Ronald Hustwit, professor of philosophy at The College of Wooster, will present “Newman on Mind and Matter in the University” at the second Faculty at Large lecture of the fall semester on Tuesday, Oct. 18. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, begins at 11 a.m. in Room 009 of Severance (Chemistry) Hall (943 College Mall).
Hustwit will examine the educational views of John Cardinal Newman as put forth in a series of lectures he gave in conjunction with the opening of a new Catholic university in Dublin. In the 19th century, the Vatican had given Newman the task of overseeing the establishment of this university, which was intended to serve the same purpose for the Catholics as Oxford University did for the Anglicans. Of Newman’s views, his worries over the role of the then advancing materialist characteristics of “Modernism” and its role in the curriculum were particularly prominent.
“Newman worried that this set of materialist presuppositions could eventually exclude the study of mind and its issue from the curriculum,” said Hustwit. “This would manifest itself in the curriculum by excluding mental philosophy and the humanities from the curriculum. It would turn the study of human social relations into social sciences and leave the philosophical presuppositions of the natural sciences unexamined.”
Hustwit, who joined Wooster’s faculty in 1967, is a graduate of Westminster College (1964). He earned his M.A. from the University of Nebraska (1965) and his Ph.D. from the University of Texas (1970). His teaching responsibilities include ancient philosophy, logic, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of education. He specializes in the work of philosophers O.K. Bouwsma, Søren Kierkegaard and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Hustwit’s publications include Something About O.K. Bouwsma and Who Needs a Liberal Arts College? A Philosophy of Education by Alburey Castell.