When I bring up the subject of “place” to fellow scholars and administrators, I often encounter blank stares and gentle skepticism. Why, I’m asked, would people want to talk about…place? Why would anyone want to write, or read, or hear about such an abstract, ineffable, ethereal concept? But when I talk to students about place, [...]
It is notoriously difficult to prove a negative, to catch, as it were, non-being by the tail, but perhaps even harder just to get it in your sights: “Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?” “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” “The dog did nothing [...]
“If there’s one thing I learned from seminar, it’s that saying what something is NOT, is not the same as saying positively what it IS.” Part I: Before If you choose to go to St. John’s College in Annapolis, you will begin your first day of math class by setting forth with definitions, axioms and [...]
A friend of mine in the financial services industry called me the other day to vent about the poor quality of the public discourse concerning the freedom of the marketplace and the obsession with the Almighty Dollar. “Does it make sense,” he asked, “that the pursuit of self-interest is the essence of all human motivation [...]
Welcome to the Class of 2018. Welcome to their families and friends. Welcome Back to the rest of the College community! There is nothing in the world like the energy in this room as we open our doors to another year of learning together. Like everyone else here, I prepared for this fresh beginning by [...]
I. Principles and Parts of the Program Every plan of education, whether borne up by a passing trend or bound into a long tradition, is fraught with implicit philosophical principle. Since the program of St. John’s College is devoted to that peculiar kind of learning which of necessity includes a reflection on its own conditions, [...]
“For we shall see him as he is.” 1 John 3:2 The focus of my talk this evening is the Paradiso, the culminating and most beautiful part of Dante’s Comedy. The Paradiso has much to tell us about happiness, the perfection of the intellect, the nature of true freedom, the flourishing of community, the role [...]
At an earlier session I spoke about Socrates as a model for imitating heroes, because he shows us how to use the lives of extraordinary people to help us make and remake a life worth living for ourselves. Now I’d like to speak about Socrates as a model for teachers to emulate. Teachers have chosen [...]
It is our tradition that the first lecture of the year should be dedicated to our freshmen.* They have newly joined a community whose program of learning centers on the scheduled reading of a preset list of books and on the twice-weekly discussion that takes place in the seminar. They have come to us chiefly [...]
Higher education should expend all its efforts to place self-development at the center of its activities, relegating other activities to the ancillary roles for which they are suited. In doing so, it can find no better model than Socrates, the master of intelligent imitation, and the most imitation-worthy practitioner of the Imitation of Heroes. Imitation, [...]
Everyone knows what a liberating education is. All of you are no doubt familiar with a typical experience of mine: I am suddenly confronted with a new puzzle, a new question, or a new problem that needs solving. I am pushed out of my comfort zone, and then I discover that the user manual is [...]
The first thing one notices while strolling the beautiful grounds of St. John’s College is that there are no cell phones. At least, none are visible. Indeed, there are no tablets, no laptops, no electronics of any sort readily discernible. The absence of screens, faculty member Eva Brann proposes, precludes students from “dispersing themselves,” giving them [...]
When our dean asked me to lecture this September it was because I’ve just completed a book on time, and I’m happy to have the opportunity to talk about it. There seemed to be three possible kinds of profit that I figured might come to you and to me if I gave what one might [...]
Many high school seniors are facing one of the most important choices they will confront in their lives: Which college should I attend next fall? In my previous post I wrote about five issues to consider when choosing a college. But then I reflected on my role as a parent of five, remembering the advice I gave [...]