Jacob Howland, Author at The Imaginative Conservative

About Jacob Howland

Professor Jacob Howland is Provost of the University of Austin and Dean of the University's Intellectual Foundations program. Previously, Dr. Howland served as McFarlin Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tulsa and Senior Fellow at the Tikvah Fund. He is the author of five books and one edited book, including two on Plato’s Republic as well as studies of Kierkegaard and the Talmud. Howland’s articles have appeared in The New Criterion, City Journal, and The Nation, among others.

Glaucon’s Fate: History, Myth, and Character in Plato’s “Republic”

By Jacob Howland|2024-05-17T12:26:49-05:00May 17th, 2024|Categories: Books, Character, Culture, History, Myth, Philosophy, Plato, Socrates, Timeless Essays|

Glaucon’s story is part of a well-known political tragedy that swept up many of Plato’s friends and fellow citizens, including Socrates. The evidence for his personal tragedy, however, is deeply embedded in the text. Like a three-dimensional image hidden within a two-dimensional picture, it requires a special adjustment of the eyes to perceive. Perhaps the [...]

University Administration and the English Language

By Jacob Howland|2020-05-06T09:14:17-05:00May 6th, 2020|Categories: Culture, Education, George Orwell, Language, Modernity|

Learning and language are intimately related. People speak well—clearly, concretely, and accurately—about the things they know, and poorly when they pontificate about things they don’t. Broadly-educated people speak well about many things; they are dilettantes rather than pedants, the two kinds of intellectual according to Miguel de Unamuno. Primo Levi, a professional chemist as well [...]