I see that Martha Nussbaum is weighing in on the liberal education debate. The debate, crudely put, asks whether education should be instrumental – i.e. merely training up students to serve an economic imperative – or is there another deeper aspect to education, an intrinsic aspect, that inducts students into the postulates of our and others’ culture. I, for one, don’t see these positions as being mutually exclusive, though I’d give some prioricity to the latter. Nussbaum is a very serious-minded writer: I look forward to this work.
This from Nussbaum’s agent’s website:
University of Chicago professor Martha Nussbaum’s Not for Profit: A Plea for Liberal Education, calling for the recognition that education, as the center of both our ethics and our arts, cannot merely be about becoming smart or productive, but must be about becoming a true citizen of the nation and the world.
Speaking of Nussbaum, check out the discussion of emotion with the “Click and Clack” of philosophy – the wonderful John Perry and Ken Taylor on their Philosophy Talks.
manwithoutqualities 