Don Braxton

Juniata College, Religious Studies, Faculty Member

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Professor of Religious Studies with an interest in digital technologies as they apply to human learning. Interests include cognitive science of religion, the evolution of religion in our species, and how religious cognition is activated and deployed in various digitally mediated settings.

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Papers by Don Braxton

A Response to Paul Santmire

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Paul Dovre: The Future of Religious Colleges: The Proceedings of the Harvard Conference on the Future of Religious Colleges October 6-7, 2000

As its title page suggests, this book contains texts of the papers and formal responses delivered... more As its title page suggests, this book contains texts of the papers and formal responses delivered at a conference organized by Paul Dovre, funded by the John M. Olin Foundation, and held at Harvard in the Fall of 2000. The conference (and so the essays) was designed to address five questions: I) What will be the place of religiously informed scholarship in the academy of tomorrow? 2) Is the trend toward disengagement from a distinctive religious identity and mission inevitable? 3) Can churches that have lost their-college relatedness be transformed? Can colleges that have lost their church relatedness be transformed? 4) Are the diverse educational missions of religious colleges viable in an intellectual sense? In a social sense? How can such viability be encouraged and secured? 5) Will public policy and the interpretation thereof be an ally or an enemy ofreligious colleges?" ("Introduction," p. xi) Undergirding and provoking these questions lies some influential recent scholarship, in particular James Burtchaell's, The

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Alister McGrath: Glimpsing the Divine: The Search for Meaning in the Universe

Intersections, 2002

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Honesty of Mind: On the Uses and Abuses of Socratic Ignorance in Environmental Studies, Religion, and the Classroom

Intersections, 2002

Consider too how Holy Scriptures attribute honesty of mind also to the fool, while the wise man b... more Consider too how Holy Scriptures attribute honesty of mind also to the fool, while the wise man believes that no one is • his equal; (In Praise of Folly, Desiderius Erasmus, 1509) GOING FISHING Recently, I was reading an essay by David James Duncan, the author of The River Why, and a widely revered activist for "the church without walls" but with lots of rivers, mountains, and forests. Caught in the various pleasures of the essay, I suddenly stumbled across several lines which set my wheels spinning. As all people who have fallen in love with the ethos of the liberal arts tradition, I am constantly thinking about thinking. What is good thinking? What constitutes a decent argument on behalf of a position? How do we reflect, profess, or display perplexity? What makes for a good learning experience? These questions which serve as fodder for those of us who spend our times as teachers in the•liberal arts came into perspective for me. Here's how it happened. Dunc a n is exploring his motivations for spuming river guides when he is out fly fishing. He contends that river excursions are at their best when they are "unmediated, one-on-one music played by a body of flesh and blood upon a body of water: it is a satisfying duet until a fish makes it an even more satisfying trio." The trouble with guides, Duncan suggests, is that they often invade the music, like a popcorn munching movie critic who sits behind you and has lost the capacity for internal dialogue. Whatjumped out from the page for me, however, was his conclusion. For he launches into an encomium for ignorance as his most important tool. He writes: Fly-fishing guides accept payment in order to help clients circumvent their ignorance. But ignorance is one of the most crucial pieces of equipment any fly fisher will ever own. Ignorance is a fertile but unplanted interior field. Solitary fly fishing isolates us in this field, and leaves us no choice but to try to cultivate and plant and grow things in it. A guide, on the other hand, is like a hired farmer who, for a price, drives his tractor into your interior and plants you r field for you ... Fly-fishing guides tum clients into the absentee landlords of their own interiors. 1 I blurt an unsolicited ''yes!" but then I immediately wonder why. Somewhere in the recesses of my teaching brain, I know it has something to do with the dispositions we seek to cultivate in our students. But how does learning, the classroom structures of the learning process, and our enduring awareness of our own unknowing fit together? The product of my reflections leads me to believe that I am defending a version of what is often called the doctrine of "Socratic lgnorance." 2 The classic location of this idea is at the end of the Theaetetus where, after what appears to have been a seemingly fruitless inquiry, Socrates declares:

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