Ten Philosophical Mistakes [Paperback]

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

Mortimer Adler, as he would no doubt cheerfully admit, is not going to go down as one of the 20th century's great philosophers. But then, neither is the reviewer who calls him "all wet". For that matter, neither will any of us. It seems to me, therefore, that the tub-water response to his book is uncalled for, and possibly rather excessively arrogant, unless you happen to be a better philosopher than Adler; so I think it is only right to give a somewhat fairer review of the book, which I'll attempt.

"Ten Philosophical Mistakes" is something of a mixed bag. On the one hand, it contains a variety of quaint errors and outright misunderstandings. An example is Adler's apparent failure to understand that contemporary epistemologists use "belief" in such a way that it's simply analytic that whatever is known is believed. (Thus, he makes a big song and dance about a verbal point, warning us of the grave dangers of confusing belief and knowledge.) Again, there is considerable effrontery in the facile little argument whereby Adler hopes to defeat nominalism about properties. One might think, upon reading it, that men like William of Ockham and Jean Buridan (not to mention, in our day, Quine or David Lewis) just couldn't have been very bright to be taken in by such a stupid doctrine; yet strangely, they are accounted great philosophers. On the other hand, the book contains a number of useful pointers to major philosophical errors, which infected the entire modern tradition up to the positivist era, and continue to exert a baleful influence in many quarters of contemporary analytic philosophy. Two excellent examples, which Adler selects for special mention, are what we now call "sense-data theories", and the notion that it is impossible to refer to nonexistent (fictitious, imaginary) things. Adler is certainly right to point up the errors here. The first error has the farcical consequence that one can never see tables and chairs. The second has the even worse consequence that "Sherlock Holmes" is either not a name at all, or else Sherlock Holmes must exist. (The first alternative assaults the English language; the second is as silly as believing in the Tooth Fairy.) Adler's strategy, in each case, is to display the philosophical assumptions that lead to some absurd claim, point out that the absurd claim is absurd, and suggest that we abandon the assumptions in question.

It is idle to object that Adler hasn't refuted the arguments of those philosophers who advocated these errors, for as Adler clearly states at the beginning of the book, "I have not tried to argue for or prove the truths that I have offered as corrections of the errors pointed out. I rely upon the reader's common sense to discern that the corrections have the ring of truth." If Adler had promised refutations and failed to come up with them, that would have been worth objecting to, but he clearly says that he isn't attempting a refutation. Why, after all, should we have to refute something that we *know* is false? You might as well spend your time looking for the precise location of the hole in a sunken ship. Philosophers have argued, among other things: that time is unreal; that nothing ever moves from one place to another; that matter does not exist; that matter exists but tables and chairs don't; that not a single historical event could possibly have been the slightest bit different; that 2 + 2 might have been 5; that some contradictions are true. One metaphysician, Peter Unger, has even argued that he does not exist, and neither do any other human beings. As Cicero realized even in his day, there is nothing so absurd but that some philosopher has said it. Is it necessary to study and refute all the arguments that these philosophers have brought forth to believe the facts that they deny? I think not. Perhaps Adler's "common sense" is a bit overdone. But common sense overdone is a thousand times better than philosophy without common sense.

One of the most celebrated neo-classical philosophers of this decade is Mortimer J. Adler. Adler was born in 1902 in New York City and led a fulfilling life enlightening others even after his recent death in 2001. Adler began his career as a scholar with an education at Columbia University continuing there to teach psychology and then taught at the philosophy of law at Chicago University. He was the Director of the institute for Philosophical Research and most also the Chairman of the Board of Editors for the Encyclopedia Britannica.
The prologue to Adler's "Ten Philosophical Mistakes" begins with the following quote by Aristotle and best summarizes his thesis, "The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold." The implications of the this chosen quote is proved correct in this book; Adler dissects the blunders of post-16th century philosophers, namely those philosophers who followed Descartes and himself, and shows how the consequences have impacted contemporary society with confusion. Adler separates the errors of modern philosophy into ten of the following chapters: Consciousness and its objects, the intellect and the senses, words and meanings, knowledge and opinion, moral values, happiness and contentment, freedom and choice, human nature, human society and lastly- human existence.
The classical philosophers from the ivory towers had ideas that were so enlightening and their thoughts so deep that it could pierce the darkest questions of the universe; until the modern philosophers came along and totally demolished those towers that had taken centuries to build. It is true that society found that modern philosophy appealing because it was completely logical and coherent, more down to earth and applicable to their lives, but somehow it didn't seem to provide the enlightening affect that philosophy once possessed. That is until Mortimer J. Adler came along to rebuild the ivory towers; in this sense the book is successful because it steers you back towards the light. Even if one did not agree with him, you have to give Adler credit for his courage of challenging the darkest philosophers, and even more credit for widening your intellectual horizon with his "common-sensible" yet thorough ideas.
A prerequisite to prepare for reading this book is definitely to study the modern philosophers: Lock, Hume, Rousseau, Hobbes and Marx. These are the targeted axe-murderers of wisdom that have tarnished contemporary society's way of thinking according to Adler. Besides, once the theories of the modern philosophers are examined, one is always begging for an answer out of the deeper whole of black matter that they inflicted, Adler patches it up.
One of the reasons why "Ten Philosophical Mistakes" is so popular is because it is accessible to any literate person with a curiosity for philosophy. "Adler has the knack of steering readers through deep intellectual waters and making it easy to stay afloat," as the Pittsburgh Press puts it. Adler's use of language is exempt of much of the complex philosophical jargon that causes splitting migraines of confusion to the average person. That being said, there is another aspect that may cause many readers too loose interest in his arguments. In order to allow the general public to understand his book Adler is forced to spend excessive amounts of effort in defining numerous terms. Then again, when you look at it from another perspective, there would be no way to avoid this since most of the philosophical errors he lays out were caused by misinterpretations in the first place.
An example of Adler's extensive classifications of terms can be found in the very first chapter: Consciousness and Its Objects. To the average North American who spends more or less 10 hours a week watching television, understanding Consciousness would be an overwhelming task. But have no fear, Adler takes his time outlining as simplistic, thorough and exact as possible what consciousness and the concepts surrounding it mean from his perspective. As he does in most chapters, he then asks a set of profound questions regarding the concept at hand. In this chapter Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding is challenged. Once Adler has provided the reader with a stable understanding of the concepts and makes us aware of the errors of the modern philosopher, he is then capable of providing the solution. Chapter one concludes as follows, "The correction of that mistake produces the opposite result- a coherent view of consciousness and its objects that involves no inexplicable beliefs and that accords with common sense and common experience" (29).

I would above all recommend this book to three types of people. I suggest this to cynical people because modern philosophers did such a good number of plunging consciousness into a deeper and darker spiral, to people who couldn't get a grasp of philosophy because this book is based on common sense and is relatively easier than most philosophical books to read and especially to people who think they know all about philosophy because Adler will demonstrate otherwise.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 20 reviews  3.4 out of 5 stars