FIRinG Line. FIRING LINE is produced and directed by WARREN HOST: WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR. GUEST: MORTIMER ADLER SUBJECT: "IS PHI LOSOPHY WORTHWHILE?

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1 @ OJ o Ql a. S, :::;l " ~CD CD '"S, 5' CD r CD iii" :::l C. en iii :::l 0' a. ~ o FIRinG Line HOST: WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR. GUEST: MORTIMER ADLER SUBJECT: "IS PHI LOSOPHY WORTHWHILE?" FIRING LINE is produced and directed by WARREN STEIBEL. This is a transcript of the Firing Line program (#971/2239) taped in New York City on May 19, 1993, and telecast later on public television stations. copyright 1993 NATIONAL REVIEW

2 MR. BUCKLEY: It would not be a constitutional season on Firing Line without Mortimer Adler and his latest book. This slim and fascinating volume is called The 4 Dimensions of Philosophy, which are: Metaphysical, Moral, Objective and Categorical. Dr. Adler makes his taxonomic points and then some very grand assertions. Primary of these is that the uses of philosophy are relatively untested and unexploited, that we approach them as if they were subject to investigative research, and therefore the yield is bound to be unsatisfying. On the other hand, he is confident that were philosophy and the problems it addresses to be systematically examined, the dialectic by which this is done would yield important answers. I am anxious for you to know why philosophy has failed in the eyes of its most enchanted living champion. Dr. Adler was born 90 years ago and is, indeed has been, the dean of popular philosophy--popular not in the sense that it slights difficulties or shirks abstruse thought, but popular in the sense that Dr. Adler has always been eager for a nonprofessional audience. It is an aspect of his entire work as educator, editor and researcher. He is, of course, the moving spirit behind the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Great Books, the Aspen Institute, and most pointedly in the current connection, the Institute for Philosophical Research. But let's begin by asking Dr. Adler whether by a "dimension" of philosophy he means us to understand that in the absence of that dimension, the whole edifice would collapse. Do we need a Categorical dimension in order to sustain a moral dimension? DR. ADLER: No, I think the first two dimensions, the Metaphysical and the Moral, are the primary dimensions. They must be established, I think, for the other two dimensions to be invoked. But the four dimensions are quite separate in some sense. They represent four different ways in which philosophy adds to our culture. Let me say, Bill, that--i've thought about this for some time recently--i am almost unique in one extraordinary sense. I am the only writer in the last 50 years of serious philosophical books who is not a professor of philosophy at a university. I think-- MR. BUCKLEY: Well, and your degree is in law. I think it is an extraordinary achievement. And I don't think the university professors of philosophy are producing anything like the kind of books that I think should be written for the general public about philosophy. And the reason why I think this book is important, I said in the prologue to it: Imagine our culture totally deprived of philosophy. What would we lose? We'd lose the respect of reality, a much more serious understanding of it, that all the 1

3 investigative sciences can give. We would lose completely the dimensions of moral and political philosophy because they are not acknowledged by the empirical scientists, the positivists. And if you accept the Kantian position that there is no knowable reality independent of the human mind--and anything independent of the human mind is not knowable at all by us--you are reduced to the modern era of idealism, which I think is disastrous. And finally, if the difference between the senses and the intellect is not acknowledged, there would be no understanding of the Great Ideas at all because the Great Ideas are the intelligible objects of the intellect. They are intelligible objects. MR. BUCKLEY: Before we get onto those general points, can you tell us why the objective and Categorical dimensions of philosophy aren't primary viewed structurally? Are they derivative from the Metaphysical and Moral? DR. ADLER: No. The Objective dimension is the dimension in which we are-- See, I think the study of the Great Ideas, which requires the intellect, since those are intelligible objects of the intellect is nonexistent in a culture which is positivist and materialist, whose entire psychological framework is of the senses, not of the intellect and the intelligible objects--those objects would not exist. There would be no discussion of the Great Ideas at all. All the work that I've done in the syntopicon and in the recent book on the Great Ideas would be nonexistent without philosophy. MR. BUCKLEY: Well, I acknowledge that, but I was trying to get from you some idea as to why the Objective dimension is a subsidiary to the other two. DR. ADLER: I don't think it really is a subsidiary. MR. BUCKLEY: So they all have equal standing. DR. ADLER: Yes, yes. And the Categorical dimension-- Think of the number of books that are written every year, the philosophy of law, philosophy of poetry, philosophy of technology, philosophy of history, even the philosophy of the philosophy of the "Philosophy of" books. That's the Categorical dimension, the dimension dea~ing with the categories, the various kinds of knowledge. MR. BUCKLEY: To which you return in another connection. MR. BUCKLEY: Well now, you define the word d-o-x-a as a distinctive type of knowledge, about that which is and happens in the world or about what men ought to do and seek. 2

4 MR. BUCKLEY: Now, distinctive in what sense? DR. ADLER: I'm not sure I understand the question. MR. BUCKLEY: This is your sentence: "This approach to philosophy," you say, "can be a distinctive type of knowledge, doxa-- MR. BUCKLEY: "--about that which is and happens in the world or about what men ought to do and seek." MR. BUCKLEY: How do you decide what the model ought to be, what an exemplary life is? DR. ADLER: The answer to that question is that if one starts with the proposition that there is prescriptive knowledge as well as descriptive knowledge, which I definitely think is the case-- Again, Aristotle is almost alone in saying there are two kinds of truth: descriptive truth, which is the empirical sciences and philosophy about reality, and prescriptive truth, which is the truth of the mind in forming the right desire. And that is doxa also--doxa in the sense-- Episteme, is knowledge beyond the shadow of a doubt, certitude. We have very little knowledge of that kind. The best of our philosophy knowledge is doxa, is well-founded opinion that is within the realm of doubt. You see, I think there are no philosophical truths that are beyond the realm of doubt except a few selfevident truths that don't make much difference anyway. MR. BUCKLEY: Well, but as I understand you, you are laying out here, in what you call a public enterprise, to try to dramatize the interest that we all have in philosophical pursuits. And you say, "I have argued that philosophy can be pursued as a public enterprise in which philosophers cooperate, adjudicate their disputes and achieve some measure of agreement." What might be an example of a "dispute" concerning which agreement might be reached? DR. ADLER: Well, you will recall I wrote a big book called The Idea of Freedom. MR. BUCKLEY: Oh, sure. DR. ADLER: That book studied the whole literature on freedom, in which the philosophers--men, not orily philosophers, but poets and playwrights and humanists in general--had to say 3

5 about freedom. And that was a public enterprise because we got clearly what the real disputes were, where there was a meeting of minds. In connection with free will, for example, there is no meeting of the minds at all. Those material~sts who deny free will just hash out through the night with the immaterialists who affirm it. MR. BUCKLEY: They can't talk to each other-- DR. ADLER: No. MR. BUCKLEY: --the two camps, irrespective of whether they submit to this dialectical process that you describe? Does that make it possible, or is it postulated that they can't agree? DR. ADLER: They can't-- The dialectical process shows what they have to assert in order to disagree. I mean, they have to agree on the subject. They have to-- MR. BUCKLEY: Common ground-- DR. ADLER: That's right. MR. BUCKLEY: Yes. DR. ADLER: But those two volumes were a kind of, shall I say, public, cooperative work. It involved a large staff of people that worked for eight years to produce those two volumes. MR. BUCKLEY: Well, now, on the SUbject of, say, religion, how is it advanced by pursuing this procedure of philosophical inquiry? DR. ADLER: Well, the disputed questions about religion is what the definition is. For example, whether or not the religions of the Far East and the three religions of the West, which are based upon a sacred book, are religions in the same sense of the term is a very difficult question to handle. I would think that the line between religion and philosophy in the Far East, with respect to all the Far Eastern religious cults, are very hard to draw. The line is crossed all the time. Whereas in the West, religion consists-- The first act of religious faith is that God has revealed Himself to us in sacred scripture., MR. BUCKLEY: And that closes out any arguments, unless they are scientific arguments, having to do with the validity of the Incarnation. DR. ADLER: Oh, yes. Yes. 4

6 MR. BUCKLEY: But those would not be philosophical, those would be investigative-- DR. ADLER: That's right. MR. BUCKLEY: --in nature. DR. ADLER: I think that one of the most important things that I've done in this book is to show how in the 20th century, taking empirical sciences, investigative sciences, as the standard of knowledge--the positivist position--as the only real knowledge of reality or valid knowledge of reality. What that does is to really foreclose any discussion about other things. To demand of philosophy, which is not investigative, depending on the common sense--common sense experience, common human experience, which is the empirical sense of experience, but not investigative--to demand of a non-investigative discipline like that, philosophy--or mathematics, which is not investigative--the same kind of achievements that are achieved by the empirical sciences which are investigative and change from century to century, is one of the things that's happened to philosophy in the 20th century. MR. BUCKLEY: Well, now, do they change for objective reasons or do they change because people's perspectives are widened, or do they change because fresh research gives us a different view? DR. ADLER: I think philosophy will again in the future--i don't think it will happen in this century; I think somewhere in the next century or the one after that--philosophy will regain its status when people understand that it's a totally different kind of knowledge, empirical knowledge, empirical understanding, than is achieved by the empiricar sciences. MR. BUCKLEY: Well, why did philosophy lose its standing? You talk here about how philosophy will have a brighter future than it has had. MR. BUCKLEY: Is it because science, beginning with the 17th century, simply swept it aside? In the last three centuries, science has become the top of the pole in the hierarchy of knowledge. When you think of all the centuries preceding that, in which philosophy was the highest--theology first, theology philosophy's handmaiden. But beginning with Bacon, the empirical sciences--and perhaps with Descartes, with Locke and Hume--right down to the present day,.science has become the supreme discipline. In fact, I think if you ask most people 5 -.~-~----

7 where they would go for knowledge, they would say immediately, "To the sciences." They would not think of philosophy as offering them anything that the sciences could not do better at, you see? HR. BUCKLEY: Well, now, is that-- You seem to be blaming the philosophers for this. DR. ADLER: I am. HR. BUCKLEY: Are you suggesting that they should have devised means by which to establish their preeminence? DR. ADLER: Well, in order for philosophy to have had a career in modern times that is as respectable as the career of science, a lot of modern errors have been made. Just think of the error that Kant made in saying there may be a reality independent of the human mind, but it is unknowable. That idealistic error, that everything is dependent on the human mind, is an extraordinary error. And all the post-kantian idealism is very destructive to philosophy. I think that it was inevitable that science, particularly with its technological applications, the use of philosophy bakes no cakes and builds no bridges, says William James. But it directs our lives. The motto of Phi Beta Kappa, t~glw.ig gr.b.g~~ P~H :::::::SHmmRn:.~E~:~~j--"philosophy is the guide to li fe jf= =T~r; "'~r thtrik; d6rriii6t : Science is not the guide to life. Science has no answers to equivocal questions of value. MR. BUCKLEY: generality? Well, the positivists would comment how to that They would say there is no reality, right? DR. ADLER: Yes, yes. They would say that the empirical sciences, investigation, is the only way to get knowledge. They would admit the mathematician is an armchair thinker, but they don't understand that the philosopher is also an armchair thinker that doesn't go out and-- I mean, the philosopher who did any research in terms of investigating wouldn't be worth his salt at all. To be a philosopher you have to sit in your chair and think. You have all the experience you need as a human being. HR. BUCKLEY: Well, the treason of the philosophers, to use that phrase, would be, for instance, in their failure absolutely to respond to the positivists and insist_on the objective nature of their discipline? DR. ADLER: Well-- Are you speaking now of philosophers or professors of philosophy? HR. BUCKLEY: Whichever you like. I want to talk about the failures of philosophy and who is responsible for them. 6

8 DR. ADLER: I think the professors are. MR. BUCKLEY: Precisely because of this willingness to let science be preeminent? MR. BUCKLEY: And what should they have done? Should they-- DR. ADLER: I think again, the whole point of this book, if they had understood the contribution that each of those four dimensions make, and particularly the last three--the moral and political philosophy, the Objective dimension, the study of the Great Ideas; and the study of subject matters--had those been acknowledged, the philosophers would have seen that there are things that would be totally absent, unachieveable by investigative science. If all you have is investigative science, you have no moral and political philosophy at all. MR. BUCKLEY: Well now, can you outline more precisely what it is that philosophy professors failed to do--or if you prefer, did do and shouldn't have? DR. ADLER: I think they have not corrected the errors that have accumulated in philosophy since the 17th century. They have not answered the positivists, they haven't shown what's wrong with comparing--simply judging philosophy by the method of science. I think they have ignored the fact that from the 5th and 4th century BC to the end of the 14th and 15th century, philosophy had a very important role in human life that they have misapprehended and misunderstood. They are not good exponents of philosophy, I would say. MR. BUCKLEY: Is that because they doubt the reach of their own discipline or is it because they are seduced in part by these positivist notions or temptations? DR. ADLER: I think they are probably seduced by positivism and materialism. They are certainly guilty of allowing themselves to say yes to Kant when they should have said no to Kant and all the post-kantian idealism that has sprung ur. Don't you think it is extraordinary that before Kant there were no. idealists at all? Not one. No one ever denied a knowable reality and a tangible reality. Kant's Copernican revolution is, I think, the worst disaster that has happened to philosophy in modern times. And the professional philosophers" accept it without a murmur. MR. BUCKLEY: How do you account for that? DR. ADLER: I am afraid I will have to say something that is cruel. I think they are uneducated. I think they haven't 7

9 read--they have not submitted their minds to the literature properly. They haven't read Aristotle properly, they haven't read Aquinas properly, they haven't read Plato properly. Whitehead, yes. By the way, I think there are some early 20th century philosophers that are not as bad as those that are alive today. I think Dewey, Santayana, Bergson, Whitehead, had a genuine respect for philosophy. That was in the '20s. Whitehead and Russell--Russell before 1912 was, I think, a genuine philosopher. But we have no one in the world today that compares to those men I've just mentioned: Dewey, Whitehead, Santayana. The quote from Santayana in that book of mine is wonderful. Isn't it a wonderful quote? MR. BUCKLEY: Wonderful, yes. Yes. Well, is it an act of faith that these spirits will materialize, or do you simply assume they have to as a result of the barrenness of the alternative? DR. ADLER: Well, I think, if I can make clear to my audience how deprived our culture is by putting science not only in the first place but in the only place that one goes ~o for knowledge of reality, for understanding of anything. What we lose, what we have deprived ourselves of is so serious that I would think that it would turn the tables the other way. The conditions I have set for philosophy again being not only as respectable as science, but more respectable than science. MR. BUCKLEY: More respectable based on what criteria of respectability? DR. ADLER: Human worth. A life lived without philosophy, a culture without philosophy, I think is-- MR. BUCKLEY: Is not worth living. DR. ADLER: --a deprived one. MR. BUCKLEY: Well, is there any sense of the awareness of the people you are talking about of this emptiness? DR. ADLER: I don't think so. MR. BUCKLEY: This Santayana quotation was the one, "For good or ill, I am an ignorant man"?. MR. BUCKLEY: "For good or ill, I am an ignorant man, almost a poet, and I can only spread a feast of what everybody knows. Fortunately exact science and the books of the learned are not necessary to establish my essential doctrine, nor can any of 8

10 them claim a higher warrant than it has in itself, for it rests on public experience." That's pretty sweeping, isn't it? DR. ADLER: I think it's wonderful. MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, it is. Yes. He had trouble ~ith his own faith, didn't he, his religious faith? DR. ADLER: He did, but I think finally-- MR. BUCKLEY: Did he ever come around? DR. ADLER: He came around later. MR. BUCKLEY: We published years ago, when I working very briefly for The American Mercury, a series of essays on Santayana by Max Eastman-- MR. BUCKLEY: --who was visiting with him in Rome. And of course Max Eastman was terribly anxious to prove that he had not come around. DR. ADLER: But he did come around. MR. BUCKLEY: He did. He was very happy with the nuns anyway, wasn't he? DR. ADLER: Very, very. MR. BUCKLEY: So you think that the light will shine because of the intensity of the darkness. DR. ADLER: I'm sure the light will shine because when people realize what a culture-- I would say we have a headless culture, that the totem pole of knowledge is with science at the bottom, not the top. Philosophy is much higher on that totem pole than science is. And when we realize what a culture is without philosophy, I think we will in turn say, "What have we lost?" I am convinced of that. I think this book has a chance of doing that, as a matter of fact. MR. BUCKLEY: Well, we only have two minutes left. Dr. Adler, I would like to ask you this: Where are you going from here? DR. ADLER: To write another book. MR. BUCKLEY: Can you tell us what it is going to be about? I'm going to write it this summer. It's called Art, the Arts and the Great Ideas. It's going to be a 9

11 . book about painting and music and the dance, all the so-called fine arts which were not fine arts in the ancient and medieval worlds. And will try to go on to say the arts, properly understood--the so-called fine arts I have just mentioned--are works of beauty, works of art, that should be enjoyed, but they don't say anything. They make no assertions pro or con. And that the search for the Great Ideas is untouched by them. This is a correction of a mistake I made in the Paideia thing when I said at the beginning seminars should be conducted about the Great Books, not textbooks, and other works of art. I'm wrong about that. There aren't any other works of art. And so in some sense a late correction. We have tried to have seminars about pieces of music, about paintings and scul~ture, and they didn't amount to anything but an expression of feelings on the part of the audience, and feelings are not discussable. MR. BUCKLEY: Which is okay by you, I take it. MR. BUCKLEY: So you are allowing them to have their discrete corner-- MR. BUCKLEY: --and do their own thing. DR. ADLER: --enjoyable, but don't go to them for significant statements. MR. BUCKLEY: It's not an epistemological experience. DR. ADLER: That's right. MR. BUCKLEY: Thank you very much, Dr. Adler, author of The 4 Dimensions of Philosophy; thank you, ladies and gentlemen from the stein Center. 10