[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Page 13435]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 13435]]

                     TRIBUTE TO DR. MORTIMER ADLER

 Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, today I would like to pay tribute 
to a great American who passed away on June 28, at the age of 98\1/2\--
an American whose life spanned virtually the entire 20th century and 
whose work influenced the course of the century.
  Dr. Mortimer Jerome Adler, author, educator and philosopher was born 
in New York City and subsequently moved to California where he lived a 
great portion of his life.
  Mortimer Adler devoted his life to the pursuit of wisdom, 
understanding, truth and knowledge, and to sharing what he learned with 
others. After having read John Stuart Mill's Autobiography at age 14 
and learning that Mill had read Plato by the time he was five, he hit 
the books and never looked back.
  A prolific writer, Adler authored well over 50 books, including How 
to Read a Book; The American Testament; The Common Sense of Politics; 
Aristotle for Everyone; Ten Philosophical Mistakes; and Art, the Arts 
and the Great Ideas. It is readily apparent, Mr. President, that his 
interests were wide ranging and extensive. As editor of the 
Encyclopedia Britannica, Adler was responsible for revamping the 
encyclopedia in the form we know it today. He was also editor of the 60 
volume set, The Great Books of the Western World and was also 
instrumental in devising the Great Books reading program, a book 
discussion program with chapters throughout the United States in which 
participants read and discuss classic texts.
  A professor at several universities including Columbia University and 
the University of Chicago, Mortimer Adler was probably the only person 
in America to receive his PhD before receiving his high school diploma, 
bachelors or masters degrees. As part of his unending quest to reform 
the American education system, he wrote, on behalf of the Paideia 
Group, The Paideia Proposal, a book explaining how and why the 
education that the best receive should be the education that all 
receive.
  Known as ``Everyone's Philosopher'' or ``the Philosopher of the 
Common Man,'' Mortimer Adler spent a lifetime demonstrating that 
philosophy was not a field only for some, but an endeavor for everyone. 
As the title of a journal that he published since the early 90's puts 
it succinctly, ``Philosophy is Everybody's Business.''
  He was also the founder of the Institute for Philosophical Research 
and was instrumental in founding the Aspen Institute, an organization 
which engages leaders in business, academia and politics in discussions 
of perennial ideas using classic texts to facilitate discussion.
  Only rarely does a person of Mortimer Adler's intellect and ability 
come along. We are fortunate that Professor Adler was with us for as 
long as he was.

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