Intellect: Mind over Matter Paperback – October 18, 1993

Intelligent and helpful account of major issues in philosophy of mind. I picked this up because I enjoyed some of his other books. He defends the immateriality of the soul but doesn't pretend that his ideas may be disproved by advances in science--a subject he is attentive to throughout the book.

Great read was more than I expected.

Thank you

Very difficult reading and hard to follow.

This small volume (205 pages, including index) presents a forceful case for the existence of a distinct human nature that makes us fundamentally different from any other kind of animal.

Intellect was published in 1990, when its author was 87. It represents the views of someone who had spent a long life learning, thinking, teaching, and writing. Adler, a maverick of 20th-century philosophy who stopped trying to get the attention of his academic colleagues in 1977 and decided to write only for the general reader, draws on the tradition of thought that stems from Aristotle. Against all the modern and postmodern philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, neurologists, and artificial-intelligence researchers, who mainly hold that, since our experience and mental powers arise from the brain, there is no basic difference between humans and other animals, Adler asserts that the human intellect is unique on Earth, and that, although the brain is necessary in order for the intellect to manifest, it is not sufficient. The intellect, which gives us our powers of conception, judgment, and free choice, is immaterial and not a mere product of brain activity, as, say, our sense of hearing is.

Moving quickly over the terrain, the author describes what the intellect is, discusses what he regards as the errors of philosophy and science in losing a grasp of this classical concept, enumerates the special powers of the intellect, and finishes with a short section on virtue and vice, or the proper and improper use of the intellect.

So what is the intellect? It is the mental power to form and use general concepts: the power of abstraction. It allows us to reason deductively and to create and use language with which to communicate. Adler is at pains to demonstrate that animals do not possess these abilities in even the most rudimentary degree. He maintains that rats, for instance, that can recognize triangular shapes in order to press a button for food, are making use only of perceptual abstraction. In other words, the rat recognizes triangular shapes as similar, but has no notion of “triangularity” as such. No rat will ever know what a triangle is. No rat will ever be able to define triangle or to read Euclid.

When I reached the final part where Adler shows how intellect gives rise to the virtues and vices, and allows us, because of its fundamental freedom, to lead lives of virtue (if we so choose) and thus of dignity as human beings, I was excited and inspired. Among other things, it’s not easy to find such a short, cogent, clear, and authoritative account of virtue and vice, and in my opinion this part of the book alone is worth its purchase price.

Do I buy the author’s argument? I’m not sure. His breadth of learning and depth of thought and experience in this area are vastly greater than mine. My own philosophical training, such as it is, has been mainly Buddhist. In the Buddhist view, all sentient beings have fundamentally the same mind. It is this that allows reincarnation as different kinds of beings in different lives. All sentient beings want to be happy and to avoid suffering. Different beings have different aptitudes and powers, but in the nature of things there cannot be any categorical difference between them.

Adler’s view, which he expressed in his earlier book Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes, is that if we lack a clear understanding of the difference between human and animal, then we can never have any principled reason to treat humans differently than we treat other animals. If we round up and slaughter cattle because it suits us, there is no fundamental reason why we shouldn’t round up and slaughter people if it suits us. The morality of it is the same.

There’s no easy answer to this. I think the Buddhist reply might be that instead of transferring our cruelty from animals to humans, we might think about transferring some of our human kindness toward animals.

But Intellect provides plenty of food for thought. Indeed, it’s a workout for the intellect, which, for many of us, has become as flabby as our bodies. If you want to read about something that matters, give this a go.

This book is an indepth philosophy about the immaterial Mind and its association with the material brain. Once a person understands Dr. Adler's revelation, he or she will never look upon biology, philosophy, and theology the same again. It leads to finding "Truth" in religion and that God/Christ/Holy Spirit are real. You never read about this these days. People remain ignorant that Christianity reveals the Truth about what is going on today and that an after life must be addressed one day. A person must accept Christ to join the Lord in an after life. Otherwise, they will be separated from Him forever. Separation simply means dwelling in Hell. For those who cannot bring themselves to accept Christ and believe Christianity is a superstition, they are not going to like what they find at death. It makes no difference if they believe me or not, their fate will not change. This book is a start into discovering that biology as taught today in academia has no answers. Man is different in kind than animals, not different in degree as Darwin would have you believe. I challenge anyone to refute Adler's proof that the mind is immaterial. This Book is a revelation to Man that God is real if you are smart enought to understand its implications.

A quote from the book: "I am going to try and defend the thesis that there is one and the same human mind in all members of the species, not a primitive and a civilized mind, not a Western and an oriental mind, not an ancient and a modern mind."

I own 18 of Adler's books. This one means the most to me. One sign of that is that it has the most pages (and index cards)of notes stuffed in the back. I've returned to it more than to any other single book of his because it most clearly makes me face the question of ultimate concern: are you a brain with legs or a person with a brain? The book's subtitle ("Mind Over Matter") reveals Adler's answer to the question.
Adler trumpeted the Great Books as keys to lifelong learning. He seemed to have patiently digested them all. Fortunately for those less well-read (-meaning almost everyone), he wrote for "everybody" because he believed philosophy was "everybody's business."
I first read this book with a skeptical eye. I didn't want to agree with Adler. At first, I didn't. But as time passed, I found the book's main ideas coming to mind at odd moments. Although Adler was, by his own admission, a "pagan" when he wrote this book, my eventual acceptance of the argument carried a tinge (TINGE, I said!) of religious conversion. One need not be religious to believe in the intellect, but the question of intellect goes to the heart of the question, "What is a human person?" One's answer to this question--whatever it is--carries implications for one's religious beliefs (or lack thereof)--whatever they are.
Adler's main argument stems from language, and particularly the use of common nouns (e.g., dog, tree, daydream). Such concepts are universal, but nothing material is universal. So how do we all know what dogs and trees and daydreams are? We share a common idea, a common understanding. But it has no material existence. There must be an immaterial part of the mind to 'grasp' immaterial ideas. (The argument is more nuanced than this sketch.)
Students of Medieval philosophy will recognize here the argument between universalists (who are also realists) and nominalists. If you shudder at the thought of being bogged down in such an argument, fear not. (If you are puzzled from previous attempts to fathom what all the fuss over universals was really about, you may finally 'get it' here.) Adler's main quarrel is with idealistic modern philosophy. He is (-was, now) a realist steeped in Aristotle. His thought is not flashy, but it's solid as an oak dining table. Pull up a chair and feast on this intellectual delight!