Educating for Democracy

Alan M. Olson is director of The Paideia Project, chairman of the Committee on International Cooperation (American Philosophical Association), and professor of the philosophy of religion at Boston University. David M. Steiner is associate professor of education and chairman of the Department of Administration and Policy Studies at the School of Education at Boston University. Irina S. Tuuli is associate director of The Paideia Project and former associate professor of philosophy at Moscow Technical University.

Fundamentalist religion, identity politics, and post-modernism would seem to have driven us far from the Enlightenment preoccupation with integrative humanist paradigms of education of the kind the Greeks called Paideia, the Germans called Bildung, and the French called Formation. But as this penetrating collection shows, the aspiration to humanistic knowledge and liberal learning is challenged but not defeated by the post-modernity and its maladies. Indeed, as Olson, Steiner, Tuuli,and their thoughtful colleagues show, the striving for education and knowledge, whether in religion (the intersection with Islam is especially interesting), pedagogy, or economics, can be fortified without resorting to reactionary nostalgia for the ancients by a careful understanding of paideia. Don't let the anthology format fool you—this is an important book with a clear center of gravity that should be of value to scholars, teachers, and students alike..

• Part 1 PrefacePart 2 ForewordPart 3 Paideia in Philosophy and ReligionChapter 4 Introduction: Paideia, Philosophy, and ReligionChapter 5 Paideia: Anachronism or Necessity?Chapter 6 Paideia as the Unity of Knowledge and EnlightenmentChapter 7 Science, Education, and the Transformation of Civilization in the Twenty-First CenturyChapter 8 The Noospheric Imperative for Paideia in the Twenty-First CenturyChapter 9 Paideia and Critical ThinkingChapter 10 Inter-Religious Dialogues During the Middle Ages and Early ModernityChapter 11 The Impact of Modernity on Jewish LifeChapter 12 Paideia and Adab in IslamChapter 13 The Changing Face of Islamic RadicalismChapter 14 Christian-Islamic Dialogue in the Twenty-First CenturyPart 15 Paideia and EducationChapter 16 Introduction: Paideia and EducationChapter 17 Paideia: Anachronism or Necessity?Chapter 18 Paideia in and Age of UncertaintyChapter 19 After NATO, Paideia?Chapter 20 Liberal Education in the Fear of Anti-DemocracyChapter 21 Prescribing OrthodoxyChapter 22 De-Dogmatizing ReasonChapter 23 Education and Democratization in an Age of IslamismChapter 24 Education to Conscience and Political Disobedience: The Role of the Role ModelChapter 25 Face to Face with Eudaimonia: The Post-Soviet Teacher's IdentityChapter 26 Reformatting the Idea of a UniversityPart 27 Paideia and EconomicsChapter 28 The Ethics of Political Economy: A Roundtable29 Part 30 About the Contributors