (1987) with "data" gleaned from archeology at ancient Piraeus-harbor and various historical sources which included ancient sketches and desriptions.

The Greek Navy had to rebuild most of the ship for the Athens Olympics which occurred about 4 years (?) ago. But, by means of images and words (with necessary translations into English for "the brits"), a working Athenian trireme was built, rowed and sailed in the Aegean after an approximate 2000-year abscence. Anyone can see images of the ship at the modern Athenian Navy's website. She is called OLYMPIAS and has been dry-docked given the difficult upkeep of her "low tech" construction and materials.

Olympias is a resurrected "ancient BEAUTY", like Aristotle and his closest intellectual mentor, who was Socrates more than Plato, for neither Aristotle, nor Socrates "separated the forms", in the way which Plato and his later Academic successors called ideas "separate".

Ten years earlier (prior to the resurrection of a trireme with which Socrates, Plato and Aristotle would have been well acquainted; Socrates may have even rowed one in the Peloponnesian war!) Adler was simply trying "to resurrect" Aristotle's thinking from the obscurity to which it had been relegated by modern American Academics.

The name PHILOSOPHY literally means LOVE OF WISDOM. How could LOVE make "progress" from one generation to the next, anymore than the LOVE OF MONEY, or the LOVE of "fame, food or anything else" MAKE "progress"?!!!

Of course, WISDOM is not the sort of physical thing which anyone can lay hold of and possess in the same way that one may have and hold money, stored provisions of food, or an artifact-collection.

"Sophia's" lovers can't possibly have exclusive possession of an abstraction, called Wisdom/Sophia, in the same way that any human being might HAVE a wife, a husband, a "relationship", a child, a well-stocked food cupboard, or a bulging bank account whom/which they love.

The change of the Greek term SOPHIST (person of finished/accomplished wisdom) to PHILOSOPHER (pursuer or seeker of wisdom) indicates that the later philosophers understood that Wisdom-Seeking was more like a pursuit than an accomplished fact. But since no one can possess WISDOM, exclusively, does it follow that no one KNEW how to go about pursuing WISDOM, as did Socrates, Plato or Aristotle? Hardly.

So even if ancient philosophers didn't KNOW some of the things which modern scientists KNOW, why is Richard so CERTAIN that all the "ideas" of ancient philosophers were "failures"?

Or why does he think that they might have "different ideas" were they alive today? Would Socrates change his "idea" that running away in the middle of a battle is a disgraceful thing to do in the 5th Century B.C., but today, think that cowardice is honourable in Iran or Afghanistan, no matter which "side's" combatants decide to run away?

Seeking "failed ideas" is hardly what Socrates sought to do. Proving "failed ideas" is what he did.

Seeking "failed ideas" is not what Aristotle did. He actually, along with Plato and others at both the Academy and Lyceum, discovered new ideas, which actually corrected the "failed ideas", which Socrates had demonstrated to be failures on the parts of his predecessors (such as Parmenides of Elea and Heraclitus of Ephesus).

Richard, in sharp contrast to either Socrates or Aristotle won't even give "Aristotle's ideas" (of which many ideas actually belonged to others) either a fair hearing or a DIRECT criticism.

Most obviously, Mortimer Jerome Adler was neither an "ancient philosopher", nor a "traditional Academic" (only concerned with the opinions and/or accolades of fellow modern academics).

QUITE THE CONTRARY, Adler thought that learning how to think philosophically was EVERYBODY's business. Once again the term EVERYBODY in the title of his "little gem". So WHAT is the actual source of Richard's antipathy to both Adler and Aristotle? Richard is a complete ENIGMA at the Radical Academy forum, given his arguable antipathy to M.J. Adler's ideas, let alone the ideas of Aristotle.

I wonder WHY? Philosophy begins with wonder...

concluded next post

KB

Kevin

Jan 7th, 2008 - 11:16 PM

Re: Aristotle For Everybody --- Except Richard!!!

It is entirely DUBIOUS, to me, that Richard has read anything by M.J. Adler, let alone his "little gem", ARISTOTLE FOR EVERYBODY. I wonder WHY NOT given the fact that "we KNOW" so much more than Aristotle and his "failed ideas", according to Richard. Hence, Aristotle should be dead easy to refute, since all one must do is oppose his "failed ideas" to the "successful ideas" of MODERN SCIENCE and NOTE the difference.

That is easy to do, where Aristotle is talking about things he did not KNOW but modern scientists do KNOW. However, no modern person has ever argued with Plato and friends, at an Academy, for 20 years, employing the sorts of RATIONAL ARGUMENTATION which are utterly anti-thetical to the kinds of arguments BETWEEN Ivo, Richard and myself. Those guys really KNEW how to argue rationally --- a.k.a. logically. After all, they learned their ARGUMENT techniques from Socrates, either firsthand (Plato) or from Socrates's star pupil (Plato) in Aristotle's case.

It is not so easy to see Aristotle's "resurrected mind" the way one can actually see a "resurrected trireme" from the time of Aristotle, Plato and Socrates, during the Peloponnesian War.

But this is what one looks like, according to the GREEK NAVY's website, if my posting actually works:

Kevin

artie

Jan 30th, 2008 - 8:50 AM

Re: Aristotle For Everybody --- Except Richard!!!

you are talking to yourself on the internet

	The Radical Academy Discussion Forum Philosophy, Politics, and the Human Condition
Search For Similar Forums · Return to Website