Cultivating Philosopher-Builders
The AI age demands philosopher-builders. Harvey Mudd is the place to cultivate them.
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Every builder’s first duty is philosophical. Every educator’s first duty is formational.
In the middle of last year, the Cosmos Institute published a post arguing that the AI age demands a new kind of builder, what Cosmos calls the philosopher-builder. Modeled after the archetype of Benjamin Franklin, the philosopher-builder understands not just what and how to build, but what to build for. If you haven’t read it, it’s worth taking a few minutes to read it now.
The idea of the philosopher-builder resonates with me. I am in wholehearted agreement that the world needs these kinds of builders—people who understand that the artifacts they build are embedded with moral significance.
In many ways, this manifesto struck a chord with me because it clearly articulates a vision of what Harvey Mudd is all about. Obviously, as a faculty member at Mudd, my cards are on the table. I am not impartial, nor will I pretend to be. To be part of any organization is a statement, at least to some degree, in support of the mission of that organization.
Harvey Mudd is built to cultivate philosopher-builders. It is the purest institutional expression of the idea of the philosopher-builder in American Higher Education. Our current moment with AI means that organizations like Mudd that form and shape these kinds of builders are more important than ever.
An institutional expression of the idea of the philosopher-builder
The philosopher-builder understands that the act of creation is imbued with moral significance. When we build something, we embed ethical and philosophical implications. Artifacts put forward a particular point of view of the good.
Our artifacts do this not only in the choice of what they identify as a problem (i.e., by declaring that something is not as it should be) but also in the way that they propose to address the problem. The things we build say something about what it means for humanity to flourish.
The mission of Harvey Mudd College is “to educate engineers, scientists and mathematicians well versed in all of these areas and in the humanities, social sciences and the arts so that they may assume leadership in their fields with a clear understanding of the impact of their work on society.” In other words, Harvey Mudd exists to cultivate philosopher-builders.
This expresses itself in several ways. At Mudd, the humanities, social sciences, and the arts are integrated throughout the curriculum. Students take them throughout their degree alongside their technical courses. Mudd’s core curriculum exposes students to fields across science, engineering, and mathematics. Breadth is a feature, not a bug. Mudd is a small campus community by design. Small size prioritizes deep relationships with and among faculty, staff, and students. Not only are we small, but we are an undergraduate-only student population, affirming our focus on teaching and formation as the primary end rather than research output. Our culture embodies a moral infrastructure, from the Honor Code, which grounds our teaching and learning in trust, to the focus on collaboration over competition that pervades student interactions. Finally, the curriculum emphasizes a deep integration between theory and practice, culminating in the Clinic program, which gives students real-world experience with projects with industry partners.
Together, these components create exactly the environment that has the potential to cultivate the philosopher-builder that Cosmos argues our current moment demands. They provide the necessary pieces. But are they sufficient?
Mudd’s design encodes the right bet: will we live up to our own mission?
There is always a gap between theory and practice, between aspirational mission statements and operational realities. Like every other institution, Mudd has its flaws. Some Mudders invariably end up optimizing for the six-figure FAANG offer right after graduation or endure rather than embrace the courses they are required to take in the humanities, social sciences, and the arts. From the faculty side, it can be tempting to take the easy path out in your course design, failing to fully integrate philosophical inquiry with technical training.
I know it’s hard because I’ve often failed to do it myself. Figuring out how to get students into a frame of mind where they can ask deep questions about the societal impact of their work when they’re trying to figure out how to debug their microcontroller code is challenging. Often, the two types of thinking are best pursued in different environments: philosophical conversations at a round table over a drawn-out meal; engineering technical debugging at the lab bench, looking together at a computer or oscilloscope screen.
Education as apprenticeship
If the first duty of the educator is formational, the question we need to ask is not “what are they learning?” but “who are they becoming?” What habits and practices are we helping our students to cultivate? What questions are we teaching them to ask?
As I think more about this question, I’m increasingly convinced that the answer is to think of my pedagogy through the lens of apprenticeship. An apprentice studies with a master craftsman. They learn to become a master themselves, not primarily by doing what the master says (although there is plenty of that), but by doing as the master does.
The challenge then in this framing is to look at myself squarely in the mirror and ask whether I am embracing the challenge of being a philosopher-builder myself. Asking how I am interrogating the work I am doing. Asking hard questions about what I’m building and what I’m building for.
As educators, the question “what am I building for?” is not just for our students, but for us as well. If the primary product of an educational institution is people, then the primary activity is the formation of those people. Our work should be targeted to cultivate the philosopher-builders that our current moment so desperately needs. The kind of people who build explicit moral commitments and constantly refine and sharpen them. People who build products, businesses, and institutions that steer humanity toward our collective flourishing, rather than exploiting our weaknesses to make a quick buck.
Our work as educators is a work of apprenticeship, helping cultivate apprentices who are modeled after ourselves. The answer to the question of “what am I building for?” and “who do I want to become?” are inextricably linked.
I’m striving to become a philosopher-builder, convinced that it’s the only way I can help my students become one too.
Got a thought? Leave a comment below.
Reading Recommendations
I loved this piece from Kevin Kelly on six selfish reasons to have kids.
As your children age, they will keep surprising you. Even strained times can’t dissolve your relationship, and as they reach the age that you were when you had them, they often become more than just your children. They are special, unique people, worthy of attention, with abilities you do not have, and they will also know you very well. It is a deep pleasure to have people who know you so well.
Thought-provoking piece from Matt Shumer on AI. “Something Big Is Happening.”
I know this isn’t a fad. The technology works, it improves predictably, and the richest institutions in history are committing trillions to it.
I know the next two to five years are going to be disorienting in ways most people aren’t prepared for. This is already happening in my world. It’s coming to yours.
I know the people who will come out of this best are the ones who start engaging now — not with fear, but with curiosity and a sense of urgency.
And I know that you deserve to hear this from someone who cares about you, not from a headline six months from now when it’s too late to get ahead of it.
We’re past the point where this is an interesting dinner conversation about the future. The future is already here. It just hasn’t knocked on your door yet.
It’s about to.
Fun to get a shoutout in Inside Higher Ed last week.
The Book Nook
This month, we’re loving Somebody Loves You Mr. Hatch in the Brake household. It’s a cute story about an unexpected outcome from a misdelivered package.
For more children’s book recommendations (and the rest of our curated picks for this month!), check out the latest project from the Brakes: Pages Worth Passing Down. You can choose either:
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A gift box option, perfect for the next neighborhood birthday party
Each box comes with your choice from our curated selection of five books for each month and a set of printable activities that will help bring the book to life for the kiddos in your life.
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The Professor Is In
Although I was out of town over the weekend for Harvey Mudd’s Parents’ Weekend, I recorded a video update to share a bit of what I’m working on with the Lab for Imaginative Prototyping with AI.
Leisure Line
Made some good pizza this weekend. Working on maxxing out the full 16” of my new Ooni!
Still Life
We had a great weekend away in Big Bear with some friends. Great weather, although there wasn’t much snow.
Thanks for this thoughtful look at higher ed. I'm a graduate of New College of Florida, a very different place than Harvey Mudd, but the true NC community of alumni and supporters, represented by the independent alumni organization Novo Collegian Alliance, are asking very similar questions in the wake of the slow destruction of the school by hostile forces. As a public college (for now) without an endowment, the school has languished for years and always been on unsteady ground, financially. Yet, it's produced fantastic scholars, entrepreneurs, artists, scientists, and engineers over it's 70 year history.
But now we have to ask, what is the value of a liberal arts education today? With both politics and AI calling everything into question, and our desire to either redeem the school or "restart" it elsewhere, we know that much has to change. I was particularly taken with this quote:
"I’m increasingly convinced that the answer is to think of my pedagogy through the lens of apprenticeship. An apprentice studies with a master craftsman. They learn to become a master themselves, not primarily by doing what the master says (although there is plenty of that), but by doing as the master does."
It crosses boundaries, widening the circle of "higher ed" from "sit in a classroom and then take a test to pass" to embrace the true higher ideals we've been striving for.
Anyway, thanks for the food for thought. Harvey Mudd sounds like a great college.
Sadly "The impact of their work on society.." is invariably trumped by financial and commercial ambition, and unbridled, unregulated competitive development. There are no signs that will change. The potential subversion of societal order and norms is for someone else, bewildered politicians, and impoverished workers to deal with.