Great Books Education & Lifelong Learning, Western Civilization & the Great Conversation 

The problem for someone who loves books is that there’s not enough time to read them all! Have a beautiful day professor!

I have the entire Great Books set as well as the Great Ideas Program, the Great Ideas Today and the Gateway to the Great Books. I also have all the Harvard Classics. I have read the entire core set of the Great Books which took me about 30 years and about 6 months ago finally finished the Harvard Classics which took about 15 years. I am now on the final volume of Will Durant's Story of Civilization.

Look who is here .. the adorable tuxedo Cat

Mortimer Adler was a benefactor of mankind! He was interviewed by Firing Line (William F. Buckley Jr.) a few times. Nice cat, by the way. Must be a genius.

The cat was listening carefully! He/she shall be wiser by the side of Professer. How cute it is to have not moved at all in front of the camera. He must have been appreciating a lot of the professer's speech. Just imagine that I were the cat. It's funny to think about if a cat can actually learn a language..

If you might possibly be interested in virtual options for working with me to improve your skills in reading French, German, Latin, or Spanish literatures, or to engage in English-language discussions of the Great Books of Western, Eastern, Indic, and/or Islamic Civilizations, please fill out the application form on my website at alexanderarguelles.com/academy/ If this is not for you, but you know someone whom it might interest, please pass this information on to them.

Thank you for posting this video; I've had a set since 1985 and I think that the first volume, where Mortimer Adler focuses on why this set was created is very important. He and Robert Maynard Hutchins argue that it is the responsibility of a democracy to educate voters to the highest standards so that the 'demos' can make the very best and well educated choices for their representative leadership. How very much we need to be reading this set right now!! I would recommend everyone start with the Great Books and append these with modern political, scientific, and literary works to create a well informed populace.

I believe it was Samuel Clemens who said something to the effect that the definition of a classic was "a book that everyone wants to have read but no one wants to actually read."

Great way to attract new viewers! A bunch of books and a super cute cat

I just subscribed because of the cat. The fact that you're a professor talking about great books helped me make my decision - but yeah, it was the cat. :)

I remember the day when I first saw this collection of books, it was 1980. I was a homeless kid coming from El Salvador living in a rich Jewish household my mother was the housekeeper and I used to sit in the private library going through them one by one I didn't know how to read the English language or the Spanish language either. I found one of those in the streets and I picked up and brought memories. I currently reading Vol. 55 and I found the whole collection in the public library.

I've started to read the Series from 2022. I am reading volume 07 (Dialogues of Plato) now. This is the best decision I took in my life.

Having seen your presentation, Alexander, as well as an interview with Adler led by Buckley (what a style these two fellas!), I am seriously considering embarking upon this journey of going through the 54 volume set and learning all the foreign languages on the way in order to read these books in the original - using English (or my native Polish) as an aid on the way. This way I will have a meaningful goal spanning many years to come, a framework to learn very concrete tongues for very concrete a purpose, and challenging literature chosen by inspiring people as representative of The Great Ideas of the Western Civilisation, literature being a genuine food for thought and a cornerstone for the educated man. (to be proven by own experience)

Professor Arguelles, God bless you for everything you do, and also for being an advocate of Great Books, particularly during our very foolish age. Circa 1999, I first read both Adler's HOW TO READ A BOOK and Fadiman's (NEW) LIFETIME READING PLAN. A young man at the time, devouring these books set me on a path of enrichment I continue to tread this very day. Adler's chapter, ''Reading and the Growth of the Mind'' is a life-changing exchanging experience in itself, and I've recommended that particular chapter to many friends over the years. Anyway, keep up the great work. You are an international treasure. (Russian and Hebrew are my foreign languages of study, by the way.)

Thank you for another great video Professor! I hope you will show us more books from your library in the future.

I recently acquired the 54 volume set from a local bookstore and I am very excited to start learning. Thank You for a wonderful introduction to this series and where it can lead. I will definitely be returning to your channel once I begin this journey. Happy learning, everyone!

Thanks a lot for sharing these invaluable resources. Much appreciated!

I'm profundly grateful with you. I've been searching the Great Books for a couple of years and had lost hope of finding them in digital and for free. This means a lot for me. I'm 25 years old and didn't have the luck of going to a college, but always had an urge to develop my intellect. Thank you.

A good regimen is to read chronologically and based on the grouping in the great book series (which is also color coded). The groupings are: literature, philosophy, science, mathematics, and history. So a first year grouping might be Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Plato’s Dialogues, Hippocrates’ Writings & Galen’s Writings, Euclid’s Elements and Herodotus’ History. It also helps to have like minded friends involved in the same regimen.

Thanks so much for the mention! You are doing good work here sir.

This cat look so cute 😍

Prof. Arguelles, Thank you for this inspiring video, which reminds me of the book "The Priceless Gift" by Cornelius Hirschberg. :)

I love that series. Original works. We have it in our school library. 🙌🏽

What a great video. I'm looking to read both the great books of the Western world and the Harvard classics. I'd love to see more videos on these two book sets. Also a video discussing the differences between the first and second edition of the great books of the Western world would be extremely interesting, as well as reviews of each and why you may or may not recommend one or the other.

Hello Alexander, It's a wonderful presentation! Thanks for motivating us to read what is really worth! Greeting from Vienna Michael

Hi Professon Alexander I just finished reading 'How to read a book'. It's fascinating. I already have a lot of books to get through so I need to stop buying more. Though the 'great books of the East' sounds interesting, I might just have a glance at the list. Also I'm on lesson 4 from 'French Without Toil' and loving it. Thanks for the vid. Len

So glad I found this channel 😃

The University of Chicago Great Books program years ago was pretty good. I remember reading about it over 20 years ago. Always intrigued me.

Love the kitty ❤

I love my complete set - been diving into it for years! $2/bag! What a deal!!! As Thoreau so aptly wrote - "They only talk of forgetting them who never knew them" (Walden, Reading)

I am very much looking forward to the great books course offering. I dare say your cat alone has had a better education than myself.

I get excited to just see a set in the background or hear it mentioned in passing. Can't wait to watch (edit: the primary works themselves are still in print the sets are not)

Great video, thank you for the information 😊

I was in a Great Books program over my four years of college (graduated in 1996). A year ago I looked up the program again, and found out they stopped reading the books in the early 2000s. They apparently couldn't get enough people to join the program anymore. I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach. Reading those books, with weekly lectures from professors on campus who were experts on those particular books--and a weekly colloquium where we students discussed them--changed my life. I had spent most of the last 20 years believing the program still existed. (Well, it does in the sense that it has the same name. But now they have "interdisciplinary seminars", whatever that means.)

Excellent video! Very interested in this topic.

I'm really glad to see that Charlie Sheen has turned his life around and is doing some true introspective work!😂

lovely, thank you very much !

Thanks for the info sir this is very helpful for people who want to read more

Great video. I guess my "great buy" of this set for only $15 was not the best deal after all. It is an estate sale find and is missing the volume on Freud for which I'm grateful. 😂 It is a fantastic set and I'm glad I finally found one that was affordable. I will subscribe to your channel and am looking forward to more videos. Thanks so much.

Good explanation. The first step is to won the set of 60 vols along with the gateway to GBWW 10 vols. Make a routine to spend a specific time to specific literature, philosophy or science. This way one can cover them all. For sure it shall take years to finish them. Regular reading may help in complete in a span of 12 years (5 books a year). All book does not demand the same intensity however. Personally it took me 15 years to complete. Now that Brittanica has stopped publishing it, people may look for used editions with various international sellers online. Namaskar.

I enjoyed your presentation. Thank you!

I originally followed you for language but now I follow you for your cat. Also, nice jacket!

I found the audio recordings for French Without Toil on the net. Excellent.

Great video, thank you

The cats like..."Is this dude talking to me?"

I've read all 60 volumes. It took me 5 years.

Totally inspiring and fascinating. Hope to read some of these in addition to my addictions to thrillers and my attempts to learn French, Spanish, Russian and a wee bit of Hebrew.

The cat is so well behaved.

I bought the gb of the western world collection for $40 off Facebook marketplace. It’s priceless. Though not all encompassing as it’s missing a lot of very important works. Xenophon, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Bede, and a lot of Germanic works of the Middle Ages. But it’s still an invaluable collection.

Enlightening video, Dr. Arguelles. I got really curious about the part you said that, and I paraphrase your words, "the GB collection is good but many important western books on other languages got left out". The idea of a "great book" in the way Adler says it is still nebulous in my mind, even though I saw the explanations sometimes before and I read Adler myself. I would like to see a video where you talk about the books that were left out of the GB canon and specifically why that book is important(I am inclined to believe each book has a small discrepancy in the reason why it is a great book).I believe some great books are still being released from the 2000s till the time we speak right now, but I can't really pinpoint them without a clear definition on my head. Also, would you be kind enough to consider to release some of the virtual academy discussion circles on youtube, for the layman's appreciation, Dr Arguelles? I would love to participate, but my financial situation is far from leaving me to do so D: Edit: paraphrase clarification.

I love these types of things, as an intellectual and philosopher. But honestly, most people won't read these, don't read these and don't care. Having said that, I'm looking forward to reading my newly obtained Tao Te Ching in the original Chinese.

I love that cat !

I just got my set yesterday

I have this same library in the brown leather back.

Hi... from Brazil 🇧🇷

I've always seen literature as a source of entertainment first and foremost, but I also believe that the best works of art are both entertaining _and_ thought-provoking. My go-to example for that would be the TV series Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, which have absolutely gripping narratives and are both steeped in symbolism and there is much to analyze and to take away from these series, even if it's something you already knew. There are similar examples in the world of video games, and I want to one day create a series of books that would, in a similar manner, have both entertainment value, but would also be thought-provoking under the surface, as I've never seen anything quite like that in my life. At the same time, I am intrigued by what you're proposing here, Professor: reading something for the sake of discussing it and learning from that discussion never really occurred to me. I do not really have anyone to discuss such things with right now, nor do I have the time to do so on a regular basis, but I would like to try it out with you if I get the opportunity, cause it sounds really quite fascinating to experiment with!

There is something quite sad about buying old books that (judging by their condition) have never been read. Some years back I purchased many of the books published by the Linguaphone Institute during the period from 1960-1985. Most of them were in truly immaculate condition! I remember almost being shocked when I unpacked their Serbocroat Course and found it had actually seen active service from a previous owner.☺️ (Speaking of Linguaphone, I wonder whether Professor Arguelles would recommend their course for Korean?)

Great video! Thanks for sharing and giving different approaches to these books! I have a set of these books myself that were passed down from my grandfather and have been very interested in the collection and just finished the first volume of the set. But I'm rather new to poetry and studying philosophy and just don't know how to read, reflect and truly comprehend these books and not to mention how long this set is, it's kind of nerve racking. Is there anything that I should practice before approaching this set such as reading less difficult literature and poetry? Because I know me, sometimes I'll read and not really take the time to understand something, and at the end of reading, it become a waste of time because I didn't take the time to really understand what the author had intended. And I really don't want that to be the case with this set as it is very long and difficult. Anyways, any tips? Thanks!

Hello Dr. Arguelles! Your old website had an expanded Great Books list sorted by language. Are you planning on bringing that back at some point?

Hello, just wanted to point out that the link in your RU-vid "About" page may be outdated?

♥

One of the books that I am currently going through in this spirit is the Bible. It is Western, it is stimulating (not as much as Plato is, though, or a strictly philosophical text, but certainly as far as the realm of imagination is concerned), and it has probably been the most influential single volume in the western history. So... I decided to read it, even though I do not consider myself a believer. One thing I am clear about though is that after eight hours of work in front of the computer tryging to analize numerical data, charts, invoices and excel stuff, I can no longer stand small font of a written paper text. SO I BOUGHT THE BIBLE FOR THE SHORTSIGHTED! -- and it changes the game completely. I need to use that idea with other books as well.

Professor Arguelles, thank you for another great video and for the resources. Some questions/comments: From Wikipedia: “A second edition was published in 1990 in 60 volumes. Some translations were updated, some works were removed, and there were significant additions from the 20th century located in six new, separate volumes.” (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Books_of_the_Western_World) What are your thoughts on the second edition? (This is the one I own.) How important do you think secondary academic literature is to understanding original texts? And do you have any advice on how to find good secondary literature without getting bogged down by it? There are probably more pages of secondary literature regarding original texts than the number of pages of the texts themselves, which can be overwhelming. Also, it seems academics often make a big deal about the quality of translations, and choosing the “right” one. How much do you think that applies to this set? Considering the vast number of “great books” from the various traditions of the world, it can be overwhelming to figure out which works you want to read in the original and which you will settle for reading in translation. Learning a foreign language is a huge time commitment, and that is time that could be used to read works in translation. I’ve seen extremes from people saying that learning foreign languages is not necessary because you don’t need the original languages to understand the ideas, to people saying you’re not truly reading a work unless you’re reading it in its original language. Mark Van Doren states in his that it would be ideal to read all works in their original languages, but that this will never be. He says you should just settle for learning Ancient Greek. He’s doesn’t explain why, but I’m assuming perhaps because Ancient Greek is the best Western language to learn for understanding grammar? And of course, his book is biased toward the Western tradition. Also, I was happy to see in one of your comments that you hadn’t seen something in such a long a time that you had mostly forgotten the specifics of it. This is another overwhelming issue I often deal with: spending time reading a work closely and then forgetting the specifics of it when enough time has elapsed. My brain seems to dump information rather quickly. I’ll even sometimes forget that I’ve ever read a certain work. I suppose I need to do a better job of following the advice of Adler’s in order to keep the appropriate notes, etc., to “make a book my own.”

My problem with this collection is the small font and the double column set up. This makes the set hard, at least for me, to read.

When it comes to reading in general, is a pain in the ass for me. To be honest, i love reading all kinds of books fantasy, history, and books like the ones you have in your collection. Time management is the problem, im a college student and trying to read and do classes can be really painful sometimes and i myself want to become a writer one of these days inspired by these amazing beautiful pieces of work. However the main problem is that their are more so called fun books like you said, than their are books that are trying to teach you something. Throughout my experience, history is hard in general and when trying to find a good book most of them look like they are for children who know nothing about the world. They miss allot of information, also the way they teach is almost like they didnt even try to write a history. For example Europe a history, china a history, books that have a history arent bad they just start with this long introduction then start off with the messiest piece of work ive ever seen, instead of going through order they just go through topic and topic making it into a confusing mess. Whats worse is this is all of them, i find these hard books more enjoyable because unlike the easy books, they aren't repetitive, they dont talk about the same topic just with a different writer and style.

Do you happen to know which printing the books with the multi-colored bindings belong to? I have a full set and, while I plant to hold on to them, I'm trying to find out more about them.

I can't wait to be done with grad school so I can have more time to do things like read this collection

Out of curiosity, do they explain why they did not include the Bible? I'm not familiar with this particular collection, but at first glance it seems somewhat odd to leave it out, given its influence on the history and development of ideas throughout the Western world.

Somewhat recently I started to have a bigger interest into reading some classical books. My goal is not read these books as a lifestyle where I read them repeatedly. I'm aware that I miss stuff that way, but there are various things to do, so any decision I make causes me to miss other stuff. If there is an audiobook of these books, how many hours would that be? Just a rough guess is enough. I intend to read them anyways, so I'm curious how big of a time investment it will be. I didn't know that there are the Great Books of Eastern Civilizations. I also saw your video on it and I will start watching it as soon as I finish this comment. Is there a similar collection for Africa, America (pre columbus) and Oceania/Australia? One such book collection I also have my eye on are the 38 volumes of The Early Church Fathers.

Can anyone tell me the text size within the books… small text kills me!

Hello. Firstly thanks for useful videos. I would like to ask two question : 1)Do you have specific techniques to read / for note-taking ( when I try to take notes, I don't know what should be noted and I start to note everything) ? I suffer from forgetting. 2) I try to read on different topics ( psychology, language learning,philosophy, sociology, literature, natural sciences etc.). Is this useful or useless? Thanks.

I like your cat

There are less known great books which one needs to read them, books such as * El Criticon * by Gracian , or * Gog * by Papini , and Seneca`s * Epistulae *...

I just clicked for that magnificent chonker

What are The Great Books? --- they are the books that: 1. are on the list of Classics 2. have stood the test of time 3. have been judged by the group of educators to be invaluable in understanding how the thought process of a culture of a time period works 4. stimulate other ideas 5. give the foundation for belief systems and values and the way people think and operate 6. are designed to stimulate the mind

First of all, let me begin by saying that I loved this video and I expect more tours of your private library. I enjoyed the video so, please, do continue like this. Second, regarding critiques, I wouldn't say it's eurocentric, but I think the whole idea of "western civilization" is misleading at best. Antiquity and Late Antiquity were aperiod of time which the world was MEDITERRANEAN, many ""western thinkers were, actually, of semitic or northern african origin (Augustine of Hippo was amazigh, maybe carthaginian or numidian, he refer to himself as african; Iamblichus was of semitic origings and lived in Egypt and Syria, and also author like Philo of Alexandria, who was a jew). So my problem with the whole conception of "western" is that is biased, the idea of "european" was born in the Renaissance with little regard of how the world actually was before the Middle Ages. So why would Augustine count as "european" but not Ibn al-Haytham, who had a huge influence in western science (Roger Bacon, Witelo...)? They both were MEDITERRANEAN. That's all, thank you very much!

The cat 🥺

Alexander explaining putting his whole heart into it literally for half an hour... People : look.... A CAT 😍 . Cats know how to get the spotlight lol

hi prof arguelles

I'm not sure I understand the definition of "Western Civilization", especially in the context of "Western Civilization and Slavic Civilization", which suggests there's a clear distinction between the two.

Oswald Spengler - Decline of the West

The great books of the western canon and no Bible in sight?

A beautiful cat too? I have four 🐈🐈🐈🐈 but they won't sit still so beautifully like yours, one of them probably will bite off my jaw if I start to talk loudly.😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😄😄😄

Maxime felix est feles inter antiguos libros

That cat is THICC

I like anybody who likes cats. The sign of true intelligence!

Curiosity definitely did not kill this cat, on the contrary, we must say.

Great books? Let's talk about how great that cat is

The cat.

today's world is kinda busy. do yourself a favor and cut any communications with outside world and you will have .. some free time.... to read or whatever your projects are. don't cry you won't have internet or tv or radio or newspapers. you won't miss much, believe me. good luck.

That's why readers and writers prefer cats. A dog would've created hell by now. But cats, they are not there yet there.

chonk cat

Thicc cat

Cat