I Teach the Humanities, and I Still Don’t Know What Their Value Is

evince said:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_Callard



It might help to better understand her writing by checking out her earlier writings


Some interesting stuff


Thanks for bringing her up
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If she doesn't like her job, she should move onto another career.

The link says her specialty ancient philosophy and ethics. But all she talks about is Descartes, Plato, Homer.

This isn't 1955 anymore, and colleges students aren't 95 percent white people of European decent anymore. Maybe her job would be more interesting, and her students more motivated if she moved outside of western Europe and Greece to engage her students in the world traditions of philosophy and ethics. The Upanishads, Confucius, Lao Tzu are probably more widely known on a global scale than Kant or Nietzsche.
 
Cypress said:
If she doesn't like her job, she should move onto another career.

The link says her specialty ancient philosophy and ethics. But all she talks about Descartes, Plato, Homer.

This isn't 1955 anymore, and colleges students aren't 95 percent white people of European decent anymore. Maybe her job would be more interesting, and her students more motivated if she moved outside of western Europe and Greece to engage her students in the world traditions of philosophy and ethics. The Upanishads, Confucius, Lao Tzu are probably more widely known on a global scale than Kant or Nietzsche.
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I do not think she is saying she is bored. She is saying she does not need to justify her work at the university.
 
BidenPresident said:
Yes. I think Callard is stuck in her safe position as a professor at a research university. She thinks merely lecturing to students fulfills her obligations.
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That's always possible. Professors live in a sheltered environment. Another possibility is that she's having trouble obtaining her doctorate and it's depressing her.

Obviously she's a talented and popular writer, but some people tend to focus upon what they don't have instead of what they have.
 
BidenPresident said:
Cypress said:
If she doesn't like her job, she should move onto another career.

The link says her specialty ancient philosophy and ethics. But all she talks about is Descartes, Plato, Homer.

This isn't 1955 anymore, and colleges students aren't 95 percent white people of European decent anymore. Maybe her job would be more interesting, and her students more motivated if she moved outside of western Europe and Greece to engage her students in the world traditions of philosophy and ethics. The Upanishads, Confucius, Lao Tzu are probably more widely known on a global scale than Kant or Nietzsche.
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I do not think she is saying she is bored. She is saying she does not need to justify her work at the university.
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Disagreed with both of you. She points out a declining interest in the humanities, which, IMO, is says more about American culture than it does college professors, and she also points out that it's up the Humanities professors to start asking the right questions on why they should be teaching Humanities.

I couldn't access the NYT link but found this: https://dnyuz.com/2023/12/02/i-teach-the-humanities-and-i-still-dont-know-what-their-value-is/
The task of humanists is to invite, to welcome, to entice, to excite, to engage. And when we let ourselves be ourselves, when we allow the humanistic spirit that animates us to flow out not only into our classrooms but also in our public-self presentation, we find we don’t need to defend or prove anything: We are irresistible.

Are the humanities valuable? What is their value? These are good questions, they are worth asking, and if humanists don’t ask them, no one will. But remember: No one can genuinely ask a question to which she thinks she already has the answer.
 
Doc Dutch said:
Looks to me like she is losing her faith in her own career. At age 47, she could be having a midlife crisis. Her autism may be a factor in not finding an answer soon.

As for Humanities, it's a good field. Human beings are often trisected into mind, body and spirit. The hard sciences cover the body and spiritual/religious pursuits the spirit. Humanities...and behavioral psychology, covers the mind. <---notice the plug there. LOL


https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/13/agnes-callard-profile-marriage-philosophy
The philosopher, who lives with her husband and her ex-husband....was diagnosed with autism in her thirties.
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I never heard a physics, chemistry, or math major say to me that colleges should stop offering humanities classes. It's widely understood that a broad liberal education, including humanities requirements and electives, are supposed to enrich people and make them better writers and thinkers
 
Doc Dutch said:
Disagreed with both of you. She points out a declining interest in the humanities, which, IMO, is says more about American culture than it does college professors, and she also points out that it's up the Humanities professors to start asking the right questions on why they should be teaching Humanities.

I couldn't access the NYT link but found this: https://dnyuz.com/2023/12/02/i-teach-the-humanities-and-i-still-dont-know-what-their-value-is/
The task of humanists is to invite, to welcome, to entice, to excite, to engage. And when we let ourselves be ourselves, when we allow the humanistic spirit that animates us to flow out not only into our classrooms but also in our public-self presentation, we find we don’t need to defend or prove anything: We are irresistible.

Are the humanities valuable? What is their value? These are good questions, they are worth asking, and if humanists don’t ask them, no one will. But remember: No one can genuinely ask a question to which she thinks she already has the answer.
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That's kind of what I'm saying.

Teaching Homer, Plato, and Descartes is what universities were doing 400 years ago. Plato, Homer Descartes is apparently all this woman can talk about, judging from the article

Maybe it's time to update. Maybe it's Time to stop being lazy and just thinking about the same old dead Europeans.

I think students would be very interested in being exposed to Asian intellectual and ethical traditions. The Daodejing is reputedly the second most published book in the world after the bible, but the Platonic and Homeric philosophers are still teaching like it's 1870. I gotta be honest with you, the Iliad is important historically, but it's a pain to read
 
Cypress said:
That's kind of what I'm saying.

Teaching Homer, Plato, and Descartes is what universities were doing 400 years ago.

Maybe it's time to update. Maybe it's Time to stop being lazy and just thinking about the same old dead Europeans.

I think students would be very interested in being exposed to Asian intellectual and ethical traditions. The Daodejing is reputedly the second most published book in the world after the bible, but the Platonic and Homeric philosophers are still teaching like it's 1870. I gotta be honest with you, the Iliad is important historically, but it's a pain to read
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Universities have religion departments. Nothing stops students from taking those classes.
 
Cypress said:
That's kind of what I'm saying.

Teaching Homer, Plato, and Descartes is what universities were doing 400 years ago. Plato, Homer Descartes is apparently all this woman can talk about, judging from the article

Maybe it's time to update. Maybe it's Time to stop being lazy and just thinking about the same old dead Europeans.

I think students would be very interested in being exposed to Asian intellectual and ethical traditions. The Daodejing is reputedly the second most published book in the world after the bible, but the Platonic and Homeric philosophers are still teaching like it's 1870. I gotta be honest with you, the Iliad is important historically, but it's a pain to read
Click to expand...

I do not mean to be insulting, but I suspect you do not really understand what philosophy is. It is not supposed to be religion.
 
Cypress said:
I never heard a physics, chemistry, or math major say to me that colleges should stop offering humanities classes. It's widely understood that a broad liberal education, including humanities requirements and electives, are supposed to enrich people and make them better writers and thinkers
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Maybe the U of Chitown is suffering funding issues and looking to cut certain less-profitable departments?
 
BidenPresident said:
I do not mean to be insulting, but I suspect you do not really understand what philosophy is. It is not supposed to be religion.
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You are insulting, you know you are and disagreed since Cypress knows more about philosophy than you've ever demonstrated, ma'am.

Religion is a subset of philosophy...or can be. There's the dogma, of which there are no questions, and then there's the philosophy as demonstrated by people like Thomas Aquinas and John Donne.
 
BidenPresident said:
Universities have religion departments. Nothing stops students from taking those classes.
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Correct. I took a world religions course in community college. Additional philosophy classes touched on some religious writings. Example, the Bible's Proverbs has a lot of philosophy in it.
 
BidenPresident said:
I do not mean to be insulting, but I suspect you do not really understand what philosophy is. It is not supposed to be religion.
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Asians do not have a clear distinction between philosophy and religion, and Asians don't even concieve of religion the same way Europeans do.

You have to remove yourself from the mindset of a European.

The Analects, the Zhuangzi, the Daodejing have almost nothing about gods or dieties. And their foundations of moral philosophy, political philosophy, ontology, metaphysics are every bit as interesting and sophisticated as the Greek and western European tradition.
 
Cypress said:
Asians do not have a clear distinction between philosophy and religion, and Asians don't even concieve of religion the same way Europeans do.

You have to remove yourself from the mindset of a European.

The Analects, the Zhuangzi, the Analects have almost nothing about gods or dieties. And their foundations of moral philosophy, political philosophy, ontology, metaphysics are every bit as interesting and sophisticated as the western European tradition.
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The universities I attended taught Eastern texts in the philosophy departments. Depends what the school is.
 
BidenPresident said:
Cypress said:
Asians do not have a clear distinction between philosophy and religion, and Asians don't even concieve of religion the same way Europeans do.

You have to remove yourself from the mindset of a European.

The Analects, the Zhuangzi, the Daodejing have almost nothing about gods or dieties. And their foundations of moral philosophy, political philosophy, ontology, metaphysics are every bit as interesting and sophisticated as the Greek and western European tradition.
Click to expand...
The universities I attended taught Eastern texts in the philosophy departments. Depends what the school is.
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So you agree that religion and philosophy can cross paths, BP?
 
Doc Dutch said:
Maybe the U of Chitown is suffering funding issues and looking to cut certain less-profitable departments?
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You might be right.

It's easy to get lazy and teach philosophy and history as if it's still 1850. I think the teaching humanities needs an overhaul. I have seen some great history professors who have evolved from dry recitations of dates and names of the great Europeans, into a kind of narrative, story-telling type of history teaching.
 
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