ITEST Webinar

Center for the Study of The Great Ideas

“Philosophy is Everybody’s Business”

This webinar was presented on May 28, 2022

The only standard we have for judging all of our social economic, and political institutions and arrangements as just or unjust, as good or bad, as better or worse, derives from our conception of the good life for man on earth, and from our conviction that, given certain external conditions, it is possible for men to make good lives for themselves by their own efforts.

There must be sufficient truth in moral philosophy to provide a rational basis for the efforts at social reform and improvement in which all men can join, regardless of their religious beliefs or disbeliefs. Such common action for a better society presupposes that the measure of a good society consists in the degree to which it promotes the general welfare and serves the happiness of its people—this happiness being their earthly and temporal happiness, for there is no other ultimate end that the secular state can serve.

The Mission of the Center for the Study of The Great Ideas
”Philosophy is Everybody’s Business”

To help awaken citizens from their moral and intellectual slumbers, and to help them understand why philosophy is everybody’s business. The possibility of finding sound and practical answers to questions about the good life and good society. Philosophy’s ability to answer the most basic normative questions. What ought we seek in life? And how ought we seek it?

To promulgate the insights and ideals embedded in Dr. Adler’s lifelong intellectual work in the fields of Philosophy, Liberal Education, Ethics and Politics.

To continue functioning as THE resource for, access to, and the on-going interpretation of his work.

Our Presenter

Elaine Weismann

Elaine Weismann is the Director for the Center for the Study of The Great Ideas. She graduated from Aquinas Dominican High School and attended Barat College of the Sacred Heart in Lake Forest, Illinois where she majored in Psychology and French and graduated Magna Cum Laude. She was Administrative Assistant to the head of the Psychology Department for two years.

She married Max Weismann, who with Dr. Mortimer Adler, founded the Center for the Study of The Great Ideas, and after her husband’s passing in 2017 assumed the Presidency of the Center. The responsibilities revolved around converting Dr. Adler’s 16mm philosophical films to tapes and videos and now DVDs and soon streaming. The Center also organized successful seminars for Dr. Adler. They published in 2000 the book, “How to Think About the Great Ideas: From the Great Books of Western Civilization” by Dr. Adler and edited by Max Weismann and is available on Amazon.