Photos: The New Yorker, Penguin Books
Continue reading “The Death of Old Goriot”Rastignac gives up on his chance for wisdom, but Balzac clearly holds out hope, against considerable odds, for his implied reader.
The Death of Old Goriot
Tag: narrative
Rethinking Liberal Education
Photo: Raphael, The School of Athens (detail), antigonejournal.com
Continue reading “Rethinking Liberal Education”Narrative imagination is an essential preparation for moral interaction. Habits of empathy and conjecture conduce to a certain type of citizenship and a certain form of community: one that cultivates a sympathetic responsiveness to another’s needs, and understands the way circumstances shape those needs, while respecting separateness and privacy.
Martha Nussbaum, Cultivating Humanity
In Praise of Small Sanities
Continue reading “In Praise of Small Sanities”No wise liberal has ever thought that liberalism is all of wisdom…. Liberalism isn’t a political theory applied to life. It’s what we know about life applied to a political theory.
Adam Gopnick, In Praise of Small Sanities
What is Wisdom?
Photo: News Medical
Continue reading “What is Wisdom?”Wisdom as I understand it is a capacity for sound judgment with a view to pragmatic action. Wise judgment is attuned to cognitive complexities in the world and to the ways in which historical and cultural contexts inform diverse systems of value. Whatever their domain of action, wise practitioners evince high degrees of intellectual humility and empathy, together with a thoroughgoing commitment to fostering the well-being of both one’s self and one’s community.
Reading Literature for a Wiser World
Photo: Sri Lanka Guardian
Continue reading “Reading Literature for a Wiser World”Wise judgment is attuned to cognitive complexities in the world and to the ways in which historical and cultural contexts inform diverse systems of value. Whatever their domain of action, wise practitioners evince high degrees of intellectual humility and empathy, together with a thoroughgoing commitment to fostering the well-being of both one’s self and one’s community.