This essay explores the nature of teaching, the relationship between teacher and student, and the scope and limits of new learning technologies. Teaching, whatever else it might be, involves the imparting of knowledge. To illuminate this, I turn to the epistemology of testimony and consider Anscombe's idea of trusting another for the truth, a notion that conveys something of the second-personal dimension of teaching and learning. But the teacher asks her students to believe, not her, but 'what is known'. She speaks for the discipline (or 'as the science' as Rodl puts it). To develop this idea and counter potential misunderstandings, I argue that someone who speaks for a discipline must be open to criticism, responsive to those who seek understanding, and willing to think on their feet in ways that exhibits a range of intellectual virtues. If students are to acquire the power to speak as the discipline themselves, they must be initiated into it as a living practice, not just guided through it as if in a museum. I argue that, while new technologies can enhance learning in a variety of ways, the requisite engagement is difficult to engender in online courses, which threaten or distort the essentially second-personal, dialogical character of teaching and learning. The humanity of the relation of teacher and learner is precious because it encapsulates what it is to love knowledge as it finds expression in the person of another.
