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Liberal Education

The phrase ‘liberal education’ has passed from common usage in our American culture in the last several decades. There are still Liberal Arts Colleges in America but they seem to be less in demand by today’s students. Parents and students want universities and colleges to focus on matters of importance, how to get a good job.

It seems that few recognize that education has an extrinsic and an intrinsic value. The extrinsic value is contained within the fact that a practical education is the key to making a better living.

What is the intrinsic value of learning? Why study history or literature? Of what value is philosophy? Why study logic or how to think when I only care about learning how to build a bridge? Of what value is it for me to become a critically self-conscious thinker?

Everybody comprehends how the intellect can be used to build bridges, or repair a broken bone, or be an accountant but our culture has slowly removed from our comprehension the purpose of an ordered intellect in matters of providing meaning and purpose to life.

It appears that the mind has its own ‘grammar’ (system of rules). Many forms of thinking, i.e. math and music or logic, help us construct a solid structure for exercising this grammar. Other types of knowledge, i.e. history, help us because we understand the present through analogies with the past.

Creativity is greatly enhanced by the cross-fertilization of multiple sources and kinds of knowledge. The broad scope afforded by a liberal education prepares us to see things in ‘the whole’; we see things holistically (in combination, in completeness, not dissected or fragmented).

Some consider that wisdom is “seeing life whole”, every realm of knowledge is necessary for discovering ‘full truth’.[b/]

John Henry Newman wrote that the pursuit of knowledge will "draw the mind off from things which will harm it," and added that it will renovate man's nature by rescuing him "from that fearful subjection to sense which is his ordinary state."

You study history to learn why things are the way they are today. History as a major in college teaches you many things:

1. Why do current policies exist? What were the events that lead up to them? Who are the people involved. and if it is current history, do they still have an influence on today?

2. You learn to analyze in the social sciences. You study primary source material, to weave together what was going on. You learn to look deeper then just the words on the paper, or the photograph in your hand, or the pot shard you are carbon dating. You put yourself in that time period, and that takes training in analysis to do that.

3. You must then put the pieces today and reach a conclusion about it-you must take a step forward and decide what is the meaning of this. It is a higher hierarchy style of thinking, you must put it together within the framework of current thought, or take a leap forward if it is something new.

4. If you write specific styles of history, you are also writing to help a specific group of people. It is either an unknown event from their past, or an analysis that can assist them with their current situation. I added number 4 because that is what I do. My work has value to the people I write about, and can possibly help them for a specific purpose.

Chonsi

Do you think that wisdom is "seeing life whole"?

Do you think that it is possible for a person to "see life whole" without a significant comprehension of history?

What does it mean to see life whole?

I think that there are at least three forms of intellection: textual intellection is what we do when we reason in text form, artistic intellection is reasoning in artistic form, and practical intellection is what we do in our day-to-day living.

I suspect that for me to see life whole I must have some significant degree of comprehension in each of the three forms. Since I have almost zero comprehension in the artistic form of intellection I have little chance of being wise.

That is an unusual phrase, "seeing life whole."

Coberst, do you not ever look at art? Do you like it? Do you listen to music in any form? Do you walk outside, and hear the birds singing on a warm summer day, and smile? Do you see the beauty in a child's face, when they reach out their arms to you and smile?

That is artistic, and you already posses that.

chonsigirl wrote: That is an unusual phrase, "seeing life whole."

Coberst, do you not ever look at art? Do you like it? Do you listen to music in any form? Do you walk outside, and hear the birds singing on a warm summer day, and smile? Do you see the beauty in a child's face, when they reach out their arms to you and smile?

That is artistic, and you already posses that.


Science informs us that a child is born (also many other animals) with the ability to perform subtraction and addition with objects of three and even with objects of four.

Likewise we are born with the ability to appreciate music and to appreciate a childs smile. When I speak of gaining a significant comprehension of artistic intellection I mean to go beyond such innate things and like math go beyond dealing with more than four objects.

Ah, appreciation of a child's smile is not innate. There is no more beautiful thing in the world then that. That is a higher level thinking level, and a spiritual one as well.

You would have to go back to an original definition of philosophy and what you consider wisdom. That does not mean we will all perceive your definition as the only one though, and it is open for discussion.

I only see life in its artistic form, and didnt realize how handicapped, or lacking I was until very recently. I would have chosen the way I viewed life over any other way, again until recently. I now realize I do not have a broad enough perspective, awareness, or grasp of lifes components to manuever it, or to live it sucessfully.I am gifted, but ignorant.. enlightened, but unprepared and unequipted to succeed.

Weeder

Someone said to me "that intellection was not part of being artistic". What would you have replied to that question?

I would have to agree with that statement.Artistic observations are not made carefully, they are generally felt spontaneously. The artistic personality operates without boundaries, and often makes decisions based on feeling not facts. My observation has been that artists and intellects view the world with different eyes, hear words with different ears, make choices based on totally different data.

coberst wrote: Weeder

Someone said to me "that intellection was not part of being artistic". What would you have replied to that question?
False.

Definition for intellection: The act or process of using the intellect; thinking or reasoning.

If looking at an artistic object, event, sound, etc. and you are not using your brain in any manner, then you are not perceiving the object.

If you are looking at beautiful Monet, you are thinking about it. It could be a positive or negative reaction. But you are thinking. Otherwise, the object does not exist at all in through any perception of the 5 senses, and thinking processes afterwards.

I agree with Chonsi and question Weeders due consideration of the question.