How can higher education today create a community of critical thinkers and searchers for truth that transcends the boundaries of class, gender, and nation? Martha C. Nussbaum, philosopher and classicist, argues that contemporary curricular reform is already producing such "citizens of the world" in its advocacy of diverse forms of cross-cultural studies. Her vigorous defense of "the new education" is rooted in Seneca's ideal of the citizen who scrutinizes tradition critically and who respects the ability to reason wherever it is found--in rich or poor, native or foreigner, female or male.

Drawing on Socrates and the Stoics, Nussbaum establishes three core values of liberal education--critical self-examination, the ideal of the world citizen, and the development of the narrative imagination. Then, taking us into classrooms and campuses across the nation, including prominent research universities, small independent colleges, and religious institutions, she shows how these values are (and in some instances are not) being embodied in particular courses. She defends such burgeoning subject areas as gender, minority, and gay studies against charges of moral relativism and low standards, and underscores their dynamic and fundamental contribution to critical reasoning and world citizenship.

For Nussbaum, liberal education is alive and well on American campuses in the late twentieth century. It is not only viable, promising, and constructive, but it is essential to a democratic society. Taking up the challenge of conservative critics of academe, she argues persuasively that sustained reform in the aim and content of liberal education is the most vital and invigorating force in higher education today.

Cultivating Humanityis as important a book on the nature and needs of higher education as I have read in the past decade. Deeply grounded in classical thought, it demonstrates a remarkable openness to the ongoing experience of human history and culture. This is a book not only of luminous intelligence, but of compassion and love.

Nussbaum's wide ranging discussion of liberal education and its evolution at the end of the century is both thoughtful and concrete. She supports the idea of liberal education, suggesting that it should be shaped by institutional realities at individual colleges and universities, and by broader intellectual trends in American and world society...Nussbaum does not have a specific program to promote. Rather, she reflects on the state of American undergraduate education and advocates continued change and reform as part of a commitment to the core values of liberal education.

The best answer to attacks on multiculturalism can be found in Martha C. Nussbaum's Cultivating Humanity. The book is a passionate, closely argued and classical defense of multiculturalism: drawing on the ideas of Socrates, the Stoics and Seneca (from whom she derives her title), she steers a narrow course between cranky traditionalists and anti-Western radicals who would reject her Socratic method out of hand...[The] book is a formidable, perhaps definitive defense of diversity on American campuses.

If Socrates had come back to help us think through the culture wars, he would have written Martha Nussbaum's brilliant, grounded book.

This is a vital, timely, and much needed contribution to the debate on the nature of undergraduate education. Few people are more qualified than Martha Nussbaum to write on this topic. Here she manages to combine a fine appreciation of what the past teaches us, and what we need to create for the future of liberal education.

Martha Nussbaum has skillfully used her familiarity with the classics of Western philosophy, particularly the ideas of Socrates and Seneca, to demonstrate both the educational aptness and the imperative importance of the study of non-Western cultures, gender, and race in liberal education today. Her study provides an excellent refutation of the views of those who would mummify the great authors of the past instead of learning and teaching in their true and timeless spirit. This is a valuable guidebook for educating "citizens of the world."

'Nussbaum has succeeded in saying something fresh, forceful, and interesting about curricular reform and the culture wars. Cultivating Humanityis persuasively argued,philosophically well-grounded, and firmly based on Nussbaum\'s own experiences as a visitor, lecturer, and teacher at a wide range of colleges and universities. She draws upon the best elements of current work in feminism and the studyof race and ethnicity even as she calls attention to excesses and errors in new pedagogy and scholarship that need to be remedied...Throughout Cultivating Humanity(the title adapts a phrase from theStoic philosopher Seneca), Nussbaum emphasizes reason, careful argument, logical analysis, self-questioning, the pursuit of truth and objectivity, and critical inquiry.'

Martha Nussbaum defends a Socratic view of education, which places the examined life at its heart. Her vision also has elements rooted in Stoic cosmopolitanism and stresses the centrality of the ability to think what it might be like to be in the shoes of a person different from oneself. Because she is not only a fine philosopher but also a distinguished classicist, Nussbaum roots her argument in a serious defense of the deep continuing relevance of classics. This is a marvelous book, which should be read by all who care about the present and the future of the university.

<>Martha C. Nussbaumis Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of <>Law and Ethics Department of Philosophy, Law School, and Divinity School at the University of Chicago. She is the author of many books, including Poetic Justice, Love’s Knowledge, and The Fragility of Goodness.

Preface

Introduction: The Old Education and the Think-Academy

1. Socratic Self-Examination

2. Citizens of the World

3. The Narrative Imagination

4. The Study of Non-Western Cultures

5. African-American Studies

6. Women's Studies

7. The Study of Human Sexuality

8. Socrates in the Religious University

Conclusion: The New Liberal Education

Notes

Index