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I find it striking that, though logical and scientific positivism have now, as Al Plantinga says, been swept into the dustbin of history that practitioners of social sciences, sometimes historians, a good number of political theorists, and perhaps most legal and constitutional scholars continue to take it seriously. No self-respecting philosopher does. And for good reason—at best, there are no good reasons for being a positivist such that if one embraces positivism one must do it a priori. At worst, positivism is self-referentially incoherent.

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In November, the Chronicle Review (published by the Chronicle of Higher Education) published a forum dealing with the question "Are Too Many Students Going to College?" The participants on both sides of the question put forth some compelling arguments regarding this question as well as about the benefits and costs of higher education. Given that most of us work in the field, I also thought that blog readers might wish to reflect upon this issue.

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As a Tuesday treat, I decided to alert our readers to a post on Front Porch Republic entitled "Education as Moral Formation: A Localist Proposal." The essay (and be warned, it is definitely long enough to qualify as an essay) raises a number of points that should be interesting to Lehrman denizens.

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