Alan Jacobs argues that most of us don’t want to think. Thinking is trouble. Thinking can force us out of familiar, comforting habits, and it can complicate our relationships with like-minded friends. Finally, thinking is slow, and that’s a problem when our habits of consuming information (mostly online) leave us lost in the spin cycle of social media, partisan bickering, and confirmation bias.

But Jacobs is optimistic that we can learn to think, and to do so together. Come join the faculty reading group to talk about the challenges to thinking, the virtues necessary for thinking, and to engage in some good thinking in community as we consider how to develop these virtues in ourselves and our students!

Open to MIT faculty members. For details, contact: Nathan Barczi, Executive Director, PhD ‘07