{"id":2523,"date":"2013-08-02T15:25:16","date_gmt":"2013-08-02T20:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"\"Jonah_Lehrer_Large\"\"Jonah_Lehrer_Large\"<\/a>In his book\u00a0Proust Was a Neuroscientist<\/em> (2008)<\/a>, science writer Jonah Lehrer argues we need what he calls a “fourth culture” of knowledge that transcends our two dominant cultures: the humanities and the sciences. \u00a0The isolation of these different ways of the exploring the world risks stagnation and reductionism in both areas; interdisciplinary thinking, on the other hand, yields creativity and a proper intellectual humility.<\/p>\n

In a similar vein, John Horgan, a professor at\u00a0Stevens Institute of Technology, explains in a recent blog post the value of the humanities for his engineering students. \u00a0Both writers reinforce the same basic idea: these disparate disciplines benefit from regular interaction. \u00a0In important ways, they need each other. \u00a0And, we might add by extension, the best education will prepare students to knowledgeably bring these ways of thinking together.<\/p>\n

You can read John Horgan’s blog post at the Scientific American<\/em> website<\/a>, and you can read a significant quote from Lehrer’s book at the interdisciplinary blog\u00a0Brain Pickings<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Discussion Questions:<\/h3>\n
    \n
  1. According to Lehrer, why should the humanities seriously engage the sciences? \u00a0Why do you think he believes “every humanist should read\u00a0Nature<\/em>“?<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. According to both authors, why do the sciences need the humanities?<\/li>\n
  3. Even though Horgan values the humanities, he nevertheless implies it is impractical knowledge. \u00a0At the end of the blog post, he quotes a response from one of his colleagues, a philosopher, who argues that calling the humanities impractical demonstrates “a misunderstanding as to what is practical in a human life. Unless you can show good reason to believe Socrates mistaken in thinking that self-knowledge is only reliable foundation for a good life.” \u00a0What is Horgan’s colleague saying? \u00a0What do you think about the practicality of the humanities?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Join the Conversation<\/em><\/h3>\n

    We welcome comments on this or other related topics on the main Spotlight page<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Return to Kelly and Jeremy Elliott’s Spotlight page<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In his book\u00a0Proust Was a Neuroscientist (2008), science writer Jonah Lehrer argues we need what he calls a “fourth culture” of knowledge that transcends our two dominant cultures: the humanities and the sciences. \u00a0The isolation of these different ways of the exploring the world risks stagnation and reductionism in both areas; interdisciplinary thinking, on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8023,"featured_media":0,"parent":2421,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2523","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P3T2tB-EH","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstonef13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstonef13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstonef13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstonef13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8023"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstonef13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2523"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstonef13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2660,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstonef13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2523\/revisions\/2660"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstonef13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstonef13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}