Mortimer Adler

Mortimer Adler (1902-2001), American scholar and author. Mortimer Jerome Adler was born in New York City and educated at Columbia University. He taught psychology at Columbia (1923-1929) and philosophy of law at the University of Chicago (1930-1952). In 1945 he became associate editor, with the American educator Robert Hutchins, of Great Books of the Western World (54 volumes, 1945-1952). He resigned from the University of Chicago in 1952 to head the newly established Institute for Philosophical Research at San Francisco. Adler published numerous books, including How to Read a Book (1940), The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes (1967), and Philosopher at Large: An Intellectual Autobiography (1977). He was editor in chief of The Annals of America (20 vol., 1969) and served as director of planning for the 15th edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica, which appeared in 1974.