John Lewis at Duke, Take Two

 Posted by on 27 May 2009 at 11:01 pm  Announcements
May 272009
 

Here’s the announcement that I posted a bit prematurely last week. It’s now kosher, as it has been officially announced by the Anthem Foundation.

Just a few days ago, I heard some great news from Dr. John Lewis:

I have accepted a five-year position at Duke University as Visiting Associate Professor in the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Program. This is made possible with the awesome support of BB&T and Anthem, and with the support of the academics associated with PPE. The program is based jointly at Duke and at University of North Carolina, and will allow me to teach at both schools. In addition to UG courses, I will be doing a graduate course on Thucydides in the spring.

Hooray! UNC’s description of the PPE program says:

Historically, the separation of the social sciences, in particular the divide between philosophy and economics, and between philosophy and political science, occurred only recently. If we look back to the founding fathers of economics such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus, and John Stuart Mill, it becomes clear how close these disciplines once were. Economics grew out of the moral considerations of those theorists and their aim of finding socially stable ways of mutually beneficial cooperation. Similarly, the political theories that shaped the work of the founding fathers, and indeed, the political constitutions of a broad range of other countries, have their roots in the work of philosophers.

The separation of the social sciences allowed the disciplines to narrow their fields of investigation and, as a consequence, to develop specific tools for their particular domains. In our highly interconnected world, however, such separation stands in the way of people developing the sort of comprehensive understanding that is demanded by the social, economic, and political problems that we face.

To overcome this shortcoming, the subjects of philosophy, politics, and economics need to be (re-)integrated. The PPE Program does precisely this.”

Wow, that sounds like a great program. Congratulations, John!

   
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