The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes This page intentionally left blank 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 This page intentionally left blank 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