A Study in Practical Philosophy

URING the past season book has been published which will be of interest to many of those concerned about the motion picture. It is entitled Art and Prudence; Study in Practical Philosophy and is written by Mortimer J. Adler, associate professor of the philosophy of law at the University of Chicago., book is an outgrowth, apparently, of report upon recent empirical investigations concerning the influence of motion pictures upon human behavior which, as the author says in the Preface, he was asked to make by representatives of the motion-picture producers. original report is presented in this book in a somewhat extended form, as the substance of the tenth and eleventh chapters; and, along with preceding and succeeding chapter of epistemological comment and of critical summarization, it constitutes the second of the three sections into which the book is in reality divided. first section includes long survey of philosophic thought regarding the arts-especially the drama, briefer social history of the drama, and critical philosophical analysis of The Contemporary Issue and The Need for Knowledge. third section deals with the aesthetics and the techniques of the cinema. To the extent that these three disparate sections have actually unifying theme throughout the 676 pages of the book, it is found in the author's enthusiasm for Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas and his attempt to apply their philosophy to motion-picture problems. This book makes contribution in that it formulates practical suggestions by which one may think out solution to the issues which often arise in the conflict between autonomous art and the necessities of social control. A body of valuable information regarding the technical and aesthetic aspects of the cinema is also furnished in the last part of the book. But throughout the book, unfortunately, the reader's acceptance or rejection of what the author has to say will be predicated largely upon his willingness to accept the particular absolutist system of philosophy which the author imposes upon his treatment of each problem. Mr. Adler's contribution is further weakened by his lengthy and pompous expose of philosophic doctrines, his obvious and frequent contradictions, and, mostly, by his unmistakable and vocal prejudice against social science which cannot but make him an unfair 'New York: Longmans, Green and Company

Art · Drama · Enthusiasm · Epistemology · Idiot · Literature · Motion (physics · Prudence · Section (typography · Sociology · The arts · Theme (computing · Visual arts · Cinema and Media Studies · Ethics, Aesthetics, and Art · Philosophy · Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism