Cherishing and the Good Life of Learning: Ethics, Education, Upbringing

Description

What is a good human life? A life of duty? Virtue? Happiness? This book weaves a path through traditional answers. We live well, suggests the author, not primarily by pursuing goods for ourselves, but by cherishing other people and guiding them towards lives of cherishing. We cherish objects too - the planet, my grandfather's watch - and practices like music-making to which we are personally drawn. In this work of 'populated philosophy' (copiously illustrated by literary and 'real life' examples), a cherishing life is presented as hard and irreducibly individual. The idea of cherishing, says the author, points towards intimate, unreasonable layers of the ethical life, as well as the deepening of wisdom and connection. It also points towards incomparable satisfactions, reminding us who we are and who we want to be.

Ruth Cigman is Honorary Senior Research Associate in Philosophy of Education at IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society, University College London, UK.

Ruth Cigman develops a style of thinking that attempts to get to the pith of what may be most at stake for children inside and outside classrooms. Her book will be of special interest to teachers and parents who are sensitive to the singularity of... children and the daunting difficulty that their lives often present to themselves and to others... Cigman deftly exposes the misplaced confidence driving several currently favoured reform agendas. And she shows why helping young people to thrive may require us not to ward off troubling intuitions but (in Iris Murdoch's words, which she quotes) to 'complicate, alter and deepen' them. This is a rare and welcome kind of philosophical writing... engaged and engaging, deeply humane and vividly persuasive. * Joseph Dunne, Cregan Professor of Philosophy and Education, Emeritus, Dublin City University, Ireland * At a time when 'caring' has become the name of an activity, with no emotional content, it is useful to have the concept of cherishing introduced, as that which should define the relation between teacher and pupil ... Ruth Cigman powerfully and often movingly argues that nothing less will do. Her book ... is highly original, in being centred on the 'conversation' which she regards as the essence of teaching. * Baroness Mary Warnock, philosopher and author of An Intelligent Person's Guide to Ethics (1998) * I often disagree with the author, but there is no questioning her wit, the lucidity of her writing and the originality of her insights. An exhilarating read, unmissable for all lovers of educational philosophy. * Kristjan Kristjansson, Professor of Character Education and Virtue Ethics, School of Education, University of Birmingham, UK *