Abstract
The book is about the philosophy of education. In it we have partnered with the mind of C.S. Lewis, working within the genius of his thought, to develop a new analytical framework for explaining the ways in which education falls into disequilibrium, thus stunting a society’s prospects for human development and flourishing. In essence most of the book shows how an education system whose costs may soon exceed its benefits may nevertheless continue to expand. Our goal is to conceptualize and defend a vision of education that differs significantly from its present course. Knowing the cost of institutions presupposes some idea of the optimal social order (Tinbergen 1987; Rodriguez, Loomis, and Weeres 2007), and is vital before understanding just how completely the present course will move us toward that condition which Lewis called the abolition of man.
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Notes
Cited in Michael Travers, “The Abolition of Man: C.S. Lewis’s Philosophy of History,” in Bruce Edwards, ed., C.S. Lewis: Life Works, and Legacy, Volume 3: Apologist, Philosopher, and Theologian (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007), p. 107.
Walter Hooper (ed.), The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 3: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy 1950–1963 (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), p. 567.
William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland (eds.), Naturalism: A Critical Analysis (London: Routledge, 2000).
Concerning intellectual models, Heilbroner (1999: 14) cited the great economist John Maynard Keynes: “The ideas of economists and political philosophers... both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the graded encroachment of ideas.” Robert Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers. 7th ed. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999).
Berlin, The Sense of Reality (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996).
Kenneth J. Arrow (2007) “Global Climate Change: A Challenge to Policy,” The Economists’ Voice, Vol. 4, No. 3, Article 2, p. 1. Available at: http://www.bepress.com/ev/vol4/iss3/art2
See, for example, Theodore Porter, “Life Insurance, Medical Testing, and the Management of Mortality,” in Lorraine Daston, ed., Biographies of Scientific Objects (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000), pp. 226–246.
C.S. Lewis, “The Funeral of a Great Myth,” in Christian Reflections (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995), pp. 82–93.
Jacques Ellul, “The Technological Order,” in Technology and Culture, Vol. 3, No. 4, Proceedings of the Encyclopaedia Britannica Conference on the Technological Order (Autumn, 1962), pp. 394–421.
Lewis, “Preface,” in D.E. Harding, The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth (Gainsville, FL: University of Florida, 1979).
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© 2009 Steven R. Loomis and Jacob P. Rodriguez
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Loomis, S.R., Rodriguez, J.P. (2009). Introduction. In: C.S. Lewis. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230100589_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230100589_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-37311-6
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-10058-9
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