The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes

432 Pages·1993·20.75 MB·English

by  Mortimer J. Adler

The Difference of Man
and
the Difference It Makes
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The Difference of Man
and
the Difference It Makes
by
MORTIMER J. ADLER
Based on the Encyclopaedia Britannica Lectures
delivered at the University of Chicago, 1966
Introduction by
DEAL W. HUDSON
FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York
Copyright © 1967 by Mortimer J. Adler
Introduction Copyright © 1993 by Fordham University Press
All rights reserved
First edition 1967
Reprinted by arrangement with Henry Holt & Company, Inc.
Fordham University Press edition 1993
Fifth printing 2005
LC 93-26503
ISBN 0-8232-1534-2 (clothbound)
ISBN 0-8232-1535-0 (paperback)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Adler, Mortimer Jerome, 1902-
The difference of man and the difference it makes I by
Mortimer /. Adler ; introduction by Deal W. Hudson.
p. cm.
Originally published: New York : Holt, Rinehart and
Winston, 1967.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8232-1534-2 (hard) : $35.00. -ISBN 0-8232-
J 535-0 (pbk.) -. $20.00
I. Philosophical anthropology. I. Title.
BD450.A3 1993
128-dc20 93-26503
CIP
A portion of Chapter 12 has appeared in
The New Scholasticism.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to
Little, Brown and Company for permission
to reprint excerpts -from YOU SHALL KNOW THEM
by Vercors, copyright lys) by Jean Bruller.
Printed in the United States of America
T O
MARK AND MICHAEL
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Contents
Author's Preface to the 1993 Edition ix
Introduction (Deal W. Hudson) xi
Preface xxxiii
Part One
The Modes of Difference
I The Question About Man 3
2 The Possible Answers 19
3 The State of the Question,
Past, Present, and Future 36
Part Two
The Difference of Man
4 The Philosophers Give All the Answers
and Establish None 5'
5 Why Darwin Answered the Question As He Did 66
6 The Line Drawn by the Fossils 81
7 The Laboratory Findings and Their Interpretation 99
8 The Pivotal Fact: Human Speech 112
The Pivotal Issue: Language and Thought
9 "5
Resolution of the Pivotal Issue
10
(I): The Negative Argument 141
ii Resolution of the Pivotal Issue
(II): The Positive Argument I6
5
The Efforts of the Philosophers to Resolve
12
the One Issue That Remains 191
13 The Three Prongs of the Cartesian Challenge 227
vii
CONTENTS
14 The Third Prong: From Descartes to Turing 240
15 The Future Resolution of the
One Remaining Issue 247
Part Three
The Difference It Makes
16 To Whom It Makes a Difference 255
17 The Consequences for Action 259
18 The Consequences for Thought 281
Notes 297
References 371
Index of Proper Names 391
viii
Author's Preface
THIS BOOK was first published in 1967. It dealt with what I
recognized to be a mixed question that could not be satis-
factorily answered by philosophical thought alone, or by
the empirical sciences. Philosophy posed the question about the
specific nature of man and the place of Homo sapiens in the order
of nature. Do human beings differ from the higher mammals
only in degree or in kind; and if in kind, is the difference radical
or only superficial?
The scientific research done in the laboratory and the research
done in the field of artificial intelligence affirm a difference in
degree or only a superficial difference in kind; but when all this
research is examined philosophically, clear reasons are found for
the opposite answer: man differs radically in kind by virtue of an
intellectual power possessed by no other animal and not seated in
the human brain.
In 1990, more than thirty years later, I wrote another book,
Intellect: Mind Over Matter, that improved on my earlier argument
that the human intellect was an immaterial power. The later book
did not replace the many chapters in this book that review the
scientific evidence and correct the misinterpretation of it.
I wish to call attention to Chapters 7 to 14 in this book, and
especially to the lengthy notes attached to those chapters. Noth-
ing can replace the treatment of, and the commentary on, the
scientific and philosophical literature to be found in these chap-
ters and the appended notes. That is why I am so glad that Ford-
ham University Press is republishing this book.
MORTIMER J. ADLER
ix