Karl R. Wallace: The giver of good reasons

Abstract

This brief portrait focuses on four aspects of Professor Wallace as a giver of good reasons: first, his emphasis on the primacy of substance and ideas; second, his concern for the ethical grounding of discourse; third, his vision of rhetorical man as the whole person; and fourth, his “bias” as that of the teacher. These precepts are examined in the hope that we may know something of the mind of an extraordinary teacher and that we may set such an example clearly before us as we go about our own teaching.