Education
Jaffa earned a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Yale University and a Ph.D. in Political Philosophy from The New School. As a Ph.D. student, he became interested in Abraham Lincoln after discovering a copy of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates in a used bookshop.
Jaffa was one of Leo Strauss' first Ph.D. students. His dissertation on Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas later became his first book, Thomism and Aristotelianism. There, he argues that the Christian beliefs of Aquinas influenced Aquinas' work on Aristotle. Alasdair MacIntyre describes the book as "an unduly neglected minor modern classic."
Read more about this topic: Harry V. Jaffa
Famous quotes containing the word education:
“... education fails in so far as it does not stir in students a sharp awareness of their obligations to society and furnish at least a few guideposts pointing toward the implementation of these obligations.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877?)
“Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.”
—H.G. (Herbert George)
“In the years of the Roman Republic, before the Christian era, Roman education was meant to produce those character traits that would make the ideal family man. Children were taught primarily to be good to their families. To revere gods, ones parents, and the laws of the state were the primary lessons for Roman boys. Cicero described the goal of their child rearing as self- control, combined with dutiful affection to parents, and kindliness to kindred.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)