Professional philosopher in da house

"The choice to have an active mind is yours," UND philosophy professor Jack Weinstein told yesterday's Literacy Lunches audience.

What he read illustrate what an active mind considers. He read The Basho of Honk, a Nick Paumgarten New Yorker piece about turning responses to NYC's annoying car honking into short poems. Weinstein also read a Jacob Neusner speech from William Safire's Lend Me Your Years: Great Speeches in History. In Professor Jacob Neusner Defines the Social Contract Between Teacher and Student, Neusner argues that "Great teachers don't teach; they help students learn." In other words, great teaching is about getting people to think.

Weinstein, a native of New York City, is the director of the Institute for Philosophy in the Public Life.