Vincent Colapietro, Philosophy Department
April 8th, 12pm
Hoffman Room, Swan Hall & Livestreamed

Humanists have failed, according to many humanists (e.g., Louis Menand), to offer a persuasive case for their disciplines making a substantive or simply significant contribution to “the knowledge business” (New Yorker). What could be a more damming failure of the defenders of the humanities than what is manifestly a rhetorical failure? To praise themselves for being able to teach argumentative and communicative skills and, then, to fail to make this very case seems singularly damning. What significant contribution do disciplines such as history, literature, and classics make to the “knowledge industry”? What indispensable “tools” are acquired or at least highly refined by taking courses in the humanities? Dr. Colapietro’s thesis is that these disciplines, tout ensemble, offer an integrative and critical approach to any field whatsoever: it is the combination of the synoptic and critical functions which most dramatically distinguishes the humanities from other modes of understanding.