Publication date:

12 October 2012

Length of book:

268 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

Dimensions:

236x160mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9780739173596

This volume explores the role of some of the most prominent twentieth-century philosophers and political thinkers as teachers. It examines how these teachers conveyed truth to their students against the ideological influences found in the university and society. Philosophers from Edmund Husserl and Hannah Arendt to political thinkers like Eric Voegelin and Leo Strauss, and their students such as Ellis Sandoz, Stanley Rosen, and Harvey Mansfield, are in this volume as teachers who analyze, denounce, and attempt to transcend ideology for a more authentic way of thinking. What the reader will discover is that teaching is not merely a matter of holding concepts together, but a way of existing or living in the world. The thinkers in this volume represent this form of teaching as the philosophical search for truth in a world deformed by ideology.
There may be no formula on how to be an outstanding teacher, but this splendid collection, mostly by younger scholars, provide intimations, insights, and reflections on master teachers they have known. Great teaching always contains an element of resistance –to the lie, to mere opinion, to deceit—and is invariably based on common sense even while it aspires to something more.