Summer Seminar 2017, August 21-23

‘What the Humanities Contribute to the University’

The Humanities, Understanding, and Wisdom

Prof. Stephen R. Grimm
Fordham University, USA


Abstract

This session will explore how the study of literature, history, and philosophy are crucially related to the epistemic goods of understanding and wisdom. We will see that understanding is deeply related to our sense of possibility—how we think various things might be—and the study of literature and history are essential for shaping and enlarging our sense of possibility.  I will also claim that literature and history help enlarge our sense of how we might live and what is worth caring about—and that the cultivation of this sense is deeply tied to the development of wisdom.

Brief bio

Stephen R. Grimm is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Fordham University in New York.  He received his B.A. from Williams College, and his doctorate from the University of Notre Dame.  While at Fordham he has received the Undergraduate Teaching Award in the Humanities and the Faculty Research Award in the Humanities.  He is the current President of Philosophers of Jesuit Education and Series Editor for the Oxford University Press line “Guides to the Good Life.”


 

Would you like to attend this presentations as well as the whole Summer Seminar?
Find more information here.