Customer Reviews

Adler's Philosophical Dictionary: 125 Key Terms for the Philosopher's Lexicon

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Mortimer Adler, one of America's great philosophers and educators (taught at Columbia and Chicago), does philosophy in the grand style. His writing is at once lucid and luminous, a rarity in contemporary philosophy. I am a little perplexed by the last review, making Adler out to be a Christian proselytizer, since he is, after all, a self-described "Jewish pagan/agnostic". Adler is an Aristotelian, and his philosophical dictionary does, indeed, reflect that. Though, I think an honest and intelligent reader will, after having read Adler-- either this work or his others--, come to the conclusion that they, too, are Aristotelian.It took me quite a view years-- even after having taken a philosophy degree (Cum Laude)-- to realize that I'm an Aristotelian.If you really want to learn philosophy (philosophy qua philosophy), i.e., for the love of wisdom and not sophistry, then _Adler's Philosophical Dictionary_ is THE place to start. You will, in my honest opinion, get a better philosophical education from this book than most university students get in two years.

For the majority of humankind the world is a real place and we share common experiences. If you are one of the many who share this worldview than this dictionary will help you get a better feel for questions concerning everyday life. This is not a professional philosophers dictionary but an amateur one. We should all be amateur philosophers degreed or not.

This book by Adler is for me a disappointment all around. When a book purports to be a "philosophical dictionary" but doesn't include in it's lexicon such philosophical terms as: substance, accidents, genus, positism, existentialism, phemenology et. al., it's of no use to me. Having said that, I suppose that the book might be of value to those who want only a brush-by with the philosophy's terminology.

I'll also add that in testing the book I found that some of Adler's explanations of "philosophical" words were confusing at best.

This I think this little book could have been valuable to a much larger community of readers. Mr. Adler seemed to be focused on injecting God, and Christianity and his own declaration of supernaturalism than in providing a non-biased Dictionary. I trash-canned the book. Len Reitz

I was very offended to spend money to hear someone who uses a Philosphical Dictionary to ''Announce one's personal faith in Jesus Christ'' ....... If Mr. Adler wishes to proselytize, a dictionary of philosphy terms, or any kind of a dictionary is not the place to do it, in my opinion. ..... I wasted my money!