Eighteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

The relationship between the humanities and business has a long and checkered history. Often mistrustful of each other in university contexts (why would I study THAT?), they just as often end up supporting one another in the “real world.” Businesses look for creativity, critical thinking, and compelling expression, as well as align themselves philanthropically with the arts. The humanities look for ways to inform businesses practices and, well, humanize by qualitative means what can devolve to simply quantitative exercises. In this paper, I reflect on my joint appointment in the Philosophy and Management departments, as well as on twenty-five years’ worth of consulting to businesses. Business students, both MBAs and undergraduates need the humanities as much or more than ever, and not solely for instrumental reasons. They need them because, as one rising executive told me recently, he had no antidote at work for the “soul-hardening work” he had to do every day. He is not alone, and in this paper, I make an argument for teaching the humanities to business students in ways that help them see the connections between the art they are “forced” to learn in classes they don’t see the point of, and the “art of living” that they nevertheless yearn for.