Western Canon
Last Updated: Jan. 30, 2025
Inspired by my profound sense of ignorance about the most important things in life, this project chronicles my participation in the great conversation in Western Civilization, so that I may understand where we have been and may then hopefully understand more wisely and empathetically where we are and where we are going.
Great Ideas
The ideas that are "the focal points of maximum human interest and importance in every era and epoch and in every generation are the great ideas." -- Mortimer Adler
This section contains the 102 essays written by Mortimer Adler contained in the preface of each section of the Syntopicon, a two volume index billed as a guide to the most important ideas, and contained as part of the Great Books of the Western World collection. In Adler’s words, the ideas that are “the focal points of maximum human interest and importance in every era and epoch and in every generation are the great ideas.”
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Essays on the 102 Great Ideas
| 1 | Angel |
| 2 | Animal |
| 3 | Aristocracy |
| 4 | Art |
| 5 | Astronomy |
| 6 | Beauty |
| 7 | Being |
| 8 | Cause |
| 9 | Chance |
| 10 | Change |
| 11 | Citizen |
| 12 | Constitution |
| 13 | Courage |
| 14 | Custom and Convention |
| 15 | Definition |
| 16 | Democracy |
| 17 | Desire |
| 18 | Dialectic |
| 19 | Duty |
| 20 | Education |
| 21 | Element |
| 22 | Emotion |
| 23 | Eternity |
| 24 | Evolution |
| 25 | Experience |
| 26 | Family |
| 27 | Fate |
| 28 | Form |
| 29 | God |
| 30 | Good and Evil |
| 31 | Government |
| 32 | Habit |
| 33 | Happiness |
| 34 | History |
| 35 | Honor |
| 36 | Hypothesis |
| 37 | Idea |
| 38 | Immortality |
| 39 | Induction |
| 40 | Infinity |
| 41 | Judgment |
| 42 | Justice |
| 43 | Knowledge |
| 44 | Labor |
| 45 | Language |
| 46 | Law |
| 47 | Liberty |
| 48 | Life and Death |
| 49 | Logic |
| 50 | Love |
| 51 | Man |
| 52 | Mathematics |
| 53 | Matter |
| 54 | Mechanics |
| 55 | Medicine |
| 56 | Memory and Imagination |
| 57 | Metaphysics |
| 58 | Mind |
| 59 | Monarchy |
| 60 | Nature |
| 61 | Necessity and Contingency |
| 62 | Oligarchy |
| 63 | One and Many |
| 64 | Opinion |
| 65 | Opposition |
| 66 | Philosophy |
| 67 | Physics |
| 68 | Pleasure and Pain |
| 69 | Poetry |
| 70 | Principle |
| 71 | Progress |
| 72 | Prophecy |
| 73 | Prudence |
| 74 | Punishment |
| 75 | Quality |
| 76 | Quantity |
| 77 | Reasoning |
| 78 | Relation |
| 79 | Religion |
| 80 | Revolution |
| 81 | Rhetoric |
| 82 | Same and Other |
| 83 | Science |
| 84 | Sense |
| 85 | Sign and Symbol |
| 86 | Sin |
| 87 | Slavery |
| 88 | Soul |
| 89 | Space |
| 90 | State |
| 91 | Temperance |
| 92 | Theology |
| 93 | Time |
| 94 | Truth |
| 95 | Tyranny |
| 96 | Universal and Particular |
| 97 | Virtue and Vice |
| 98 | War and Peace |
| 99 | Wealth |
| 100 | Will |
| 101 | Wisdom |
| 102 | World |
Great Books
"Western Civilization is the civilization of the dialogue or the symposium, which is the great conversation in the great books about the great ideas." -- Mortimer Adler
This section contains the selection of books curated by Adler and published by the Encyclopaedia Britannica originally in 1952 as the Great Books of the Western World. The original editors had three criteria for each book: “the book must be relevant to contemporary matters, and not only important in its historical context; it must be rewarding to re-read repeatedly with respect to liberal education; and it must be part of ‘the great conversation about the great ideas’, relevant to at least 25 of the 102 Great Ideas.” This list is from the second publication in 1990.
The Great Books of the Western World
Great Music
"Every great work of art has two faces: one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity." - Daniel Barenboim
This section features a curated list of great classical music that has stood the test of time and continues to inspire future generations.