To those weary and wary of the cacophony about what's wrong with education in America and what ought to be done about it, Oakeshott's voice beckons. As usual, his approach to the subject is subtle, comprehensive, and radical -- in the sense of summoning readers to the root of the matter. That root, Oakeshott believed, is the very nature of learning itself and, concomitantly, th...
To those weary and wary of the cacophony about what's wrong with education in America and what ought to be done about it, Oakeshott's voice beckons. As usual, his approach to the subject is subtle, comprehensive, and radical -- in the sense of summoning readers to the root of the matter. That root, Oakeshott believed, is the very nature of learning itself and, concomitantly, the means (as distinct from the method) by which the life of learning is discovered, cultivated, and pursued. As Oakeshott has written, "This, then, is what we are concerned with: adventures in human self-understanding. Not the bare protestation that a human being is a self-conscious, reflective intelligence and that he does not live by bread alone, but the actual enquiries, utterances, and actions in which human beings have expressed their understanding of the human condition. This is the stuff of what has come to be called a liberal' education -- liberal' because it is liberated from the distracting business of satisfying contingent wants". Includes a foreword by Timothy Fuller that reiterates the timelessness of Oakeshott's reflections amid the continuing clamour that characterises discourse about liberal education.
How much less burdensome to be incapable of error, of stupidity, of hatred and of wrongdoing, even if this meant the surrender of truth, wisdom, love and virtue. But it is impossible. The very contemplation of such an escape announces its impossibility: only mind can regret having to think. (查看原文)
The price of the intelligent activity which constitutes being human is learning. When the human condition is said to be burdensome, what is being pointed to is not the mere necessity or having to think, to speak and to act, but the impossibility of thinking or feeling without having slowly and often painfully learned to think something. The freedom of a human being inheres in his thoughts and his emotions having had to be learned; for learning is something which each of us must do and can only do for ourselves. (查看原文)
迈克尔·欧克肖特 作者
0 有用 Lincredible#0 2019-12-20 01:50:13
国家化和社会化是大学所能遭遇的最大的败坏，欧克肖特此言不虚。
0 有用 Lincredible#0 2019-12-20 01:50:13
国家化和社会化是大学所能遭遇的最大的败坏，欧克肖特此言不虚。