Dear Friends of Wisdom,
This is to let you know about a special wisdom issue of the London Review of
Education which has just been published. This issue contains 7
articles, all concerned, in one way or another, with wisdom and education.
There are a number of links with Friends of Wisdom. Ronald
Barnett, professor of education at the London Institute of Education, is
the editor of the journal. He is a Friend of Wisdom. He asked me to
co-edit a special issue of the journal devoted to wisdom and the
university. There are articles by Mathew Iredale, Leemon McHenry, Robert
Sternberg et al, Richard Trowbridge, Celia Deane-Drummond, Alan
Nordstrom, and myself. Four contributors are Friends of Wisdom, and two
others have expressed sympathy with our aims.
The publisher, Routledge, has just released a Press Release about this
issue of the journal: see below.
Best wishes,
Nick
Press
Release
The pursuit of Wisdom – creation of a wiser
world
Wisdom – the capacity
to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others.
Influential
philosopher Nicholas Maxwell, of
University
College
London,
UK, has
devoted
much of his working life to arguing that there is an urgent need to bring about
a revolution in academia so that it seeks and promotes wisdom and does not just
acquire knowledge. Maxwell, working
as Guest Editor, has produced a Special
Issue of the journal London Review of Education to
explore the place of wisdom in Higher Education.
Questions,
questions…
Ought universities to seek, promote and teach wisdom? What would this involve? Does it mean we need a revolution in the
aims and methods of academic inquiry?
What implications would the pursuit of wisdom have for science, for
social inquiry and the humanities, for education? Is it reasonable to ask of universities
that they take up the task of helping humanity learn how to create a wiser
world? Is there a religious
dimension to wisdom?
These questions and more are addressed in this landmark Special Issue of London Review of Education,
published by Routledge. The issue
seeks to understand how wisdom is gained through knowledge, experience and life
long learning, evaluates how wisdom affects our lives and how knowledge should
be used in the pursuit of wisdom. It bristles with provocative and challenging
ideas, calling for all of us to think again about what universities should seek
to do, and how they could respond to these issues.
This remarkable Special
Issue can be purchased for £15/$25 by filling in an online form
at: www.informaworld.com/lre and clicking on the News and Offers
link.