Category: Education
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Where are we going?
PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: Imagine being on board a train that is racing through the countryside at breakneck speed toward a destination that no one on board or anywhere else knows. This is not a bad metaphor for where our society presently finds itself. It’s common knowledge that much in our culture has changed over the last…
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Deschooling?
PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: Half a century ago, Austrian philosopher Ivan Illich published a little book called Deschooling Society. Illich’s principal aim in that book was to critique existing educational institutions from the elementary school to the university. His aim was clearly indicated in the title: he wants to “deschool” society—to get rid of them, and to…
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On specialists and interdisciplinarity
PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: Many years ago I asked my former Ph.D. advisor why he chose to write a particular book that he had published some years back. His name was Gary Madison and the book in question was on political philosophy. Gary’s field in those days was phenomenology and hermeneutics. His answer surprised me and it…
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The University
PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: For several decades now, the corporate model has inserted itself into the university. The phenomenon gained momentum in the 1980s under the influence of political conservatism and the consequences are with us still. It seemed to the Ronald Reagans and Margaret Thatchers of the world that liberalism had run amok through the 60s…
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Jargon
PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: Here’s a question that has long been on a great many people’s minds but that philosophers seldom discuss, at least on the record: why is there so much jargon in philosophy? Many people’s first impression of philosophy is that the prose is so heavily laden with this stuff that it’s impenetrable, especially as we get…
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Free speech 201: The case of Mike Adams
PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: A tenured professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington was recently fired—or strong-armed into early retirement at age 55—for making some controversial statements on Twitter. His name was Mike Adams. I use the past tense because days after being fired he took his own life, his career and his reputation having been…
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Adversity III: The COVID-19 University
PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: Rather than simply close their doors, universities around the world are attempting to cope with the pandemic largely by opting for what’s called “remote learning,” essentially putting all courses, both undergraduate and graduate, online until it’s possible to return to regular classes, whenever that might be. This move doesn’t come out of nowhere;…
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Judging Philosophers You Haven’t Read
PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: Surely no philosopher, or professor of philosophy, would ever do this, you would think. It’s common sense that you can’t judge a book or an author you haven’t read, and surely no intelligent person would ever do it, certainly not a professor and even more certainly, not a professor of philosophy. That’s what…
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Why Our Daughter is in Private School
PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: When our daughter was born, my wife and I were assuming that when she came to be of school age we’d enrol her in public school. We live in a city where the schools are probably better than most places, on average anyway, and one thing we didn’t want was for our daughter…
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Read Philosophers’ Biographies
PODCAST: TRANSCRIPT: I once spent three and a half months reading the complete works of John Dewey, pretty much all day every day. He was an extremely prolific writer; his complete works number thirty-nine volumes. I had a lot of time on my hands in those days. Over those months,…
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