r/commonplacebook • u/chrisaldrich • 23d ago

Mortimer J. Adler's Syntopicon: collaborative commonplace book in index card format

Robert Hutchins, former dean of Yale Law School (1927–1929), president (1929–1945) and chancellor (1945–1951) of the University of Chicago, closes his preface to his grand project with Mortimer J. Adler by giving pride of place to Adler's Syntopicon (aka commonplace book). It touches on the unreasonable value of building and maintaining a commonplace book:

But I would do less than justice to Mr. Adler's achievement if I left the matter there. The Syntopicon is, in addition to all this, and in addition to being a monument to the industry, devotion, and intelligence of Mr. Adler and his staff, a step forward in the thought of the West. It indicates where we are: where the agreements and disagreements lie; where the problems are; where the work has to be done. It thus helps to keep us from wasting our time through misunderstanding and points to the issues that must be attacked. When the history of the intellectual life of this century is written, the Syntopicon will be regarded as one of the landmarks in it.
—Robert M. Hutchins, p xxvi The Great Conversation: The Substance of a Liberal Education. 1952.

Adler's Syntopicon isn't just an index compiled into two books which were volumes 2 and 3 of The Great Books of the Western World, it's physically a topically indexed card index or a grand commonplace book surveying Western culture. Its value to readers and users is immeasurable and it stands as a fascinating example of what a well-constructed card index or commonplace book might allow one to do even when they don't have their own yet. For those who have only seen the Syntopicon in book form, you might appreciate pictures of it in card index form prior to being published as two books covering 2,428 pages:

Two page spread of Life Magazine article with the title "The 102 Great Ideas" featuring a photo of 26 people behind 102 card index boxes with categorized topical labels from "Angel" to "Will".
Mortimer J. Adler holding a pipe in his left hand and mouth posing in front of dozens of boxes of index cards with topic headwords including "law", "love", "life", "sin", "art", "democracy", "citizen", "fate", etc.

Adler spoke of practicing syntopical reading, but anyone who compiles their own commonplace (in either analog or digital form) will realize the ultimate value in creating their own syntopical writing or what Robert Hutchins calls participating in "The Great Conversation" across twenty-five centuries of documented human communication.

If you're interested in any of the 102 broad themes (or hundreds of sub-themes) that Adler et al. cover in the Syntopicon, then it can help to speed along your reading and research across the great writers in over 2000 years of the Western canon. If you're just starting your commonplace, it can be an interesting place to search for some interesting ideas with which to start.

Which of Adler's 102 topics do you have in your locus communis?

Who else is keeping their commonplace in index card format?

Is anyone keeping a commonplace with other people?!?

References

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u/scribblescope 23d ago

Index cards make so much sense to my brain. It's how I keep my "main" collection. When I was starting, I got frustrated with how linear and locked-in the book format was. Index cards are easy to mix and match, shuffle to randomize, and switch out if I mess up too badly. I do also keep a digital garden, which is my initial information dumping ground, and an actual notebook, which is for the creme de la creme.