Thinking about “Thinking About Thinking” in the 21st Century: A Memory and an Aspiration

Howard Gardner © 2024

Alan Dershowitz

Steven Jay Gould

Thirty years ago, when I was in the midst of my own teaching and research in psychology and education, I learned about a new course that was being offered at Harvard College. With the (to me) seductive title, “Thinking about Thinking,” the course was taught by three “star” professors: (in alphabetical order) lawyer Alan Dershowitz (1938–); paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002); and philosopher Robert Nozick (1938-2002).

Each week, hundreds of young students (and a few life-long students like me) gathered in the Science Center, one of Harvard’s largest classrooms. There we heard each of the instructors describe his own perspective on major topics that were the subject of scholarly controversy. Among the topics discussed were truth, objectivity, causality, free will, race, gender, and religion. The three presenters rarely agreed with one another, but the disagreements were respectful and not highly technical. Usually there was time for a few questions or comments from the students. There were also weekly “sections”, where students could probe the controversial topics with the guidance of a facilitator, typically a doctoral student—often from philosophy.

Why did the students—including me—return to class each week? While I certainly don’t have “data” to support my answer, I suspect that it was in some part “academic theater”; also, we recognized that these teachers were addressing important topics in a thoughtful, sometimes penetrating, sometimes unexpected manner; and that we, in turn, were stimulated to consider our own perhaps jejune thoughts on these weighty matters. And sometimes—certainly in my case—I found myself thinking differently about a topic as a result of eavesdropping on these three brilliant thinkers. As an example, I had previously pretty much taken “free will” for granted; but hearing these three savants wrestle with its complexity was a “wake-up” call—and subsequent discoveries in neuroscience have made me even less confident about my own intuitions.

Robert Nozick

More generally, it was bracing to learn, week after week, how a lawyer thinks about an issue—chiefly in terms of the relevant statutes, precedents, and the rules of the court; a scientist—in terms of what can be demonstrated through experiments and analysis (and re-analysis) of various forms of data obtained by various methods; and a philosopher—through a consideration of topics addressed throughout the history of human reflection (typically beginning in Athens), encompassed by rigorous definitions and vivid if perplexing examples that challenged our assumptions. Regrettably, the demography of the presenters was not as varied as it should have been and as it would likely be today, but we all had the option of discussing these topics with friends, family, faculty, of as varied a distribution as we wished. We students left the course not only with a diverse set of lenses for considering the issues selected by the professors, but also with the option of bringing them to bear later on issues that might not even have been considered at the time: e.g. artificial intelligence, the possibility and advisability of cloning or other kinds of genetic manipulations, the limitations of democratic processes and institutions.

Barry Mazur

The course ended (indeed, two of the professors died over two decades ago), but the conception endures. Indeed, from Barry Mazur, a highly esteemed mathematician at Harvard, I learned that he has been part of a comparable undertaking. For years, Mazur has taught a course on “basic notions” in mathematics. More recently, Mazur has joined forces with two Nobel Laureates in Economics—Eric Maskin and Amartya Sen—to lead a seminar very much in the spirit of the earlier course on thinking. Each year, the teachers and students grapple with “basic notions” that may have technical meanings in specific disciplines but are also used more widely (and perhaps more loosely) by others of a scholarly bent—and indeed, by any individual who pays attention to language. The topics treated so far: utility, axiomatic reasoning, objectivity and subjectivity, truth, rationality, equality, and reasoning via models.

To be sure, the seminar is smaller and more technical than “Thinking about Thinking.” To be enrolled, students need to convey their initial thoughts about the topic under discussion that semester and commit to writing a paper. But in spirit, “Basic Notions” resembles the earlier course.  Students read key writings dating back to ancient Greece; hear the professors discuss and debate their own perspectives; and, of course, offer their own thoughts. For example, when students were discussing the notion of “equality,” the question arose about whether, in music, Middle C is equal to a higher C. After that, the discussion ventured into a consideration of whether metaphor is a type of “relaxed” equality. Of course, once one ventures beyond technical academic work, words like equity, equality, and even truth become topics for considered and sometimes heated debate, just as I saw happening in the lecture course of 40 years ago and overhear in lunchrooms (and elsewhere) today.

Why do I reflect on these two courses?

To begin with, at least to a perpetual student like me, they represent an inspired blend of fun and learning—to use a current phrase, a “flow experience.” I wish that I could have accessed such a syllabus and such classes over the course of my life. But I have also begun to think about how—as we approach the second quarter of the 21st century—we might still want, even crave, educational experiences like this. Of course, we can read about the courses: Indeed, my memory was jogged by Darin Jewell’s 2005 book, Thinking about Thinking.  

No doubt, much of the content of the course could be conducted online—either simultaneously or asynchronously. Certainly, one could listen to the professors discuss and debate. And in an online seminar class, students could also participate through the chat or talk function.

Yet, at least for me, encounters online have a very different feeling than those in person—whether in an intimate seminar room or the capacious Sanders Theater (where Michael Sandel’s famous course on Justice has long been conducted). Just as one can watch online an athletic event, a theatrical production, or a concert—and that’s a gift to those who are no longer ambulatory—it’s a distinctly different experience to be in the stadium, the theater, or the concert hall. Still, in these venues, attendees are consigned to be passive observers. In contrast, in an in-person classroom, the ideas, concerns, and confusions of the participants can be aired, and participants are “on the spot.”

To put it succinctly: scientist Isaac Newton and philosopher Immanuel Kant may well have been able to progress in thinking simply by their own, often solitary reflections. But for the rest of us, the supposedly solitary act of thinking is far more likely to be stimulated if we can listen to experts “live” and have the option of interacting with them in a way that is comfortable—but not too comfortable—for all parties….and that lingers even decades later.

For comments on earlier versions of this blog, I am grateful to Ellen Winner and Barry Mazur.

REFERENCES

(1994) 800 Students Gather for ‘thinking class’. The Harvard Crimson.

Jewell, D. (2005). Thinking about Thinking. Bloomington Indiana Author House.

Lebwohl, M. (1994). Thinking about egos: A Story of Three Mega-Profs and Their Mega-Personalities. The Harvard Crimson.

Mazur, B. Various equalities. Personal communication, 2024.