Though more than fifty years have lapsed since the 102 great ideas were chosen, nothing that has happened in the last half-century, with one exception, necessitates a single change in that list by addition or subtraction. That one exception is the idea of EQUALITY. --Mortimer Adler In this issue: Editor's Note on Equality; The Idea of Equality: Preface by Otto Bird; Bibliography of Adler's Work. Dear Members, Those of you who have closely followed Dr. Adler's intellectual career are aware that his Institute for Philosophical Research produced a number of "Idea" books in an attempt to examine more fully the dialectical aspects of the Great Ideas of FREEDOM, HAPPINESS, JUSTICE, LOVE, and PROGRESS. However, unbeknownest to most, Dr. Adler and his colleagues also prepared dialectical examinations of the ideas of BEAUTY, DIALECTIC, EQUALITY, and RELIGION to name a few. These works were published exclusively in the Encyclopaedia Britannica series The Great Ideas Today of which Dr. Adler along with Robert Hutchins were the Editors in Chief. Since most of you do not own or have access to The Great Ideas Today series of books, published annually from 1961 to 1998, we have decided publish the Idea of Equality (replete with notes and bibliography) in the Spring issue of our quarterly journal Philosophy is Everybody's Business. You can now find the Spring issue at: www.thegreatideas.org/spring2000/. Following is the Preface from the essay.
The Idea of Equality: The reader of the "Syntopicon" will note that equality is not one of the 102 Great Ideas. This omission may derive entirely from the degree of arbitrariness that admittedly is involved in constructing such a list. But there are also other possible reasons, and they are worth considering for the light they throw upon equality, which in some ways is a strange and difficult idea. "Equality" appears in the Inventory of Terms and there receives a double entry, as follows: Equality (math.): see QUANTITY 1b; SAME AND OTHER 3d Equality and inequality (pol.): see DEMOCRACY 4a-4a(2); JUSTICE 5; TYRANNY 5a/see also CITIZEN 2c-3; LABOR 7c(2); LIBERTY 1f; LOVE 4a; REVOLUTION 3a The fact that the term receives two entries indicates one of the curious features about the discussion of equality. There has always been a suspicion, and it is a suspicion that still exists, that equality as applied to things human is at best a derivative idea and that its primary place lies in the mathematical order; and hence, too, that carrying it over into social and political discussion may be to some extent illicit, confusing, and metaphorical in no helpful way. The fact, too, that the "Inventory" sends the reader to a number of different chapters to find discussions of equality may suggest that equality is a subordinate or subsidiary idea that does service under a larger, more complex, and genuinely "great" idea. One might infer that most of its intellectual substance was expended in its contribution to the idea of justice or of democracy. Still another possible reason why it failed to make the list of 102 ideas may be the fact that it is what might be called a historically delayed idea; that is, an idea that was late in coming to have an impact on human history and for that reason also late in becoming a subject of major discussion and dispute in our intellectual tradition. This last reason is perhaps the most interesting one. Alexis de Tocqueville strongly maintained that equality as a social and political ideal is a peculiarly modern idea. It was "the novel object" that he discovered on coming to America in the early days of the republic to study the nature and effects of democracy. He asserted that equality was the "primary fact ... the fundamental fact from which all others seem to be derived and the central point at which all ... observations constantly terminated." Since the time of Tocqueville the idea of equality has certainly come into its own. It is a fundamental ideal of democracy and the central moral term in the Socialist tradition, in both its Marxist and non-Marxist forms. It is strongly involved in our gravest international issues: those that arise from the inequality between the great and the many new small powers; and especially the great and scandalous inequality, as regards the conditions for a decent human life, between the northern and southern hemispheres of our earth. While Tocqueville emphasized that equality is a peculiarly modern idea, he also pointed out that it has roots deep in the past. He called upon the men of his time to recognize that "the gradual and progressive development of social equality is at once the past and the future of their history ..." It is likewise true of the philosophical controversy about equality that it too has its roots deep in the past, although only in the modern world has it come to have a major place. We will accordingly begin our analysis with a brief review of the past of the controversy. For that purpose we will consider what Great Books of the Western World have to say about equality. From this review we obtain some insight into the major issues and at the same time develop the terminology -- the grammar, one might say -- needed for analyzing the discussion of equality. We will then turn to review the contemporary literature on the subject. The discussion is complex and often confusing. Space will prevent consideration of all of even the major issues in the discussion. We will focus our attention on two only: the generic notion of equality, and the question of the justification of the principle of equal treatment.
For the most complete bibliography of Mortimer Adler's work go to: www.thegreatideas.org/adler.html. Much thanks to our Webmeister Terrence Berres, for compiling this data.
As always, we welcome your comments. We reserve the right to edit all submissions for relevancy and concision and to publish them at our discretion. The Great Ideas Online is published, free of charge to its members, by the Center for the Study of the Great IdeasMortimer J. Adler, Co-Founder and Chairman, Max Weismann, Co-Founder and Director.
The Center is a not-for-profit educational organization, qualified under section (501)(c)(3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code.
Donations are tax deductible as the law allows.
|