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Education / Philosophy / Political Science

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Prescribing the Life of the Mind An Essay on the Purpose of the University, the Aims of Liberal Education, the Competence of Citizens, and the Cultivation of Practical Reason Charles W. Anderson "I like Charles W. Anderson. I like his book."—Henry C. Johnson, Jr., Review of Politics A distinguished political philosopher with years of experience teaching in undergraduate liberal arts programs, Anderson shows how the ideal of practical reason can reconcile academia's research aims with public expectations for universities: the preparation of citizens, the training of professionals, the communication of a cultural inheritance. It is not good enough, he contends, to simply say that the university should stick to the great books of the classic tradition, or to denounce this tradition and declare that all important questions are a matter of personal or cultural choice. By applying the methods of practical reason, instead, teachers and students will think critically about the essential purposes of any human activity and the underlying arguments of any text. From reviews of the first edition: "I like Charles W. Anderson. I like his book. . . . My first inclination, on reading a few pages, was to invite him to dinner and conversations that would, I am certain, run far into the night. Why? In a mere 160 pages Anderson trenchantly probes the present state of 'the university' and then proposes to draw from its own logic and present activity (not from some idealized model) a 'prescription' for the recovery of its health. . . . The university must have principles and standards—principles and standards, he argues, that are really there in its history and operation but which require contemporary rethinking and reapplication."—Henry C. Johnson, Jr., Review of Politics "Political scientist Anderson provides, in this slim volume, a reasoned argument for the liberal arts and for the link between liberal education and what he calls 'practical reason.' He criticizes the modern American university for giving up its time-honored responsibility to provide a thoughtful, coherent, and well-articulated education to undergraduates, and argues that if the university is to prosper, it must return to a variation of its roots and provide a thoughtful liberal education. . . . Students, he asserts, should be taught to think and to reason, and that the university is neither a 'trade school' nor a repository of what is 'currently popular' in intellectual life."—Henry, Choice Charles W. Anderson is the Glenn B. and Cleone Orr Hawkins Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His earlier books published by the University of Wisconsin Press are The Political Economy of Modern Spain and The Political Economy of Mexico, co-authored by William P. Glade, Jr. He is also the author of A Deeper Freedom, published with the UW Press in 2002. For more information regarding publicity and reviews contact our publicity manager, Chris Caldwell, phone: (608) 263-0734, email: publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu

June 1993 192 pp. 6 x 9 ISBN-10: 0-299-13830-5 ISBN-13: 978-0-299-13830-1 Cloth $22.95 s ISBN-10: 0-299-13834-8 ISBN-13: 978-0-299-13834-9 Paper $14.95 t Add titles to your shopping cart by clicking on the "Add this book to cart" link above. You can submit your order electronically, paying for it with your credit card. Click here for a further explanation of the shopping cart feature Never ordered from us before? Read this first.

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