How to Listen and How to Speak: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants to Renew Commonsense and Uncommonsense Wisdom in the Contemporary World

Mortimer Adler stood on the metaphysical and moral teachings of Aristotle and Saint Thomas Aquinas to convey to his readers an understanding of the nature of Aristotle’s rhetoric as an essential means for conveying to readers of his time and to posterity a specific understanding of philosophy as an essential humanistic, educational tool that might, someday, be able to issue in global peace! Thus understood, rhetoric enables teachers to convey a living tradition of uncommon common sense wisdom and promotion of peace among human beings from one generation to another. In so doing, it trans-generationally transmits uncommon commonsense, metaphysical wisdom and moral prudence in the form of a cultural heritage as a traditional enterprise (team effort) that fosters trans-generational improvement of individual and social life, and peaceful and cooperative living together.