Jack Moran

More than two millennia ago, the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates made the argument that the philosophical life was the superior life. He argued that the philosopher, a lover and pursuer of knowledge, lived a superior life because of the greater and longer-lasting rewards associated with it. As we are all taught in grade school, he pursued this knowledge through a process dubbed the dialectic – a sort of dialogue that he conducted with his students. For Socrates, the pursuit of knowledge was a fundamentally social process, conducted with and among his students. Without students, the dialectic would not occur; knowledge could not be pursued.

By and large, the Western academic tradition has accepted the Socratic notion that knowledge is readily advanced through dialogue. This makes the modern academic tradition of distinguishing between research and teaching somewhat paradoxical. As Oxford don Michael Howard has written, “The function of universities is neither teaching as such nor research as such. It is learning, which embraces both of those activities and a great deal more besides. … The task of the scholar is learning: the accumulation, the sifting and transmission of knowledge. And that, if I may boldly say it, is what universities are for.”

Jack Moran, PhD
Department of Political Science and
International Affairs