The Great Conversation is the ongoing process of writers and thinkers referencing, building on, and refining the work of their predecessors. This process is characterized by writers in the

Western canon The Western canon is the body of high culture literature, music, philosophy, and works of art that are highly valued in the West; works that have achieved the status of classics. However, not all these works originate in the Western world, ...

making comparisons and allusions to the works of earlier writers and thinkers. As such it is a name used in the promotion of the ''

Great Books of the Western World ''Great Books of the Western World'' is a series of books originally published in the United States in 1952, by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., to present the great books in a 54-volume set. The original editors had three criteria for includi ...

'' published by Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. in 1952. It is also the title of (i) the first volume of the first edition of this set of books, written by the educational theorist

Robert Maynard Hutchins Robert Maynard Hutchins (January 17, 1899 – May 14, 1977) was an American educational philosopher. He was president (1929–1945) and chancellor (1945–1951) of the University of Chicago, and earlier dean of Yale Law School (1927–1929). His& ...

, and (ii) an accessory volume to the second edition (1990), written by the philosopher

Mortimer J. Adler Mortimer Jerome Adler (December 28, 1902 – June 28, 2001) was an American philosopher, educator, encyclopedist, and popular author. As a philosopher he worked within the Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions. He lived for long stretches in N ...

. According to Hutchins, "The tradition of the West is embodied in the Great Conversation that began in the dawn of history and that continues to the present day". Adler said,

What binds the authors together in an intellectual community is the great conversation in which they are engaged. In the works that come later in the sequence of years, we find authors listening to what their predecessors have had to say about this idea or that, this topic or that. They not only harken to the thought of their predecessors, they also respond to it by commenting on it in a variety of ways.Mortimer Adler: "The Great Conversation Revisited," in ''The Great Conversation: A Peoples Guide to Great Books of the Western World'', Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., Chicago, 1990, p. 28.

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External links

Great Conversation book discussion group
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essay by Robert M. Hutchins

nbsp;– chapter one of "The Great Conversation" online preserved at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

1952 non-fiction books Abstraction Concepts in aesthetics Concepts in epistemology History of literature History of philosophy Innovation Literary concepts Philosophical movements Philosophy of culture Philosophy of literature Philosophy of mind Sociology of knowledge Tradition {{aesthetics-stub

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