450
PARTISAN REVIEW
WILLIAM PHILLIPS: Yes, of course.
DONALD MARSHALL: I don 't think that I disagree very much with
William Phillips except with what he just said. I think a teacher
should answer that question . In the first place I don't think you
should overestimate your influence on your students . Just because
you give an answer
to
that question doesn't mean your student is
going to agree with you. I mean, you're not God; you 're just a
teacher. In the second place, what you are exhibiting is not the
bottom line answer. You are exhibiting thought about the question
and a thought which reaches an answer on certain grounds. What
I'm arguing is that thinking is the very form of morality. You're not
teaching a moral doctrine; you 're teaching thinking, and thinking
about moral questions (at least I thought that was what Hannah
Arendt was trying
to
argue). I think you will invite your students
similarly to reach their own view about that question , but at some
point in a classroom I think somebody has got to turn to somebody
and say, "All right, I get it tha t Dostoevsky raises this question . What
do you think? Wha t do you think now that you 've read Dos–
toevsky?" I don 't think you get to shirk that question.
