An Integrative Habit of Mind: John Henry Newman on the Path to Wisdom

by Frederick D. Aquino

Overview

Searching for better ways to inspire people to pursue wisdom, Frederick D. Aquino argues that teachers and researchers should focus less on state-of-the-art techniques and learning outcomes and instead pay more attention to the intellectual formation of their students. We should, Aquino contends, encourage the development of an integrative habit of mind, which entails cultivating the capacity to grasp how various pieces of data and areas of inquiry fit together and to understand how to apply this information to new situations.

To fully explore this notion, An Integrative Habit of Mind brings the work of the great religious figure and educator John Henry Newman into fruitful conversation with recent philosophical developments in epistemology, cognition, and education. Aquino unearths some crucial but neglected themes from Newman's writings and carries them forward into the contemporary context, revealing how his ideas can help us broaden our horizons, render apt judgments, and better understand our world and how we think about it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781609090531
Publisher:	Northern Illinois University Press
Publication date:	05/15/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	212
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Frederick D. Aquino is a professor in the Graduate School of Theology at Abilene Christian University and the author of Communities of Informed Judgment.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 3

1 Broadening Horizons 16

2 A Matter of Proper Fit 42

3 A Connected View 63

Afterword 88

Notes 93

References 115

Index 125

Editorial Reviews

Aquino does an admirable job of explaining how Newman can help us answer existing epistemological questions.

The Review of Metaphysics

Before engaging on an academic career, newly hired professors could hardly do better than to read this work and integrate its approach into their courses. Recommended.

Choice

Aquino delivers ably on his promise, and in the course of doing so carves out a fresh approach to Newman's thought.

Victorian Studies

For theologians and philosophers... Aquino's emphasis and push towards a modified, Newmanian view of wisdom is substantive, rich, and compelling. This emphasis on wisdom is something not commonly found in educational theory but it should be seriously considered by both faculty and administrators.

Newman Studies Journal

""Before engaging on an academic career, newly hired professors could hardly do better than to read this work and integrate its approach into their courses. Recommended.

" -CHOICE

"Aquino does an admirable job of explaining how Newman can help us answer existing epistemological questions.

" -Robert Piercey, The Review of Metaphysics

"For theologians and philosophers... Aquino's emphasis and push towards a modified, Newmanian view of wisdom is substantive, rich, and compelling. This emphasis on wisdom is something not commonly found in educational theory but it should be seriously considered by both faculty and administrators.

" -Brian W. Hughes,Newman Studies Journal

"Aquino delivers ably on his promise, and in the course of doing so carves out a fresh approach to Newman's thought.

" -Lawrence Poston, Victorian Studies  "

From the Publisher

This book represents a real break in the scholarship on John Henry Newman. First, it avoids the polemics of much recent scholarship; second, it brings Newman into serious conversation with work in epistemology.”

William J. Abraham

Frederick Aquino offers a profoundly engaging, constructive argument that is both a thought-provoking analysis of one the central strands in the thought of one of England's greatest thinkers and religious figures, and also takes the intriguing form of an argument about how wisdom (as an intellectual virtue in Aristotle's sense) might best be understood and formed within both the individual and communities of thoughtful people.”

The Revd. Canon Mark A. McIntosh