C.S. Lewis on Higher Education: The Pedagogy of Pleasure

by Stewart Goetz

Why pursue a university education? Some people answer in terms of the purpose of getting a good job. Others respond in terms of the aim of earning more money. Still others answer in terms of the goal of promoting social justice. Drawing on C. S. Lewis's belief that the purpose of life is the experience of perfect happiness, Stewart Goetz explains Lewis's simple but overlooked view that a person should pursue a university education for the pleasure that comes from higher-level intellectual activity. Goetz not only sharpens our understanding of Lewis's life and work in higher education, but also leads us to question why we attend, study, teach, or research at a university.

230 pages, Hardcover

Published October 19, 2023

Reviews

[Jim Brewer · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read. A little slow at times. Discusses a potential purpose of higher education I hadn’t thought about and separates vocational training and higher level intellectual activity/higher education and that the latter, given a purpose of providing pleasure from the activity, isn’t actually for most people but vocational training of some sort is. If you frame the purpose higher education this way it removes the point of everyone going to college, and the cultural pressures that drive that and the affordability issues and leaves university as a small niche and job training is something else for lost people (and is a good thing) and much of the “core” learning many think of as needing to happen in university now should have happened prior to university.