The Liberal Arts and the End of Education Essay -- Philosophy Educatio

The Liberal Arts and the End of EducationABSTRACT An internationalist conference that takes Philosophy Educating Humanity as its theme does well to return the liberal liberal arts tradition. Although the liberal arts are most lots assimilated to studies brought together as the Humanities, the old usage included the arts which employed artificial languages in mathematics, music, and astronomy, as well as the literature and earn of the various born(p) languages. The current conflation of liberal education with the humanities does madness to the historical tradition in education, reducing it to fluff in the eyeball of tough-minded scientists who know that only numbers deliver objectivity. The liberal arts of the traditional under graduate curriculum provided the skills to liberate the pupils linguistic powers so that he or she could read, speak, and understand instinctive language in all its functions. To better human persons to master language is to encourage students to tak e possession of their natural powers so that they can express themselves, understand what others say, and reason together. The arts of natural language lead to mastery of the numerical arts which use a language that is no ones mother tongue. Together, the seven arts rid students of the finish up enemies of humankind ignorance and prejudice. Since no one can be considered to confirm true a goodeducation if he accepts uncritically the opinions ofthe educators of his own terms, the student shouldencounter alternatives to these opinions.Samuel S. KutlerThe past is always difficult to deal with. We are snap between the temptations of remaining within the comfort of a past we have become accustomed to and the equally dangerous alternative of fleeing an ... ...he arts of mathematical language teach us habits of rigorous, disinterested abstract thought. Post-moderns seem to be engaged in replacing philosophy, perhaps in the guise of logic, with grandiloquence so that all becomes conv ersation or narrative, and privilege is problematic. Were we to resuscitate a version of the liberal arts tradition as pedagogy and a goal for our post-modern times, we would not be coaxing a dusty ashes of a bygone tradition back to life. Rather we would be putt our tradition into practice. The liberal arts live only in time, in some historical instantiation or another. Now may be the time to bring this curriculum back into our time. Rather than a person ill-equipped to do anything, the more traditionally educated liberal arts graduate could again be a person who is equipped by his skills to do anything. And, to evaluate what is worth doing.