Abstract
“What (Whose) purpose does your knowledge serve?” In her book, Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities, Martha Nussbaum states the difference between a democratic education for citizenship and an education for profit, and draws attention to the current education crisis caused by an overvaluation of the latter over the former. An education for democratic citizenship aims to develop three key abilities: critical thinking, the capacity to understand and to transcend parochial attachments, and empathy. An education for profit, however, requires the training of specific skills in order to produce the economic growth of a certain group, company or country. While the first, in accordance to a Socratic education, focuses on the foundation of perennial structures of thought related to human dignity, the latter, following the sophistic model, simplifies these structures according to economic priorities. In this paper, I critically explore Nussbaum’s manifesto by reformulating two key arguments to show that: (1) education must always aim at creating knowledge, and (2) education must always be focused on the development of humanism as the greater goal, regardless of the emphasis on arts and humanities or on exact science.
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Notes
Style of graffiti which is characterized by containing text in simple, elementary, round letters. This style is one of the most widely used today.
Author’s translation. Original sentence in Brazilian-Portuguese: “Para que(m) serve o teu conhecimento?”
Angelo Ronaldo Pereira da Silva, Secretary of Student Affairs in office in 2008, SAE/UFRGS. Quoted in the newspaper Zero Hora on 26/08/2008.
At PUCRS, the sentence can be read in front of the Student Union in building five.
In Not for Profit, Nussbaum focuses attention on the cases of India and the US, making the examples on education in Europe scarce. To read about the author's critique of the European model of education, see: Nussbaum (2002).
Obviously, this does not mean that someone who desires this kind of education cannot, by his or her knowledge, obtain any gain such as financial gain. This would preclude the existence of researchers who have, somehow, to ensure their livelihood and would, therefore, hinder the progress of science. It is only required that such gain occur accidentally, and it should not be the main purpose of education, i.e., the researcher should become a researcher because of his or her love for discovery and not for anything that is foreign to it.
For a discussion on the principles grounding a civic education, see also Alnes (2015: 95–112).
English translation: Education after Auschwitz.
This is also what the collection, The Public Square, where it was published, suggests.
For more details on factors that are considered by Nussbaum as inalienable and must therefore be respected and guaranteed by laws and institutions, see the list of Capabilities in: Nussbaum (2011: 33–34).
For more details see: Fitzpatrick (2008: 83–100).
See e.g. differentiation between Ausbildung and Bildung in Critical Theory.
Author’s translation: “Education, what for?”
References
Primary Literature
Nussbaum, Martha. 2010. Not for profit: Why democracy needs the humanities. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Nussbaum, Martha. 2008. Education for profit, education for freedom. Institute of Development Studies Kolkata, IDSK Special Lecture 1: 1–25.
Nussbaum, Martha. 2002. Education for citizenship in an Era of global connection. Studies in Philosophy and Education 21: 289–303.
Nussbaum, Martha. 1997. Cultivating humanity: A classical defense of reform in liberal education. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Nussbaum, Martha. 2011. Creating capabilities: The human development approach. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Secondary Literature
Adorno, Theodor W. 1970. Erziehung nach Auschwitz. Erziehung zur Mündigkeit, Vorträge Gespräche und mit Helmut Becker 1959–1969, 92–109. Frankfurt am Main: Gerd von Herausgegeben Kadelbach.
Alnes, Jan H. 2015. Civic education and the resonable religious citizen. In Contrastes, ed. Postigo, Marta and Rosário Lópes, Vol. 20, 95–112.
Aristotle, 1999. The politics: The thinkers. Cultural: New York.
Asimov, Isaac. 1974. Introduction. In The greatest adventure—Basic research that shapes our lives, eds. Kone et al., 1–7. New York: Harper and Row.
Bruell, Christopher. 1999. On the socratic education: An introduction to the shorter platonic dialogues. Lanham: Littlefield Rowman Publishers.
Chomsky, Noam. 1997. The common good. Berkeley: Odonian Press.
Fitzpatrick, Tony. 2008. From contracts to capabilities and back again. Res Publica 14: 83–100.
Gregory, Maughn Rollins. 2011. Review of Martha Nussbaum, Not for profit: Why democracy needs the humanities. Studies in Philosophy and Education 30: 419–427.
Lefkowitz, Mary. 2011. Martha C. Nussbaum, Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities. Soc 48: 367–368.
Plato. 1973. The Republic. Translation by Benjamin Jowet, Anchor Books Edition.
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Consulted Websites
Ronaldo Pereira da Silva Angelo, the Secretary of the Department of Student Affairs Office of UFRGS in 2008. Quoted in the newspaper Zero Hora on 26/08/2008. Accessed in April 201. http://zerohora.clicrbs.com.br/rs/noticia/2008/08/fui-muito-ingenua-diz-aluna-autora-de-pintura-em-parede-da-ufrgs-2142436.html
Interview with Martha Nussbaum Prospect Magazine January 5, 2011. Accessed in April 2012. http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2011/01/martha-nussbaum-interview-podcast-alain-de-botton-value-of-humanities-university/
Interview with Martha Nussbaum to the newspaper O Globo on May 16, 2011. Posted by Miguel Conde. Accessed in April 2012. http://oglobo.globo.com/blogs/prosa/posts/2011/04/16/filosofa-martha-nussbaum-fala-sobre-not-for-profit-375101.asp
Acknowledgments
For important contributions to earlier versions of this paper, I would like to thank L. F. Barbosa, A. Frainer, F. Domingues, M. S. da Silva, G. Goldmeier and J. H. Alnes. The paper also benefits from comments of members of the Development and Justice Research Group from the UFRGS in Brazil and from the Pluralism, Democracy, and Justice Research Group from UiT in Norway.
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Duarte, M. Educating Citizens for Humanism: Nussbaum and the Education Crisis. Stud Philos Educ 35, 463–476 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-015-9489-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-015-9489-9