Adler and Pragmatism

Mortimer Adler is the bridge between the older philosophical tradition the guide has worked through so far and the modern educational schools that follow. He spent his life arguing that the greatest texts in the Western tradition could be made accessible to ordinary readers, and that a single rigorous liberal education should be the right of every child. The chapter closes with an introduction to pragmatism, the contemporary American philosophy that John Dewey would soon use to remake schools again.

Who Adler Was

The high-school dropout who became the only American PhD with no BA, MA, or diploma, and the salesman of philosophy for a popular audience

Adler's Educational Philosophy

Why no one can be fully educated in school, the six kinds of education, and why most professionals never become generally educated humans

The Paideia Proposal

The 1982 manifesto for K-12 reform, the one-track liberal education, and the three objectives of basic schooling

The Three Columns and Three Kinds of Knowledge

Teaching, learning, and understanding as the three columns, and how each maps to organised knowledge, intellectual skills, and the appreciation of ideas

Teaching, the Instructor, and the Institutions

The didactic, coaching, and Socratic methods, what to look for in a teacher, and the three kinds of college Adler proposed

Criticisms of Adler and an Introduction to Pragmatism

The charges of ethnic and gender exclusion in the Great Books, the idealism criticism, and the pragmatist alternative that came next