menu Home chevron_right
PHILOSOPHY

Jeffrey Brenzel: The Essential Value of a Classic Education | Big Think

Big Think | March 5, 2026



Jeffrey Brenzel: The Essential Value of a Classic Education
Watch the newest video from Big Think: https://bigth.ink/NewVideo
Join Big Think Edge for exclusive videos: https://bigth.ink/Edge
———————————————————————————-
From “What’s the best kind of life for a human?” to “How should governments be arranged?”, the great classics tackle some of the most enduring questions that have resisted the attempts of science and the ages to solve. Brenzel will try to convince you that having intimate conversations with these great works will not only build your intellectual muscle but will also help you to grapple with the big questions in your own life and improve your judgment.
———————————————————————————-
Jeffrey Brenzel:

Jeffrey Brenzel is Dean of Undergraduate Admissions at Yale University and a Lecturer in Yale’s Philosophy Department. He has worked as a nonprofit executive, a private sector entrepreneur, a scholar and a university administrator. In this capacity as the Dean of Undergraduate Admissions, Brenzel is responsible for worldwide outreach to talented students, the selection process itself, and the development of university admissions policy and practices. Brenzel earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, while at the same time founding and developing InterLearn, Inc. an investor-backed venture that used new media and technology to produce career education and liberal arts programs for adult learners.
———————————————————————————-
TRANSCRIPT:

What is the best sort of life for a human being? Socrates claimed in 400BC that a man lives a happier life if he’s just, even if he is thrown starving into prison for the rest of his life than if he is unjust and he is celebrated and honored all of his days and is never caught for his crimes. Could that possibly be correct? If not, why not and what difference should the question make to us now?

What moves the human heart? Shakespeare’s characters throw us into the depths of lust, envy, greed, pride, ambition. What do those characters have to say about the way that we act or that we behave or that we believe? And if so, what difference would it make to read about them in Shakespeare and why Shakespeare whose Elizabethan English is very difficult for us who speak modern English to understand? Thomas Hobbes wrote in 1651 a book called Leviathan, one of the two or three most influential works in the history of thinking about government and politics in western society. He was writing from the midst of a raging civil war and he argued that unless we gave all the power, unless we surrendered all ultimate control to a legitimate king that we would all rob and kill each other. Was he right about that? Is that the way things actually work and is the question relevant to us today when we no longer believe in kings?

Hello. My name is Jeff Brenzel and I’m the dean of undergraduate admissions at Yale University. I’m also the master of something called Timothy Dwight College, which essentially means that I live with 400 of the very undergraduates that I picked myself and yes, it is unusual for an admissions dean to live 24/7 with the outcomes of his own decisions. I also lecture from time to time in the philosophy department at Yale and my work in philosophy centers around ethics and also the history of the ideas that we’ve had about something we like to call human nature. Speaking of human nature, one of my personal heroes, Aristotle, claimed that by nature everyone seeks to know, everyone desires to know. For the purposes of this talk I’m going to assume that you are already an intellectually curious person and that you’re not only chasing after knowledge as hard as you can. You’re also trying to build up the skill sets and acquire the kind of capacities and abilities that you’re going to need to become a better learner overall.

Also I’m going to assume that you’re not only trying to increase your stock of knowledge, but that you’re seeking to grow in wisdom as well and wisdom is something distinct from knowledge and I’m going to come back to that a little later.

If these things are in fact true about you then here is my advice in a nutshell. Make a choice in college to read some old books, even a substantial number of old books. My argument will be that reading the right old books in the right way is better than reading only new books, much less using only new ways of learning that have nothing to do with books at all. So yes, I’m a throwback. I have a somewhat unpopular view of what you should do with your college education. What I’m going to try to persuade you is that my advice…

Read the full transcript at https://bigthink.com/videos/strange-beauty-how-reading-the-classics-will-change-you

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Written by Big Think

Comments

This post currently has 37 comments.

  2. @erickpalacios8904

    March 5, 2026 at 12:39 am

    You won't believe me when I say this, but you took me from an anaytical, non-degree having pleb, to a masters having, broadly educated sociologist. I first watched your video back in 2017 and I once-in-a-while come back to this video to get re-inspired and feel what it was like when it all began. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your video changed the direction of my life in ways that I cannot even begin to describe 🙏🏼

  3. @LT_Darwin

    March 5, 2026 at 12:39 am

    Great lecture series. Except for the array of odd sound effects that I found quite distracting. While the speaker is making sound points the producers thought we needed air suction, lasers, and clicks. Maybe they somehow doubted that the interesting facts on the subject matter was not quite interesting on its own, or that their faith in human attention spans is weakened? Intellectuals don’t need the clicks and air suction sounds to stay interested.

  6. @CleanFun

    March 5, 2026 at 12:39 am

    Well, in Milton's defence: @27:00

    "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." – Luke 10:18

    "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." – Revelation 12:9

    And we know the devil/satan is bad because of verses like these, where Christ is addressing the Pharisees:

    "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." – John 8:44

  16. @alaakela

    March 5, 2026 at 12:39 am

    It's 2024. Thank you. This was fantastic. I have wanted to read the classics but didn't know where to start. Your lecture was an essential first step toward my goal. Thank you.

  17. @bradchristy5002

    March 5, 2026 at 12:39 am

    Exceptional “find” for me and my search into the classics. You encapsulated everything into your presentation to clear the trees so that I may ultimately see the forest! Thank you so much

  22. @coffeeblack1797

    March 5, 2026 at 12:39 am

    Having children and ensuring their happiness and success in life and their children's lives are the best sources of energy and reason for all human kind to be fulfilled. Nothing else matters as much, and this makes me believe that not all people are equipped to have children. Most of the mental disorder comes from childhood and their environment . Some are not equipped to generate population who cant contribute to tye society.

  23. @user-mb4xy6tb4l

    March 5, 2026 at 12:39 am

    It was cool reading plato for the first time. It made me fall in love with socrates and i often think about his death and the amount of respect and love plato must have felt for him to immortalize him through text. I have yet to read memorabilia and apology but i do eagerly await them. Nichomachean ethics and meditations were 2 very important books in changing my way of thinking. I am only through the first read and deep probing of the classics found some good titles to add to the library. The second completion of the classics will be a review of the most significant works i read and compiling notes of each piece. Once the physical notes are completed I have the rest of my life to review and revise my opinions on the facts of life. I use "natural reader" for text to speech combined with "Gutenberg" for almost all of the books. I found it way easier for me to power through and complete books i otherwise would not have been able to finish when i can listen while reading. The internet is amazing thank you for this video.

  27. @Z__K217

    March 5, 2026 at 12:39 am

    A wonderful presentation. At 27:38ff, Dr. Brenzel characterizes much Protestant construal of salvation and the end times as a product of Milton – this is happily untrue. Piecing together Scripture (Systematic Theology) bears a contrast to his presentation. Thomas assembled his picture of salvation and the afterlife more inline with Medieval rationalism than faithfulness to Scripture.

  33. @Sarah-re7cg

    March 5, 2026 at 12:39 am

    I’m a philosophy student. Formally educated. My uni included all of the “basics,” as laid out in this video. But one also included a female philosopher. Although this was interesting, it was still within western tradition (she was a lover of Voltaire). The neutrality of epistemology and formal logic has allowed me to identify what I don’t know—this is the extremely important skill. We need more diversity, things outside of western tradition. What we emphasize and hyper focus on now is creating people who are all cookie cutter thinkers. We need to shake up our curriculum to get outside of our own heads. The way we teach philosophy now is extremely limited and blunts creativity and outside thought. There is a huge problem with this in the discipline of economics too. Do better.
    Edit: thank god you’re addressing this in the second half of the video. It’s exactly, EXACTLY what is wrong with dialogue to this day—so many people think “foundational” I call them relative foundational books are THE answer, are THE best and end it there. No. I love that this guy quotes Socrates (more of a meta quote but whatever) in saying the only thing he knows is nothing. Big props to this guy. I think so many people didn’t the actual point of this kind of formal education.

Comments are closed.

Related
This website can predict what you’re going to do next…
Pursuit of Wonder | July 20, 2026
Related
The terrifying shared hallucination theory nobody wants to be true
Aperture | July 20, 2026
Related
Why Smart People Struggle With Feelings
Sisyphus 55 | July 20, 2026

This area can contain widgets, menus, shortcodes and custom content. You can manage it from the Customizer, in the Second layer section.

 

 

 

Go to album
  • play_circle_filled

    92.9 : The Torch

  • play_circle_filled

    AGGRO
    'Til Deaf Do Us Part...

  • play_circle_filled

    SLACK!
    The Music That Made Gen-X

  • play_circle_filled

    KUDZU
    The Northwoods' Alt-Country & Americana

  • play_circle_filled

    BOOZHOO
    Indigenous Radio

  • play_circle_filled

    THE FLOW
    The Northwoods' Hip Hop and R&B

play_arrow skip_previous skip_next volume_down
playlist_play