Antonion T. De Nicolas has offered a revolution in the form of
a book. The text is Habits of Mind: The Practice of Philosophy
as education and the author provides both a radical re-imaging
of the nature and goal of education and many of the materials
with which to implement the project.

De Nicolas begins on the familiar terrain of the critique of the
state of modern American education. Many conservative and liberal
pundits alike have offered detailed examinations of the failings
of our university system. Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind is
only one of the more widely regarded of these critiques. De Nicolas
concurs in the view that our universities are in trouble but offers
a very different diagnosis and, consequently, a unique treatment.

Whereas writers such as Bloom lament the failure of our educational
system to teach core moral values, inherited from ancient Greece
and early Christian culture, to which Western culture once adhered,
De Nicolas argues that our system has never truly availed itself
of the richness of its roots. De Nicolas argues that our culture
has reduced our mental lives to the mere exercise of theorizing
and hence, our inner lives are impoverished. Strikingly, he advances
the view that even Plato advocated the cultivation of habits of
mind that involved the use of the imagination and the development
of a healthy sense of embodiment. This is an unusual perspective
on Plato, to say the very least. Historians of Philosophy typically
see him as promoting the focus on theory. The interesting thing
here is that De Nicolas offers a creative and stimulating look
at the sources of Western culture as a way to broaden our conception
of education.

De Nicolas is also a very upbeat thinker in regard to education.
He does not offer the gloom and doom of a Bloom. He believes that
a healthier array of inner mental habits can be cultivated in
the university students through a classroom experience centered
on the dramatic presentation of the material of the classical
texts of our civilization. Here, as well, De Nicolas’ book is
unusual. The text is primarily a collection of classic texts with
discussions of how students might re-enact the meaning of the
texts in the classroom. These materials grew out of De Nicolas’
teaching experience at S.U.N.Y. Stony Brook. Habits of Mind
is truly a teacher’s book. It is not just an armchair critique
of the state of modern education.

De Nicolas’ Habits of Mind is a very creative consideration
of the way we might utilize classical materials in the university
classroom in a way that will engage the full range of the student’s
capacities. It would be helpful, however, to know how all the
various inner mental acts are to be related one to another. For
example, how are acts of imagination to be connected to theorizing?
Nonetheless, this book should stimulate much new thought on a
variety of crucial issues.

© 2002 Keith Burkum

Keith Burkum has a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Vanderbilt University,
1998. He has taught at several colleges in New York.

Categories: Philosophical

Tags: Educational Psychology