Transforming Knowledge

Minnich, Elizabeth Kamarck

ISBN 10: 0877226954 / ISBN 13: 9780877226956

Published by Temple University Press 1990

About this Item

ISBN 0-87722-695-4. Hardback. No statement of later printing on copyright page. Near Fine Condition book in a Near Fine Condition Dustjacket. Tight, bright, attractive copy with no markings to the book.

Seller Inventory # 125334

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Transforming Knowledge
• Publisher: Temple University Press 1990
• ISBN 10: 0877226954
• ISBN 13: 9780877226956
• Binding: Hardcover
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included

About this title

Synopsis

Transforming Knowledge suggests that education can serve neither the quest for knowledge nor the promise of a genuinely democratic system until some very basic intellectual errors are uncovered and corrected. Examining the heritage of a tradition created primarily by white Euro-American men who considered themselves the norm and the ideal for all humankind, Elizabeth Kamarck Minnich identifies these errors, characterizes them, and demonstrates how they work to distort and limit our knowledge. She cites work primarily by feminist scholars and activists, but also from ethnic, peace, and ecological studies, and argues that a reorientation of education and thus thinking and thus knowledge makes sense. This book is the result of more than twenty years of work in higher education during which the author talked with thousands of faculty members, administrators, students, and community people about the necessity to transform the curriculum in this country. Drawing also on her years of work with Hannah Arendt and on Dewey, Kant, Plato, and Socrates, Minnich confronts the "dominant meaning system" that perpetuates errors in thinking, particularly faulty generalization and universalization, circular reasoning, mystified concepts, and partial knowledge. In light of the heated debate in which such critics as William Bennett and Allen Bloom charge that a return to "the classics" is the only acceptable route for education, Transforming Knowledge offers a philosophical analysis of the cultural, intellectual, political tradition behind our curriculum. Minnich warns that it is in and through education that a culture, and polity, not only tries to perpetuate but enacts the kinds of thinking it welcomes, and discards and/or discredits the kinds it fears.

From the Publisher

Examining the heritage and errors of a scholastic tradition that considered the Euro-American male the norm and ideal for humankind

Ninth Annual Frederic W. Ness Book Award, Association of American Colleges