
We Hold These Truths
Understanding the Ideas and Ideals of the Constitution
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Narrated by:
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Jeff Riggenbach
About this listen
Mortimer Adler devoted a lifetime to studying the great ideas of Western culture and explaining even the most difficult concepts to the average citizen, earning Time magazine’s praise as a "philosopher for everyman". In We Hold These Truths, Dr. Adler caps his life’s work by illuminating the ideas and ideals that have made the United States of America a truly unique nation in the annals of history.
The ideas Adler examines include those at the core of the Declaration of Independence: human equality, inalienable human rights, civil rights, the pursuit of happiness, and both the consent and dissent of the governed. These are the ideas that form the basis for justice, domestic tranquility, the common defense, the general welfare, and the blessings of liberty - the ideals that are found in the preamble to the Constitution and which bind us together as a nation and a people.
Mortimer J. Adler (1902-2001), American philosopher, educator, and popular author, was chairman of Encyclopaedia Britannica’s board of editors, the founder and director of the Institute for Philosophical Research, and an honorary trustee and founder of the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies.
©1987 Mortimer J. Alder (P)1996 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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-
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Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds
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- Narrated by: John McLain
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- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the best-selling and critically acclaimed Darwin on Trial and Reason in the Balance, Phillip Johnson took on the academic elites and exposed the misleading claims of evolutionary naturalism. Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds provides a new and powerful treatment of these issues for high-school students, parents, teachers, pastors, youth advisers, and ordinary listeners. Johnson aims not just to defeat a bad theory, but to defeat it in the right way - by opening minds to the truth.
-
-
useful
- By K on 07-04-20
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How to Write a Sentence
- And How to Read One
- By: Stanley Fish
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Like a seasoned sportscaster, Fish marvels at the adeptness of finely crafted sentences and breaks them down into digestible morsels, giving listeners an instant play-by-play. Drawing on a wide range of great writers, from Philip Roth to Antonin Scalia to Jane Austen, How to Write a Sentence is much more than a writing manual—it is a spirited love letter to the written word, and a key to understanding how great writing works. It is a book that will stand the test of time.
-
-
Excellent book for writers
- By missbizinla on 07-15-23
By: Stanley Fish
-
Farnsworth’s Classical English Rhetoric
- By: Ward Farnsworth
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot, Jim Meskimen
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Masters of language can turn unassuming words into phrases that are beautiful, effective, and memorable. What are the secrets of this alchemy? Part of the answer lies in rhetorical figures: practical ways of applying great aesthetic principles to a simple sentence or paragraph. Farnsworth’s Classical English Rhetoric recovers this knowledge for our times. It amounts to a tutorial on eloquence conducted by Churchill and Lincoln, Dickens and Melville, Burke and Paine, and more than a hundred others.
-
-
A little unwieldy for audio
- By Coral on 05-26-14
By: Ward Farnsworth
-
Aristotle for Everybody
- Difficult Thought Made Easy
- By: Mortimer J. Adler
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 5 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
“Almost all of the philosophical truths that I have come to know and understand I have learned from Aristotle,” says Mortimer J. Adler. This easy-to-listen-to exposition of Aristotle’s thoughts about nature, human actions, and the conduct of life confirms convictions that most of us hold, though we may not be fully aware of them. This is because Aristotle’s philosophical insights are grounded in the common experience we all possess and because they illuminate the common sense we all rely on.
-
-
A great primer in classical philosophy
- By britishtar on 02-14-15
-
Philosophical Method
- A Very Short Introduction
- By: Timothy Williamson
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 4 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Timothy Williamson tackles some of the key questions surrounding philosophy in new and provocative ways, showing how philosophy begins in common sense curiosity, and develops through our capacity to dispute rationally with each other. Discussing philosophy's ability to clarify our thoughts, he explains why such clarification depends on the development of philosophical theories, and how those theories can be tested by imaginative thought experiments, and compared against each other by standards similar to those used in the natural and social sciences.
-
-
Excellent what's philosophy intro
- By Matjaz Potrc on 10-05-20
Critic reviews
What listeners say about We Hold These Truths
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- Amazon Customer
- 12-31-21
Demystifying
A very good reference book that helps demystify the key meaning in both the Constitution's language and it's application within worldly contexts. Likewise, WHTT Superbly explores some of our high court's most controversial decisions with an array of insight and poise.
Recommended to all with an interest in gaining critical insight into the Constitution and it's uses within judicial contexts.
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- Michael
- 05-16-22
Sterile Interpretation
I was very surprised to find such a sterile reading of the founding documents of our country.
Neither heart nor passion are to be found in Adler's exposition. The man who knows so well the great books shows little appreciation for nor historical context of these obvious thunderbolts of democracy.
Instead he offers logical and philosophical criticisms and corrections.
I cannot help but muse that the author was battling a bad case of digestive distress that doomed this dispepsic discourse.
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