Narratives surrounding higher education, particularly in the United States, tend to reduce the value of post-secondary education to vocational or economic goods. In this climate, we see science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and pre-professional programs thrive, while programs in the arts and humanities continue to be diminished. While the reasons for this ongoing decline in the humanities are myriad and complex, it is difficult to deny that the declining emphasis on the humanities can be attributed, at least in part, to their perceived “impracticality” and lack of obvious alignment with labor markets. In Personal Virtue, Public Happiness: Rehumanizing Higher Education through Early Modern Philosophy, Kristopher G. Phillips argues that reducing the value and aims of higher education to narrowly prescribed vocational or economic ends dehumanizes students, robs them of the opportunity to be transformed (personally, epistemically, and civically) by their education, and leaves them ill-prepared to address the distinctly human aspects of their lives. The solution, he argues, is to reconceptualize both academic philosophy and higher education generally; philosophy should return to its Socratic roots and focus on the cultivation of an excellent character. In turn, Phillips articulates a vision of a philosophically-grounded, transformational education that facilitates student flourishing. Drawing parallels between, and teasing out assumptions inherited from, the scientific revolution in seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe, Phillips argues that by recentering philosophy in higher education, we can help our students become more than skilled workers who are able to adapt to a rapidly changing global labor market. Education can and should help students become the sort of people who embody personal virtue – the sort of virtuous people who promote the flourishing of those around them.