Great Ideas; Arts as a Common Human Possession

KGO-TV (Television station : San Francisco, Calif.) · 1957

Dr. Adler begins this subject with a discussion of the generic notion of art as against the restricted notion of art as painting and sculpture. Art, he says, is skill in makingall men are artists and art is indispensable to human life. He includes a comparison of human making with divine making and animal making. Dr. Adler then turns to a distinction between art and naturethe artificial and the natural. This relation of art to nature, he says, has a bearing on the distinction between human making and divine making. He also makes a distinction between art and science and concludes by tracing some of the early art forms. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche) The Great Ideas is a series devoted to discussions on the "basic ideas fundamental to man's everyday life." There are episodes on government, philosophy, law and labor. Dr. Mortimer J. Adler, noted philosopher and teacher, discusses these problems in an informal, nontechnical style. He makes extensive use of visual materials and a blackboard to illustrate his points. At the conclusion of each episode Adler answers questions sent in by the audience. Originally broadcast over KGO-TV, San Francisco, the series drew a heavy listener response. Appearing with Adler on the series is Dean Lloyd Luckman, coordinator of studies at San Francisco City College. This series of 52 half-hour episodes was originally recorded on kinescope. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)