454
PARTISAN REVIEW
sumable to empiric proof. A philosophy of empiricism or scientific method
is heresy. Positivism, reaching its worst state of degradation in the prag·
matism of John Dewey, is not only heresy: it is a heresy which leads
squarely into totalitarianism. Positivistic university teachers in the United
States are a bigger menace than Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco. How does
Adler defend this position? By begging questions. By removing his pos·
tulates from the realm where they can be demonstrated. By name-calling.
And what are his self-evident truths? Those which are postulated in the
dogma of the Roman Catholic Church.
Several years ago, Adler composed a metaphysics of the movies titled
Art and Prudence.
In that book, he wrote: "In the deepest sense, all con·
temporary European societies are democratic, whether their government
is republican and legislation is representative, as in England, France and
the United States, or whether it is totalitarian, and the rule is by a dictator
or by a single party, as in Germany, Italy and Russia." Further, he stated:
"The importance of the ministry of propaganda in Italy and Germany
indicates the democratic aspect of these societies." In a footnote of the
same book, he even fell for Stalin's new constitution. Today, Mortimer J.
Adler has come forward as a true defender of democracy. He is defending
democracy, not only against Hitler, but even more so, against President
Conant of Harvard, John Dewey, Teacher's College and sundry others. He
is even composing a metaphysics of democracy. Perhaps in his meta–
physics of democracy he will write as acutely on the movies as he wrote
on democracy in his metaphysics of the movies.
Adler's critique of modern thought and science does not differ in
any fundamental sense from such books as Gilson's
The Unity of Philo–
sophical Experience,
Maritain's
True Humanism,
or Father D'Arcy's
The
Nature of Beliep
Adler, and his co-thinking Catholic philosophers all
sing the same tune. Modern thought is heretical, and
they
possess the true
belief. The true belief is self-evident. Because of the influence of heretics
in the last several centuri.es, modern man is unhappy, modern society is in
chaos, and modern thought is'in a blind alley. Man must believe as they
believe. From Adler's premises, you can explain anything
ex post facto:
you can explain the reasons for any phenomena from the fall of the French
Empire to women wearing short skirts. However, I observe that these men
who have the true belief seem utterly unable to predict. The true belief
appears to give them no aid and help in predicting the future. All they
seem able to do is to prophesy doom in generalizations which do not even
~litter.
Their programmatic conceptions are a hodge-podge. For society,
they want a new City of God that is not the old City of God, and yet it is
like the old City of God and still, it isn't quite the old City of God. For
modern philosophy, they want a return to the Absolute. That means put–
ting science in its place, and restoring theology as the queen bee in the
intellectual hive. A philosophical ally of this group, Berdyaev states their
1
I am here considering Gilson's own positive views, and not his excellent scholarly
researches on medieval thought.
