Pub Date : 2020-09-17DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197518786.003.0007
E. Adler
This concluding chapter uses Irving Babbitt’s educational philosophy as a starting point for an intellectually and ethically sound approach to the contemporary humanities. Although Babbitt did not present a defense of the humanities completely appropriate for our day and age, his ecumenical and comparatively broadminded approach can help ground a contemporary rationale that is both novel and satisfying. The chapter argues that contemporary humanists must vouch for the central importance of their subjects in part by expressing the ways in which masterworks of culture (from all intellectual traditions, not just Western ones) help contribute to the creation of better human beings.
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Pub Date : 2020-09-17DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197518786.003.0003
E. Adler
This chapter provides a history of the humanities, from their origins as the studia humanitatis in Roman antiquity to the modern humanities we think of today. By charting this path, it offers a sense of the humanistic tradition in its entirety and explains what is at stake in its prospective downfall. The chapter focuses particular attention on the history of the humanities in American higher education, especially during the run-up to the Battle of the Classics. This introduces the reader to much of the historical and intellectual background for future chapters. Part of this chapter also highlights a crucial shift in the definition of the humanities that took place during the latter half of the nineteenth century. This shift, from what one might call the classical to the modern humanities, makes it extraordinarily difficult to defend the hodgepodge of subjects we associate with the contemporary humanities.
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Pub Date : 2020-09-17DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197518786.003.0006
E. Adler
This chapter surveys Irving Babbitt’s writings in defense of the classical and modern humanities. It demonstrates that Babbitt’s critique of the American research university and its philosophical underpinnings provides a more satisfying intellectual foundation for the humanities than do typical contemporary defenses. The chapter demonstrates that Babbitt offered a radical critique of professionalized American higher education and the attractively romantic—but ultimately problematic—conception of human nature that informs it. It shows that Babbitt fundamentally recast the humanistic tradition to fit the needs of the contemporary world. Importantly, the chapter argues that Babbitt avoided the skills-based rationales for Latin and ancient Greek that had proved so underwhelming during the Battle of the Classics. In their place, Babbitt underscored the unique role that specific humanities content must play in American higher learning in order for the nation to flourish.
{"title":"Humanism vs. Humanitarianism","authors":"E. Adler","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197518786.003.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197518786.003.0006","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter surveys Irving Babbitt’s writings in defense of the classical and modern humanities. It demonstrates that Babbitt’s critique of the American research university and its philosophical underpinnings provides a more satisfying intellectual foundation for the humanities than do typical contemporary defenses. The chapter demonstrates that Babbitt offered a radical critique of professionalized American higher education and the attractively romantic—but ultimately problematic—conception of human nature that informs it. It shows that Babbitt fundamentally recast the humanistic tradition to fit the needs of the contemporary world. Importantly, the chapter argues that Babbitt avoided the skills-based rationales for Latin and ancient Greek that had proved so underwhelming during the Battle of the Classics. In their place, Babbitt underscored the unique role that specific humanities content must play in American higher learning in order for the nation to flourish.","PeriodicalId":107188,"journal":{"name":"The Battle of the Classics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116317806","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-17DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197518786.003.0005
E. Adler
This chapter analyses the 1885 curricular debate between President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard and President James McCosh of Princeton over the comparative merits of prescription and election in the undergraduate course. It contends that Eliot’s laissez-faire approach to higher learning possessed shortcomings, but that McCosh failed to unearth and expound on many of them. Wedded to a skills-based-education rationale based on the principles of faculty psychology, McCosh delivered a rebuke to Eliot that relied too much on mockery and innuendo. The chapter also stresses that McCosh’s defense of required Greek centered on outdated theological concerns The 1885 Eliot-McCosh debate thus amounted to a lost opportunity for supporters of the classical humanities. McCosh’s contentless apologetics for the ancient languages have much to teach proponents of the contemporary humanities in America.
{"title":"Darwin Meets the Curriculum","authors":"E. Adler","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197518786.003.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197518786.003.0005","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter analyses the 1885 curricular debate between President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard and President James McCosh of Princeton over the comparative merits of prescription and election in the undergraduate course. It contends that Eliot’s laissez-faire approach to higher learning possessed shortcomings, but that McCosh failed to unearth and expound on many of them. Wedded to a skills-based-education rationale based on the principles of faculty psychology, McCosh delivered a rebuke to Eliot that relied too much on mockery and innuendo. The chapter also stresses that McCosh’s defense of required Greek centered on outdated theological concerns The 1885 Eliot-McCosh debate thus amounted to a lost opportunity for supporters of the classical humanities. McCosh’s contentless apologetics for the ancient languages have much to teach proponents of the contemporary humanities in America.","PeriodicalId":107188,"journal":{"name":"The Battle of the Classics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128838359","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-17DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197518786.003.0002
E. Adler
This chapter examines recent defenses of the humanities, demonstrating that most of them present a portrait of the humanities strikingly bereft of content. Instead of stressing the need for students to encounter and contemplate particular works associated with the modern humanities, these defenses typically vouch for the humanities’ value on the basis of their purported ability to inculcate various skills in students. Such arguments, it is shown, possess intrinsic disadvantages and vulnerabilities. Many apologists, for example, highlight the notion that the humanities supply students with the skill of “critical thinking.” But they cannot claim that the humanities alone are conduits for this nebulous aptitude.
{"title":"Skills Are the New Canon","authors":"E. Adler","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197518786.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197518786.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter examines recent defenses of the humanities, demonstrating that most of them present a portrait of the humanities strikingly bereft of content. Instead of stressing the need for students to encounter and contemplate particular works associated with the modern humanities, these defenses typically vouch for the humanities’ value on the basis of their purported ability to inculcate various skills in students. Such arguments, it is shown, possess intrinsic disadvantages and vulnerabilities. Many apologists, for example, highlight the notion that the humanities supply students with the skill of “critical thinking.” But they cannot claim that the humanities alone are conduits for this nebulous aptitude.","PeriodicalId":107188,"journal":{"name":"The Battle of the Classics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127531166","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-17DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197518786.003.0004
E. Adler
For part of Harvard’s graduation ceremony of 1883, Charles Francis Adams, Jr., delivered a fiery address lambasting the college for its continued insistence on ancient Greek as part of its admission examinations. This chapter analyses Adams’s speech and the spirited reactions it engendered. It probes the arguments proponents of the classical humanities made for their subject during this consequential debate over the shape and purpose of the nation’s higher education. The chapter demonstrates that skills-based arguments dominated the appeals offered by supporters of collegiate requirements in ancient Greek. Almost entirely failing to invoke the tenets of humanism, such supporters anchored their apologetics in the concept of “mental discipline.” Their opponents, sensing the weaknesses of these appeals, ably countered this defense. At a crucial point in time for the classical humanities in American higher learning, skills-based rationales proved a dismal failure.
1883年哈佛大学毕业典礼上，小查尔斯·弗朗西斯·亚当斯(Charles Francis Adams, Jr.)发表了一篇言辞激烈的演讲，猛烈抨击哈佛大学继续坚持将古希腊语作为入学考试的一部分。本章分析了亚当斯的演讲及其引起的热烈反响。它探讨了古典人文学科的支持者在这场关于国家高等教育的形式和目的的重要辩论中为他们的学科所做的论证。这一章表明，在古希腊，以技能为基础的论点主导了大学入学要求支持者的诉求。这些支持者几乎完全没有援引人文主义的原则，而是将他们的辩护锚定在“精神纪律”的概念上。他们的对手意识到这些诉求的弱点，巧妙地反击了这种辩护。在美国高等教育中古典人文学科的关键时刻，以技能为基础的理论被证明是一个可悲的失败。
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