No other living tradition has been thinking about thinking longer than the Catholic Church. With carefully selected readings from classical, patristic, medieval, modern, and contemporary sources, Renewing the Mind proposes the Catholic tradition as the noblest and best hope for a recovery of humane learning in our time. Edited by theologian and philosopher Ryan N.S. Topping, this anthology draws from a range of classical and contemporary philosophers - from Plato and Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas, Newman to Chesterton to Benedict XVI - to reconstruct and illustrate the enduring vitality of the Catholic tradition of thinking about thinking. Parts One, Two, and Three take up the essential characteristics which define all learning activity: its purpose (or end), its form and content (or curriculum), and its method (or pedagogy). With an eye to meeting the challenge of the present crisis in education, Part Four illustrates the contemporary renewal of Catholic education. Included are selections that speak not only to liberal or general education but to a variety of contexts in which Catholics are called to study or teach: at home, at school, in college, or in the seminary. Renewing the Mind includes an introductory essay on the history and renewal of Catholic education, followed by 38 selections each with an introduction, biography, and study questions; adorning the text throughout are illustrations from the National Gallery of Art. Educators of children and college students will find this an essential guide to the best of what has been said about what it means to be conformed to the mind of Christ.

After setting Augustine’s thought firmly within the context of his life and times, Ryan Topping examines in turn the causes of education (the purposes, pedagogy, curriculum, and limits of learning) as Augustine understood them. Augustine’s towering influence over Medieval and Renaissance theorists – from Hugh of St Victor, to Aquinas, to Erasmus – is traced. The book concludes by drawing Augustine into dialogue with contemporary philosophers, exploring the influence of his meditations on higher education and suggesting how his ideas can reinvigorate for our generation the project of liberal learning.

This title offers a coherent account of St Augustine's educational thought, including coverage of the reception and influence of his work and its relevance today. St Augustine is indisputably a major thinker in education. Ryan Topping's volume offers the most coherent account of St Augustine's educational thought. This work is divided into: intellectual biography; critical exposition of St Augustine's work; the reception and influence of St Augustine's work; and, the relevance of the work today. This title comes from a major international reference series providing comprehensive accounts of the work of seminal educational thinkers from a variety of periods, disciplines and traditions. It is the most ambitious and prestigious such project ever published - a definitive resource for at least a generation. The thinkers include: Aquinas, Aristotle, Bourdieu, Bruner, Dewey, Foucault, Freire, Holt, Kant, Locke, Montessori, Neill, Newman, Owen, Peters, Piaget, Plato, Rousseau, Steiner, Vygotsky, West and Wollstonecraft.