Humanities - The Heart of Liberal Education Essay examples

I justify the humanities by sketching four views of knowledge in which the idea of an academy or an integration of disciplines might be understood. I assume that every system of higher education inevitably appeals to concepts of knowledge. Such concepts cannot be isolated from political and civic dimensions of life as well as from personal cultivation and character. Nonetheless, older views based on these aspects are open to serious criticism. The four views considered are Aristotelian-Thomistic, Cartesian-positivist, Kantian, and traditionalist (in a liberal and hermeneutic sense). The paper describes key elements in each of these views and notes several objections, with a marked preference for Kantian and traditionalist views. Kant†¦show more content†¦Consider, then, four ways of conceiving and organizing an educational curriculum, or rather concepts of knowledge brought to focus by philosophers—by no means the only ones, but clearly distinct and decisive in the hi story of pedagogy in the West since Plato. These are abbreviations, each meant to stand for a general idea, without too much emphasis on historical reference or detail. (1) An Aristotelian-Thomistic view of disciplinary divisions and the order between them. Aristotle canonized the idea of knowledge as divided into disciplines, each with its appropriate matter and method, and ordered into a hierarchical (ascending) whole. However contemptuous it is of the canon (so called), the modern academy owes its existence to Aristotle. His division of the sciences presupposes a teleological order of nature, a single rational order discoverable from the nature of things by human reason and grounded in manifest purpose, i.e. a cosmos. Probably the core of this ideal is the absolute centrality it places on philosophy as the queen of the sciences and upon theology and metaphysics as first philosophy, knowledge of the highest being and of being as such or of the first principles, causes, and elements of things. It is essentially based upon a philosophical view of the world, in a classical sense adaptable to Christianity. Despite is metaphysical investment in first p hilosophy, a striking element of it isShow MoreRelatedA Critical and Rhetorical Analysis of William Cronons Only Connect.1712 Words   |  7 PagesA Liberal Education? Not According to Cronon. A Critical and Rhetorical Analysis of Cronons Only Connect. While the term liberal education is heard from the most prestigious university to an inner city community college, the phrase itself has a hazy definition at best. 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