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Title: The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes by Mortimer Jerome Adler, Deal Hudson ISBN: 0-8232-1535-0 Publisher: Fordham University Press Pub. Date: September, 1993 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.67 (3 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Very insightful
Comment: Dr Adler here gives us a fine presentation and analysis of animal cognition and how it corresponds with human knowledge. The relevant question to be answered is "Does man differ from the rest of the animal kingdom by degree or by kind, and if by kind is this difference radical or superficial?"
Basing his argument on the distinction between the animal's ability to perceptually generalize and human's ability to conceptually do so by means of "designators" in both connotative and their denotative snese; Adler, convincingly concludes that it is a difference in kind and that this difference is indeed radical. Man is a different "kind" of thing than the other creatures that inhabit our planet.
Rating: 5
Summary: Thorough insight into man and animal cognition
Comment: Dr Adler here gives us a fine presentation and analysis of animal cognition and how it corresponds with human knowledge. The distinctions Adler offers here are timeless and crucial. The answer to this question of the difference in man and animals is neither purely scientific, nor purely philosophical; rather a combined approach is needed. The relevant question to be answered is "Does man differ from the rest of the animal kingdom by degree or by kind, and if by kind is this difference radical or superficial?" Adler, using a traditional Aristotelian and Thomistic analysis of the modern research while combining it with the more recent positions of other philosophers and scientists, concludes that it is a difference in kind and that this difference is indeed radical. Man is a different "kind" of thing than the other creatures that inhabit our planet.
Adler is indeed fair and objective throughout. We must look at the operation of the creature in question, and in this case - articulation indicates what a given creature does in fact "know". The argument for difference in kind turns on man's ability to articulate "designators", that is verbalized concepts in both their connotative and denotative form. There is no evidence that animal communication is expressive in this way. The data that has resulted from inquiring into animal intelligence suggests no more than an ability of perceptual abstraction, whether memorized or immediate. Mankind articulates designators and these articulations cannot be explained by mere sense perception or any perceptual generalization for the very fact that such designators are inherently non - perceptible. Not only does man attribute and recognize particulars as members of abstract classes or the classes themselves, he has the additional ability to express concepts that are not empirically observable at all; i.e. "God", logical relations such as "inference", pi, etc. Thus, the negative edge of Ockham's razor prevents us from attributing conceptual awareness on the part of animals yet the positive edge of this principle of parsimony demands such additional attribution to mankind.
Next, Adler, using a traditional argument from Aquinas and Aristotle, argues that this ability must be immaterial due to the immaterial nature of the concept - a "class" or "universal" that cannot by definition be material and hence not merely an act of the physical brain.
Adler is fair throughout his contention. As an example he admits that his immateriality position would be falsified by a "Turing machine" a computer robot that would be able to communicate with humans via propositional words and sentence formation. This is the third prong of the "Cartesian Challenge" as asserted by Rene Descartes centuries ago. If a purely physical machine can achieve conceptual thought and propositional language, then Adler admits his immateriality theory on which conceptual thought is based would be falsified.
The benefits of this work go far beyond the main issue of human/animal distinction. The bibliography is outstanding. The footnotes are insightful and nearly comprise a second work on their own. Peripheral issues such as theories of human knowledge ala Locke, Kant, and the Aristotelian "triadic" relation of words - concepts - object are explained here along with a lucid discussion of "intention" and "meaning". Most importantly, the final chapter illustrates why such a discussion on the distinction between man and animal is important highlighting the relevant moral and theological questions that are implicated by the results.
Rating: 4
Summary: The Connection Between Consciousness and Language
Comment: Adler believes that morality requires consciousness and that our best (only?) evidence of a being being conscious is its linguistic behavior.
Compare Adler's thesis with Julian Jaynes' (Origin of Consciousness in the Break Down of the Bicameral Mind) and with Douglas Hofstadter's comments, pp. P6-P7, in the new preface to the 20th-anniversary edition of Godel, Escher, Bach. Also compare with the Turing Test.
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Title: The Time of Our Lives: The Ethics of Common Sense by Mortimer Jerome Adler, Deal W. Hudson ISBN: 0823216705 Publisher: Fordham University Press Pub. Date: April, 1996 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: How to Think About War and Peace by Mortimer Jerome Adler, John Logue ISBN: 0823216438 Publisher: Fordham University Press Pub. Date: February, 1996 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: HOW TO THINK ABOUT GOD by Mortimer Jerome Adler ISBN: 0020160224 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 16 July, 1991 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Some Questions About Language: A Theory of Human Discourse and Its Objects by Mortimer Jerome Adler ISBN: 0812691784 Publisher: Open Court Publishing Company Pub. Date: October, 1991 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: ANGELS AND US by Mortimer J. Adler ISBN: 0020300654 Publisher: Unknown Pub. Date: 15 September, 1993 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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