Six Great Ideas

I just finished listening to "Six Great Ideas" by Mortimer J. Adler on kindle using text to speech, and here is a brief summary of what I learned There has been a conversation going on during the past two or three thousand years in the classic writings of the western world, and there have emerged six common themes, or threads, that have been reoccurring in this literature. In Mortimer J Adler's book called Six Great Ideas, he says these six great ideas are: truth, goodness, beauty, justice, liberty, and equality. He notes that five of the six ideas are prominent in the three documents that are the prime source of the American testament; the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Gettysburg Address.The six great ideas consist of two triads:1. those ideas that we judge by (truth, goodness, and beauty), and2. those ideas that we act by (justice, liberty, and equality). Adler holds that truth is the sovereign idea by which we judge and justice reigns supreme.with regard to the ideas we act on.Ideas that we act on:1. Truth - Historically, there have been three approaches to truth:a. Correspondence Theory - Truth occurs when statements agree with external reality.b. Consistency Theory - since we can never directly experience the external world, the closest we can get to truth is by figuring out what is most consistent with the empirical evidence.c. Pragmatic Truth - something is true if it works when you perform experiments that would support or disprove a statement.2. Goodness - there are two classes of goods: apparent goods and real goods. The all-important question is how do we distinguish between the two. Adler says Real goods correspond to those dozen, or so, needs that are shared across the human race. These basic needs form the foundation of what is required for any individual to pursue happiness. These basic needs consist of the biological needs for water, food, shelter, health, etc. and the higher-level needs like the need for knowledge, equality, liberty, and justice. Apparent goods are more closely aligned with "wants" rather than "needs." By defining real goodness in terms of the few needs that are shared across the human race, it makes goodness something that can be objectively measured. Truth relates to goodness in that it can be used to know what is objectively good.3. Beauty - beauty is an immediate knowing of the object of beauty that gives us instant satisfaction or good feelings upon having that knowledge. Beauty is more subjective than goodness, but it is not totally subjective. The fact that it is not totally subjective is indicated by the fact that we use experts that are well acquainted with a wide variety of the objects of beauty to help judge the beauty of dogs, art, etc. These experts have more information on the members and properties of those members in a class of objects. This shows that beauty does depend upon the properties of the members in the class of objects that are being judged. It also shows that there is some measure of objective truth involved in judgements of beauty. Some say that each property of an object corresponds to an internal feeling in us, and beauty results when the object of beauty causes us to feel a kind of harmony, or organization, of those feelings immediately upon our experience of the object of beauty.With regard to the three ideas (justice, equality, and liberty) related to action, justice is the supreme one that regulates liberty and equality. Justice is an unlimited good in that you can not have too much of it, but liberty and equality are limited in that you can have too much.Liberty is a necessary good in the pursuit of happiness, but too much liberty can infringe on other people or cause harm to them. For example, you do not have the liberty to shout the word fire while in a crowded theater. The fact that liberty needs to be limited shows that liberty must be subordinate to justice.Equality of opportunity and conditions of actions is essential for the pursuit of happiness, but too much equality would not be fair to everyone. The people that use what they have to improve their circumstances should be given more rewards than those that do not, but there must be a basic level of equality in order to give everyone the opportunity to pursue happiness.In order for a democracy to work well, the individual citizens need their basic needs (air, water, food, shelter, knowledge, liberty, justice, and equality) fulfilled so that they will have a strong foundation upon which to pursue happiness. We can think of the fulfilling of these basic needs as being like fertilizing the soil out of which flowers of happiness have the possibility of growing.

Very happy with my order!

I read this book many years ago- bought this copy for a friend.

It is a good book to add in my collection.

It is too deep, heavy to digest, although l have studied philosophy before.