Skip to main content
Mortimer Adler and Education
Collection StructureFiring Line broadcast records > Episode guide > Mortimer Adler and Education
Item Title Mortimer Adler and Education
Guest Adler, Mortimer Jerome (1902-2001)
Host Buckley, William F., Jr. (1925-2008)
Date CreatedJune 07, 1989
Description

The conversation goes over ground covered before-why Professor Adler's Chicago colleague Allan Bloom has hold of the wrong teaching method; why Aristotle is the greatest philosopher-but there are always new insights from this remarkable philosopher: "I would say to you, there's one and only one self-evident proposition in the whole field of moral thought, and that is: 'We ought to seek everything that's really good for us and nothing else.' Now, play that on your piano as follows. We'll test it as a proposition. Think the opposite: 'We ought not to seek what is really good for us; we ought to seek what is really bad for us.' Both of these are unthinkable. If the opposite of a proposition is unthinkable, then you have a self-evident truth."

Language(s)
Country of Origin
Place RecordedNew York City, New York, United States
DimensionsDuration: 30 minutes
FormatText
Medium television programs
Aspect Ratio
4:3
Color
color
Soundtrack
sound
Hoover IDProgram S0823
Record Number80040.1071
NotesVideo available through special order.
RightsCopyright held by Stanford University. This copy is provided for educational and research purposes only. No publication, further reproduction, or reuse of copies, beyond fair use, may be made without the express written permission of the Hoover Institution Library & Archives on behalf of Stanford University.

Feedback Form

Type of feedback
User data
Close