Forgetting Cervantes in Spain (El Pais)
“All the recent Spanish governments have been contemptuous of culture, but the current one is downright aggressive towards it” - Arturo Pérez Reverte
1
02, 2016
25
01, 2016
The Two Cultures of Scientists and Non-Scientists
In fact, the separation between the scientists and non-scientists is much less bridgeable among the young than it was even thirty years ago. Thirty years ago the cultures had long ceased to speak to each other: but at least they managed a kind of frozen smile across the gulf. Now the politeness has gone, and [...]
22
01, 2016
Prisoners, liberal arts, and freedom (France 24)
What happens when convicted murderers are taught liberal arts? According to hundreds of US felons who have gained degrees in philosophy, literature and history, higher education is transformative for both the student and society.
18
01, 2016
Martin Luther King on Education, 1947
As I engage in the so-called "bull sessions" around and about the school, I too often find that most college men have a misconception of the purpose of education. Most of the "brethren" think that education should equip them with the proper instruments of exploitation so that they can forever trample over the masses. Still [...]
16
01, 2016
Medicine, neurology, and Sherlock (BBC)
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the doctor from Edinburgh, teaches new doctors about the mind.
9
01, 2016
Philosophy of the Future
Computer scientists advocate a liberal education for the future, flexing their epistemological, ontological and ethical muscles on concepts of artificial intelligence.
7
01, 2016
Sakharov, Pushkin, and the prison camp
Pushkin brings a desire for spiritual fulfillment between prisoners and their guard.
2
01, 2016
Looking Both Ways
Looking toward the past, and the future, on New Year's Day
31
12, 2015
Medicine finds philosophy good therapy (David Silbersweig, Washington Post)
A call for integrative therapy, including the liberal arts
30
12, 2015
Times old and new: “objective” creative engagement vs. “subjective” inward regression
"As long as poets express merely their puny subjective impressions, they are not worth the name; but as soon as they know how to appropriate and express the world, they are poets. For then they are inexhaustible and can be constantly new, as opposed to a subjective nature, which quickly expresses its meagre inner life [...]