This episode explores challenging experiences that young people can have when they first enter college and university with enthusiasm for existential, heartfelt questions. It is not uncommon for young people to feel that the attitudes and methods they meet in the classroom and their professors cannot reach deep enough into the questions they are most passionate about and driven to explore. This can lead to disappointment and a temptation to turn away from their passions for knowledge, growth and understanding. There are, however, ideas, orientations and contemporary calls for expanding the understanding of science in ways that can accommodate the exploration of deeper questions and riddles that are not only intellectual but matters of the heart. Jeffrey Kripal’s suggestion that a new school of the “Superhumanities” is called for, as well as Hubert Dreyfuss and Charles Taylor’s ideas of Pluralist Robust Realism are introduced as examples.

References:

Hubert Dreyfus and Charles Taylor (2015) Retrieving Realism. (Harvard University Press).

William James (2008) Pluralistic Universe: Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the Present Situation in Philosophy. (Cambridge Scholars Publisher).

Jeffrey Kripal (2022) The Superhumanities: Historical Precedents, Moral Objections, New Realities. (University of Chicago Press).

Questions of Courage is a project of the Youth Section at the Goetheanum, in collaboration with Goetheanum TV.
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