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Mortimer J. Adler Papers
An inventory of his papers at Syracuse University
Overview of the Collection |
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| Creator: | Adler, Mortimer Jerome,1902-2001. |
| Title: | Mortimer J. Adler Papers |
| Inclusive Dates: | 1937-1966 |
| Quantity: | 10 linear ft. |
| Abstract: | Papers of the American philosopher, educator, author. Correspondence (1937-1966); manuscript articles, books, lectures, and notes (1938-1963); correspondence, notes, and manuscript drafts and revisions relating to The Great Ideas: a syntopicon of Great books of the Western world; scrapbooks; and printed material, including articles and clippings about Adler and reviews of his books. |
| Language: | English |
| Repository: | Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Library 222 Waverly Avenue Syracuse, NY 13244-2010 http://scrc.syr.edu |
Biographical History
Mortimer J. Adler was born in New York City in 1902. He attended public schools in the city but dropped out at age 14 to work as a copy boy for the New York Sun. Eventually he returned to school and received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1929. He taught at Columbia from 1923 until 1930 when, at the invitation of Robert Hutchins, he went to the University of Chicago. There he taught philosophy and helped to establish the great books program as well as the Great Books Foundation. Adler left his post as professor in 1952 to found and direct the Institute for Philosophical Research. The Institute went on to sponsor many publications, its first major one being The Idea of Freedom.
Adler introduced the Paideia Proposal which resulted in his founding the Paideia Program, a grade-school curriculum centered around guided reading and discussion of challenging works at all grade levels, and with Max Weismann he founded The Center for the Study of The Great Ideas.
As associate editor of Encyclopedia Britannica's Great Books of the Western World and co-editor of Great Ideas Today, Adler contributed over one hundred essays on the great ideas of Western Civilization. He authored many philosophical books, beginning with Dialectic in 1927 and including Art and Prudence, St. Thomas and the Gentiles, What Man Has Made of Man, a best seller called How To Read a Book, and The Conditions of Philosophy. He lectured extensively on the problems and questions of philosophy throughout his career.
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Scope and Contents of the Collection
The Mortimer J. Adler Papers include correspondence-subject files, reference materials, manuscripts, reviews, and published materials.
Correspondence-subject files (1½ boxes, 1937-1966) includes incoming and outgoing letters. Reference materials (2 boxes) contains Adler's photocopies of reference material, articles and book chapters on various philosophical problems. Adler's inventory of these materials is included at the beginning of the series. The materials are largely undated. Manuscripts (11 boxes, 1938-1963) contains articles, books, lectures, notes, manuscripts of others, proceedings, scrapbooks and speeches. Reviews (½ box, 1937-1938, 1965-1966) consists of critiques and comments on Adler's work and includes articles and newspaper clippings. Published materials (1 box, 1937-1966) includes articles about Adler, articles by others, books, newspaper clippings about Adler, and a press release about Adler.
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Arrangement of the Collection
Correspondence-subject files is arranged by subject and author (as Adler had arranged them), and are filed in alphabetical order. Reference materials are arranged in the order in which Adler had kept them; his inventory of these materials has been placed at the beginning of the series.
Manuscripts materials are first arranged alphabetically by type. The articles are further arranged by subject. The books are arranged alphabetically by title; where necessary the books are further arranged in sequence by draft revision. Lectures are arranged alphabetically by title or location of the lecture. The collection of notes is headed by "current random notes" and the remaining notes are filed alphabetically by title or subject. Miscellaneous seas are placed last. Speeches are further arranged alphabetically by location of the speech. Reviews are arranged alphabetically by the title of the work being reviewed. Published materials are arranged alphabetically by type; the books are further arranged alphabetically by title.
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Restrictions
Access Restrictions
There are no access restrictions on this material
Use Restrictions
Written permission must be obtained from SCRC and all relevant rights holders before publishing quotations, excerpts or images from any materials in this collection.
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Subject Headings
Persons
Associated Titles
Subjects
Genres and Forms
Occupations
Administrative Information
Preferred Citation
Preferred citation for this material is as follows:
Mortimer J. Adler Papers
Special Collections Research Center,
Syracuse University Library
Finding Aid Information
Created by: -
Date: Jan 1967
Revision history: 3 May 2007 - converted to EAD (MRC);
5 Sep 2007 - updated "Popper" (MRC)
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Inventory
| Correspondence-subject files | |||||||||||
| Box 1 | Art and Prudence by Adler 1937-1938 | ||||||||||
| Box 1 | Athenium Publishers (re Conditions of Philosophy) 1964-1966 | ||||||||||
| Box 1 | Conditions of Philosophy by Adler 1965-1966 | ||||||||||
| Box 1 | Idea of Freedom by Adler Aug-Dec 1958, Jan-April, June, Nov 1959, 1960-1965 (2 folders) | ||||||||||
| Box 1 | Longman's Green Publishers (mainly re What Man Has Made of Man) 1937-1938 | ||||||||||
| Box 1 | Problems for Thomists (re Herbert Ratner and his reviews of Adler's book) 1940 | ||||||||||
| Box 1 | "St. Thomas and the Gentiles" by Adler 1938-1939 | ||||||||||
| Box 1 | "Science vs. Philosophy" by Adler 1951-1952 | ||||||||||
| Box 1 | Simon and Schuster Publishers (mainly re Conditions of Philosophy) 1964 | ||||||||||
| Box 1 | "Solution to the Problem of Species," thoughts on and publication of 1940, 1941 (2 folders) | ||||||||||
| Box 2 | University of Chicago lectures 1963-1964 | ||||||||||
| Box 2 | What Man Has Made of Man 1937-1938 | ||||||||||
| Box 2 | Wolff, H., Book Manuf. Co. (mainly re What Man Has Made of Man) 1937 | ||||||||||
| Reference materials | |||||||||||
| Box 2 | "Inventory of Xerox Folders" | ||||||||||
| Box 2 | Perelman | ||||||||||
| Box 2 | C.B. Daly | ||||||||||
| Box 2 | Reichenbach | ||||||||||
| Box 2 | Frank, Philip | ||||||||||
| Box 2 | Toulmin, Stephen | ||||||||||
| Box 2 | Fisk, Milton on Karl Popper | ||||||||||
| Box 2 | Kaplan, Hawkins, Nicholl, Passmore, Copleston; "Texts on Existentialism" | ||||||||||
| Box 2 | Jaspers | ||||||||||
| Box 2 | Zarbeek, Farhang | ||||||||||
| Box 2 | Ewing, A.C. | ||||||||||
| Box 2 | Ryle | ||||||||||
| Box 2 | Flew, Malcolm, Campbell, Popper, Nowell-Smith, Wisdom, Broad, Ayer, "Miscellaneous Periodical Stuff" | ||||||||||
| Box 2 | Wisdom, John | ||||||||||
| Box 3 | Ryle, Waismann, Copleston | ||||||||||
| Box 3 | C.D. Broad, A.C. Ewing, M. Schlick | ||||||||||
| Box 3 | Moore, G.E. | ||||||||||
| Box 3 | Ayer, A.J. | ||||||||||
| Box 3 | Hawkins, D.J.B., Nicholl, D. | ||||||||||
| Box 3 | Copleston, F. | ||||||||||
| Box 3 | Reid, T., Hamilton, W., Gilson | ||||||||||
| Box 3 | White, A. | ||||||||||
| Box 3 | Black, M., Ayer, A.J. | ||||||||||
| Box 3 | Kaplan, A. | ||||||||||
| Box 3 | Quine, Price, Broad, Ayer, Findlay, on Clarity Is Not Enough | ||||||||||
| Box 3 | Maxwell, Wallace, MacKinnon, on "Particles" | ||||||||||
| Box 3 | Popper, K.R. | ||||||||||
| Box 3 | Popper, K.R. | ||||||||||
| Box 3 | Warnock | ||||||||||
| Box 4 | Urmson, J.O. | ||||||||||
| Box 4 | Buchdehl, Murdock, Warnock on The Nature of Metaphysics | ||||||||||
| Box 4 | Hanson, N.R. | ||||||||||
| Box 4 | James, W. | ||||||||||
| Box 4 | Toulmin, S. | ||||||||||
| Box 4 | Ayer, Conant, Henle Maritan, Santayana | ||||||||||
| Manuscripts | |||||||||||
| Articles | |||||||||||
| Box 5 | Typescript copy of Herbert Ratner critique of Adler's work | ||||||||||
| Box 5 | Typescript copy of Adler's reply to Ratner | ||||||||||
| Box 5 | Typescript of "St. Thomas and the Gentiles" by Adler | ||||||||||
| Books | |||||||||||
| Box 5 | Art and Prudence I; original mss. 1937 | ||||||||||
| Box 5 | Art and Prudence II; original mss. 1937 | ||||||||||
| The Conditions of Philosophy | |||||||||||
| Box 6 | drafts, Chapters I-XVII, Set I (18 folders) | ||||||||||
| Box 6 | drafts, entire bound, Set II | ||||||||||
| Box 7 | drafts, Chapters I-XVII, Set III (18 folders) | ||||||||||
| Box 7 | drafts, Chapters I-VI, Set IV (6 folders) | ||||||||||
| Box 8 | drafts, Chapters VII-XVII, Set IV (11 folders) | ||||||||||
| Box 9 | drafts, Chapters I-XII, Set V (13 folders) | ||||||||||
| Box 9 | drafts, Chapters XII-XVII, Set V (6 folders) | ||||||||||
| Box 9 | drafts, Chapters I-XVII, Set VI (18 folders) | ||||||||||
| Box 9 | Table of Contents | ||||||||||
| Box 9 | Preface | ||||||||||
| Box 10 | Controversy and Freedom Book I | ||||||||||
| Box 10 | The Controversy Concerning Human Freedom by Adler (Inst. for Philosophical Research) | ||||||||||
| Box 11 | Dialectic | ||||||||||
| Box 11 | Politics and Scholasticism by J. Maritain, with Adler Revision | ||||||||||
| Box 11 | Problems for Thomists - The Problem of Species | ||||||||||
| Box 12 | What Man Has Made of Man | ||||||||||
| Lectures | |||||||||||
| "The Conditions of Philosophy" | |||||||||||
| Box 12 | Lectures I-VI, orig. mss copy, Set I (6 folders) | ||||||||||
| Box 12 | Lectures I-VI, Set II (6 folders) | ||||||||||
| Box 13 | Lectures I-VI, Set III (6 folders) | ||||||||||
| Box 13 | Bibliography | ||||||||||
| Box 13 | entire bound | ||||||||||
| Box 13 | "Philosophy of Aristotle," St. John's University 1938 | ||||||||||
| Box 14 | At St. John's College and elsewhere 1938-1939 | ||||||||||
| Notes | |||||||||||
| Box 14 | "Current Random Notes" | ||||||||||
| Box 14 | "The Conditions of Philosophy" lectures | ||||||||||
| Box 14 | "The Conditions of Philosophy" lectures | ||||||||||
| Box 14 | The Conditions of Philosophy | ||||||||||
| Box 14 | Philosophy Lectures, "Things to Read Carefully" | ||||||||||
| Box 14 | Ratner, Herbert, Adler's reply to | ||||||||||
| Box 14 | "Science vs. Philosophy" | ||||||||||
| Box 14 | What Man Has Made of Man; notes on errors and corrections for | ||||||||||
| Box 14 | Notes | ||||||||||
| Box 14 | Notes | ||||||||||
| Manuscripts of others | |||||||||||
| Box 14 | "On the Distinction Between Thing and Property" | ||||||||||
| Proceedings | |||||||||||
| Box 14 | "A Forum on Freedoms": Inst. for Philosophical Research 1953 | ||||||||||
| Scrapbooks | |||||||||||
| Box 15 | Comments on "Document on Human Freedom" | ||||||||||
| Box 15 | Comments on "Document on Human Freedom" | ||||||||||
| Speeches | |||||||||||
| Box 15 | DePaul Philosophical Symposium Keynote Address 1963 | ||||||||||
| Box 15 | "Knowledge and Opinion" (2 copies) 1957 | ||||||||||
| Box 15 | Philosophy Conference Dec 1962 | ||||||||||
| Reviews | |||||||||||
| Box 15 | Art and Prudence 1937-1938, undated | ||||||||||
| Box 15 | The Conditions of Philosophy 1965-1966, undated | ||||||||||
| Box 15 | "St. Thomas and the Gentiles" 1938, undated | ||||||||||
| Box 15 | What Man Has Made of Man 1937, undated | ||||||||||
| Published material | |||||||||||
| Articles | |||||||||||
| Box 16 | Articles about | ||||||||||
| Box 16 | Articles by others | ||||||||||
| Books | |||||||||||
| Box 16 | The Conditions of Philosophy by Adler | ||||||||||
| Box 16 | Research on Freedom, Vol. I by Inst. for Philosophical Research (and Adler) | ||||||||||
| Box 16 | Research on Freedom, Vol. II | ||||||||||
| Box 16 | Newspaper clippings about | ||||||||||
| Box 16 | Pamphlets by Adler, "Materials for Philosophy Talk" | ||||||||||
| Box 16 | Press Release about | ||||||||||
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