Ebook The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes, by Mortimer J. Adler
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The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes, by Mortimer J. Adler
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In this classic work, Adler explores how man differs from all other things in the universe, bringing to bear both philosophical insight and informed scientific hypotheses concerning the biological and behavioral characteristics of mainkind. Rapid advances in science and technology and the abstract concepts of that influence on man and human value systems are lucidly outlined by Adler, as he touches on the effect of industrialization, and the clash of cultures and value systems brought about by increased communication between previously isolated groups of people. Among the other problems this study addresses are the scientific achievements in biology and physics which have raised fundamental questions about humanity's essential nature, especially the discoveries in the bilogical relatedness of all living things. Thrown into high relief is humanity's struggle to determine its unique status in the natual world and its value in the world it has created. Ultimately, Adler's work develops an approach to the separation between scientific and philosophical questions which stands as a model of thought on philosophical considerations of new scientific discoveries and its consequences for the human person.
- Sales Rank: #1297608 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Fordham University Press
- Published on: 1993-01-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 5.50" h x .90" w x 8.50" l, 1.06 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 395 pages
- ISBN13: 9780823215355
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Review
aAmassing information from biology, chemistry, paleontology, cybernetics, and psychology, [Adler] has contrived a dazzling exercise in scholarship and logic.a
From the Back Cover
This book was first published in 1967. It dealt with what I recognized to be a mixed question that could not be satisfactorily answered by philosophical thought alone, or by the empirical sciences. Philosophy posed the question about the specific nature of man and the place of Homo sapiens in the order of nature. Do human beings differ from the higher mammals only in degree or in kind; and if in kind, is the difference radical or only superficial?
About the Author
Mortimer J. Adler was the director of the Institute for Philosophical Research in Chicago and a member of the board of editors of the Encyclopedia Brittanica.
Most helpful customer reviews
34 of 34 people found the following review helpful.
Thorough insight into man and animal cognition
By Kindle Customer
Dr Adler here gives us a fine presentation and analysis of animal cognition and how it corresponds with human knowledge. The distinctions Adler offers here are timeless and crucial. The answer to this question of the difference in man and animals is neither purely scientific, nor purely philosophical; rather a combined approach is needed. The relevant question to be answered is "Does man differ from the rest of the animal kingdom by degree or by kind, and if by kind is this difference radical or superficial?" Adler, using a traditional Aristotelian and Thomistic analysis of the modern research while combining it with the more recent positions of other philosophers and scientists, concludes that it is a difference in kind and that this difference is indeed radical. Man is a different "kind" of thing than the other creatures that inhabit our planet.
Adler is indeed fair and objective throughout. We must look at the operation of the creature in question, and in this case - articulation indicates what a given creature does in fact "know". The argument for difference in kind turns on man's ability to articulate "designators", that is verbalized concepts in both their connotative and denotative form. There is no evidence that animal communication is expressive in this way. The data that has resulted from inquiring into animal intelligence suggests no more than an ability of perceptual abstraction, whether memorized or immediate. Mankind articulates designators and these articulations cannot be explained by mere sense perception or any perceptual generalization for the very fact that such designators are inherently non - perceptible. Not only does man attribute and recognize particulars as members of abstract classes or the classes themselves, he has the additional ability to express concepts that are not empirically observable at all; i.e. "God", logical relations such as "inference", pi, etc. Thus, the negative edge of Ockham's razor prevents us from attributing conceptual awareness on the part of animals yet the positive edge of this principle of parsimony demands such additional attribution to mankind.
Next, Adler, using a traditional argument from Aquinas and Aristotle, argues that this ability must be immaterial due to the immaterial nature of the concept - a "class" or "universal" that cannot by definition be material and hence not merely an act of the physical brain.
Adler is fair throughout his contention. As an example he admits that his immateriality position would be falsified by a "Turing machine" a computer robot that would be able to communicate with humans via propositional words and sentence formation. This is the third prong of the "Cartesian Challenge" as asserted by Rene Descartes centuries ago. If a purely physical machine can achieve conceptual thought and propositional language, then Adler admits his immateriality theory on which conceptual thought is based would be falsified.
The benefits of this work go far beyond the main issue of human/animal distinction. The bibliography is outstanding. The footnotes are insightful and nearly comprise a second work on their own. Peripheral issues such as theories of human knowledge ala Locke, Kant, and the Aristotelian "triadic" relation of words - concepts - object are explained here along with a lucid discussion of "intention" and "meaning". Most importantly, the final chapter illustrates why such a discussion on the distinction between man and animal is important highlighting the relevant moral and theological questions that are implicated by the results.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
the animal that reads
By Paul Vitols
This philosophical analysis of the problem of “human nature” casts a strong and rare light on one of the most important questions ever asked.
What is this thing called Man? In the first place he’s an enigma, or, in the words of Jacob Needleman, “partly divine and partly an animal that reads.” From ancient times man has been exalted as a being above all the other animals, holding mastery over the rest of creation by virtue of his intellectual power and his special relationship with God or, anyway, with ultimate reality. On the other hand, since the advent of modern science and particularly since the publication of Darwin’s The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man, the species known as Homo sapiens has come to be seen as one organism among the many that make up the natural biological world, possessing unique and distinctive traits to be sure, but only in the sense that every other animal does as well. Man is the smartest land animal in the same way that the elephant is the heaviest and the cheetah the fastest.
This latter view is generally the view of the modern world and certainly that of modern science. But, as Mortimer J. Adler shows, we’re not very consistent about this, and we certainly have not worked through the implications for our attitudes about society, law, and rights. He’s convinced that if we wish to be governed by principles and by reason, it makes the biggest possible difference what our view of human nature is. For if man is really just one animal among many, then there can be no fundamental reason to justify treating humans and animals differently. We may not like what Hitler did to Jews, gypsies, and Jehovah’s Witnesses, but our modern scientific view of human nature gives us no principled reason to criticize his regarding those humans as animals and treating them as such. True, Hitler was an animal too, but, he would say, a superior animal—and there lies the crux.
No one denies that man is an animal. The question is whether he is also anything more or other than that. Adler finds that the issue boils down to this: does man differ from all other animals in kind, or only in degree? He further examines the question of what it means to differ in kind, and finds that there are exactly two ways: a superficial way, which arises when a difference in degree passes a certain threshold that causes a jump in capability; or a radical way, which arises when a trait possessed by one creature is not possessed in any degree by another. In other words, if man is radically different in kind from other animals, then he possesses one or more traits that are not possessed at all by any other animal, and no amount of increasing other animals’ existing traits will bring them any closer to humanity.
Adler takes his time developing his argument, and I found him sometimes repetitive in rephrasing and recapitulating his points, which made the book a bit longer than it needed to be. But I was very impressed with his rigor and his fearlessness in working through the issues in detail. I was also very impressed with his level of authority on this topic.
What do I mean by that? I mean that Adler, rather than being one arguer among many in this debate, brings a greater detachment, a much deeper education in the history of the topic, and perhaps most of all a keener insight into the consequences of its resolution for human society and the justice attainable within it. (That said, I think that Adler differs only in degree from his adversaries—not in kind!) As editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica and co-editor of the Britannica Great Books series, Adler brings a unique degree of background knowledge to the discussion. Indeed, his essay on “Man” in volume 3 of The Great Books makes an excellent warmup for reading this book.
Adler regards the question of human nature a “mixed” one—that is, a question that can be answered only by a combination of philosophical and scientific methods. He believes that psychologists, zoologists, and computer scientists have as much to contribute to the question as philosophers do, and expects (writing in 1967) a definite—or definite enough—answer to the question in the future. At the end of the book he sketches what he believes will be the implications of either answer to the question (the key difference turns out to be whether humans are or are not radically different in kind from other animals.)
In all I found Adler’s treatment of the topic serious, cogent, and forceful. He really helped to make clear and definite many things that were fuzzy and confused in my mind. Possibly because my own spiritual and philosophical training, such as it is, has been Buddhist, I felt that the argument did not actually cover the whole terrain. Adler’s viewpoint and background are unabashedly Western, and I felt that, despite his unswerving effort to be impartial and objective, he accepts certain ideas without question, or at least regards them as demonstrated beyond doubt. One of these is that perceptions, unlike conceptions, are a physical, material phenomenon. As far as I can tell, a “perception” is as much an intangible, mental phenomenon as a “conception” is, and if this is so, it has important, even decisive, implications for Adler’s argument.
But even if that’s the case, this book is extremely valuable and should be required reading for anyone who wants to participate in the discussion of human rights, animal rights, or the environment. In other words, so far from going out of date, Adler’s book is becoming more timely with each passing day.
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Don the Baptist
By Don the Baptist
A Bible-based review by Don the Baptist of the text “The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes” by Mortimer J. Adler, with an Introduction by Deal W. Hudson. I read the text in its entirety (difficult though that was).
Adler and Hudson working together (or not) have inadvertently discovered what scientists and doctors have been searching and researching for years: the cure for insomnia. If this book will not help you get some sleep, then, truly nothing will cure your wakeful nights. Boring. Redundantly boring, and boringly redundant. This book is roughly equal to reading a dictionary.
[Note: While I typically read the foot/end notes of any book, I did not read the 70 pages of notes contained herein except for those where I wanted to learn the source of the information presented.]
Nonetheless, Hudson’s introduction consists of little more than singing the praises of Adler, then he mind-numbingly slowly gives the highlights of what you are about to read. The text itself begins with three pages of a fascinating idea (I know enough about genetics that the proposition could not have occurred.) which could have been spun into a book, but that is all you get, three pages.
Of the 294 pages of text, even as late as page 174, Adler has the annoying habit of telling you what he is about to tell you… over and over again. The major points of this book could have been reduced to a ten page pamphlet. I’ll reduce it to one paragraph.
The text deals with the area of thought as to exactly what man is. Is he merely a really smart animal and thus roughly equal with animals, or is man a unique individual? Adler refers to these differences as “kind” or “degree”. It seems to have escaped Adler the “Philosopher at Large” (page xi) that the Bible addresses this question in quite some detail. (See below) In fact “kind” is a biblical distinction.
[Five sentences and you have the highlights of over 400 printed pages.]
Best quote of the text, “The efforts of the philosophers to resolve the ultimate issue in the controversy about man falls far short of success.” (page 227) Truer words were never spoken.
Now for the biblical Perspective.
Of the forty-plus times that the term “kind” occurs in the English Bible (King James Version, KJV, KJB, etc.), roughly three-fourths specifically refer to differences in animals, trees, plants, etc. The remainder refers to “kind” as in “nice” or a particular “type” of item or thing.
Particularly interesting is I Corinthians 15:39, which reads, “All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds.”
See also, James 3:7, which reads, “For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind:”.
So then we learn that “mankind” and animal “kinds” are not the same “kind”.
Why?
Genesis 1:26, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”
A variety of unique points can be drawn from these few verses. God refers to Himself as “us”. God is tri-partite (consisting of three parts), God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Man is three parts: soul, body, and spirit. Man, like no other created creature (Note the similarity in those words), is never referred to in Scripture as an animal. Man is God’s absolute supreme creation; as such, man has unique responsibilities, and man is held to a much higher standard than animals.
In like vein, see also, Genesis 1:16, “And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.”
God devotes a grand total of five words to the creation of the stars – as if it were nothing – that today’s best scientists have yet to figure out. Conversely, God devotes roughly 1,500 pages (depending on font size) to man, His supreme creation.
Man is all the more unique in that God sent His only begotten Son to die for man’s sins. Neither the angels nor any animal-kind can make such a claim. Only man can be redeemed from his fallen nature. Unfortunately, only man is fool enough to reject redemption in favor of the monkey-to-man religious faith commonly known as evolution.
Curiously, God foretold the evolution faith in Romans Chapter One… roughly 1,900 years ago.
[Note: Any of these points could be easily expanded upon; this is a book review not a textbook on Systematic Theology. See English Bible for more details.]
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