Results tagged “Enduring Questions” from Real Clear Arts

Don't you love academic kerfuffles? In June, I wrote here about the "Enduring Questions" grants awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The grants were all about $25,000, and they went to professors developing undergraduate courses on such weighty matters as "what is happiness?", "what is the meaning of life?" and "what are the dangers of individualism?" The goal was to promote critical thinking. Twenty courses were chosen as winners, involving a wide range of academic disciplines.

Philosophers, in turns out, were stunned -- and hurt. Those enduring questions are their territory. Inside Higher Ed reported (here) on the controversy, explaining how philosophers felt:

One source of friction was the grant description's use of the world "pre-disciplinary," which it defined as, "questions to which no discipline or field can lay an exclusive claim. In many cases they predate the formation of the academic disciplines themselves." This remark, [Ben] Bradley [a philosophy professor at Syracuse University] notes in his blog post, seems to ignore the very existence of philosophy.

And here's a bit more:

John Powell, professor of philosophy at Humboldt State University, stated in an e-mail that he sees the framing of the questions in the grant application as evidence that NEH is looking for professors to teach philosophy without the philosophical context.

"The questions are so clearly mostly old chestnut philosophy problems that they seem evidence that NEH staff don't know what philosophy is," he stated.

As it happens, the NEH refined its grant guidelines for the next round (applications due Sept. 15), but not in any way that would solve philosophers' problems with the program.

Here's a suggestion: they should propose a course on "why history?" or, better yet, "what is art?"

Back in early May, writing about the way humanities are viewed nowadays, here, I mentioned that the National Endowment for the Humanities had started a program called "Enduring Questions," offering grants of up to $25,000 (and said I'd return to the subject). Here's what it aimed to do:

Enduring Questions [is] a new grant program that encourages faculty and undergraduate students to grapple with the most fundamental concerns of the humanities by reading influential thinkers past and present.

The winners -- 20 colleges in 15 states for a total of $478,677 -- are creating pilot courses and were announced this week.

So what are the "Enduring Questions"? No big surprises. They are indeed the eternal puzzlers. The wording may differ, but basically undergraduate students will have a chance to explore:

• What is happiness?
• What is justice?
• What is freedom?
• What is human dignity?
• What is evil?
• What is leadership?
• What is the meaning of life?

And:

• Do we need God for the good life?
• How should we view mortality (especially given biomedical advances)?
• What are the dangers of individualism?
• Should art be moral?

All food for thought for the weekend.

The NEH made many grants this week ($21.4 million worth all told) and they are posted here.