The Rationalist and the Hedonist Teacher

(from Upendra Baxi, “Teaching as Provocation,” in Amrik Singh (Ed.) On Being a Teacher,
New Delhi: Konark Publishers (2001), pp. 150-158.)

RATIONALIST HEDONIST

Knowledge as a set of exchange values Knowledge as a set of ‘use-values’

Disciplinary loyalty Riots of multi-disciplinary sensibilities

Teachers as beings tinged with the infinity of Seeks no escape from one’s scholarly finitude
knowledge they bear and create

Speaks the language of reason Affirms passion for teaching

Affirms the weight of erudition Iterates the joy of reaching out

Seeks to create tough minds Seeks to create a soft training of the mind

Definition of the problem is the beginning of an The definition of the definitions is a problem and
ordered inquiry and its solution its terminus every solution appears as a disguised problem

Sifts the bright from the blighted students Maintain a community of learners

Students are units of cognition Students are full, whole individuals with life
histories and futures

Teacher-taught relationship is a disembodied The teacher-taught relationship is a bond of

one, like between producers and consumers sharing seen as threatening with anarchy the
manicured gardens of ideas

Maintains a respectable and safe distance Teaching leads to the politics of commitment to
between knowledge and politics of action causes