The Humanities in Dispute: A Dialogue in Letters

The humanities are under attack from many sides: from conservatives who decry "political correctness" in the classrooms; from liberals, who are impatient with the traditional curriculum; and from legislators and students, who are looking for relevance and marketable skills. Disturbed by acrimonious arguments about the value of humanistic education, the authors - former colleagues and university-press board members - embarked on an ambitious project to reexamine a number of major literary and philosophical works dealing with the liberal arts and education. With their discussions ranging from Plato to Rousseau, from Cicero to Vico, from Erasmus to Matthew Arnold, Sousa and Weinsheimer offer not a history of education philosophy but an examination of the present. They read these astonishingly diverse works with one question foremost: Do our predecessors' reflections offer anything better in defense of humanities education than modern platitudes about broadening one's horizons?

In choosing a dialogic form - namely, letters - to conduct their discussion, Sousa and Weinsheimer express the plurality and internal dissent that typify the humanities today. Each retains his very distinct voice and their views remain personal, engaged, and often passionate. This spirited and wide-ranging exchange offers no easy solutions, and even calls into question the possibility of conducting a disinterested debate on such a contested subject.