Jardine From Humanism to Humanities Education and the Liberal Arts

By Marcus R. Berquist
Tutor, Thomas Aquinas Higher, 1972–2010

Marcus R. Berquist

Most mod educators, devoted as they are to the ideal of academic freedom, maintain that institutions of college learning may not commit themselves to whatsoever particular philosophical tradition. Presumably, this is either because they regard the fundamental philosophical bug as across resolution, or considering they believe the resolution of those problems is non determinate plenty to be the basis for a community of learning. All the same, although it may disclaim responsibility for the universe at large, a college or university tin can hardly escape the need to order its own affairs. In particular, information technology must divide and order its own curriculum, and, in doing and then, it must perforce brand certain assumptions about the natures of the diverse disciplines and the matters of which they treat. The educational consequences of these assumptions are seldom remarked.

Our purpose hither is to examine a very basic division which is usually taken for granted: the partitioning of the curriculum into the sciences and the humanities. We shall examine and criticize this partitioning, the assumptions which underlie it, and the assumptions which information technology encourages in those who written report within its framework. And since those who make this sectionalisation clearly identify the humanities with the liberal arts and liberal education, we shall likewise examine the latter and decide how reasonable this identification is. By manner of contrast, our discussion will as well include an account of an older tradition on these aforementioned matters.

The "Sciences" and the "Humanities"
We brainstorm, and then, by asking: Which disciplines are "sciences" and which are "humanities"? And and so: By what principle are they divided in this fashion, and how is that principle currently understood? Roughly, this is the segmentation: philosophy, history, and literature are considered humanities, while physics, chemical science, biology, and the like are considered the sciences. There is dispute most deadline cases, such equally the social sciences, but there seems to exist widespread agreement nearly the aforesaid disciplines. This is sufficient for our argument.

At present, what is the principle or reason for this division? And why, in detail, is philosophy classed with literature and history rather than with the sciences? Possibly it would be helpful to examine the term "humanities": No incertitude it is used in a derived and specialized sense here, but if there is any point at all to the naming, it must involve some reference to the primitive meaning. For no matter what we do with the term "humanities," there is no getting the "man" out of it, so that whatsoever intelligible interpretation of the term involves some reference to man and the things of human: the things he does, the things he makes, the things he thinks. Accordingly, it would seem that certain disciplines are named "humanities" because they are about man or are pre-eminently referred to man in some way.

Distinguishing between the Natural and the Human being
f this is then, it would seem that a distinction betwixt the natural and the human is crucial here. For science, equally understood nowadays, is virtually the same every bit natural science, while history and literature are concerned with human affairs, and literature is itself a man artifact. So it is probable that the division of the sciences from the humanities is based upon the stardom betwixt the natural and the human being. But as regards philosophy, information technology is more hard; however, we do find that those who put philosophy among the humanities tend to regard it as man in the present sense. For example, it is a commonplace that philosophy is an integrating bailiwick; that is, it puts all the varieties of homo experience and noesis together and determines their overall meaning and significance. At present it becomes quite articulate from the literature on the subject that significance, as currently understood, means significance for human. Man and the life of man accept become the standpoint from which all things are to exist viewed and the principle whereby all studies are to be ordered. Otherwise, information technology is said, our studies will lack "relevance." Furthermore, the method of studying philosophy has get increasingly historical in modern times. Research and teaching have turned away from reality itself and its causes and principles and have stock-still upon human'south diverse attempts to understand that reality, and thus upon the diverseness of philosophical systems which he has produced in the process.

Coming to the heart of our discussion, we also observe that the humanities tend to be identified with the liberal arts and with liberal instruction. We hear frequent statements to the effect that the humanities are the cadre of liberal education, which suggests that if the humanities are not the whole of education, they are at least that part which makes it liberal. This is not surprising when we reflect upon the typical modern understanding of liberal education. It is said that such an education is directed to freedom, and this liberty is understood as the liberation of human being from that which prevents the full expression of his humanity. Thus, it humanizes him inasmuch as information technology enables him to go himself, and the studies that accomplish this are called "humanities."

Information technology is rather puzzling, of course, to speak of man becoming himself. In that location are several ways of understanding this, but what it seems to mean in the nowadays context is that human becomes himself more fully through self-discovery and self-awareness. Since art, literature, history, and philosophy are all expressions of his humanity, he becomes conscious of himself as homo through studying them. In this view, then, man is liberated insofar as he is humanized, and he is humanized by becoming conscious of himself through the study of culture. Liberal studies are the same as humane studies.

A sign that we are on the correct track is the way in which theology— the report of God—has recently joined the humanities past existence transformed into "religious studies." This is significant, not but considering of what goes on under that proper noun, but as well because of the name itself. For God is not a religious being—He has no religion. Organized religion is something that man has, even though a detail organized religion may be from God. So the focus has shifted from God to man, and whereas theologians used to speak most God, students of religion now discuss the various ways man has thought about God, the "faith experiences" of diverse communities, and and so along. By this humanistic orientation, it is supposed, religious studies have at long last go liberal.

Anomalies in the Modern Curriculum
Information technology seems, therefore, that certain disciplines are now called "humanities" and are described equally liberal considering they are supposed to exist about man or to center effectually him in some way. Let us now examine this.

When nosotros look at what are now classified as sciences and humanities, we immediately perceive certain anomalies. Offset of all, we find that many philosophers—notably Plato and Aristotle— concur that philosophy is non primarily concerned with homo, merely with things that are amend than man. But the very construction of the mod curriculum rejects this view. By the framework within which we now work, a perennial outcome of philosophy has been rather abruptly settled, or there is at to the lowest degree a definite leaning toward a particular settlement.

Secondly, we observe that the natural sciences also treat of human, for homo is a part of nature. Then we might ask why the humanities are not therefore classed as part of natural scientific discipline. No incertitude there is some signal in distinguishing between the natural and the human (for everyone does so); however, it is difficult to encounter how 1 tin appeal to the self-bear witness of this distinction in the present case, for everyone likewise agrees that philosophy may properly study the nature of man, and many concord that there is a philosophy of nature equally well as of other things.

Thirdly, the traditional liberal arts, which were conceived every bit an introduction to liberal pedagogy, do not favor this mode of dividing the curriculum. Logic, for instance, which is part of the trivium, is presumably as important to the scientist as it is to the humanist, and perhaps more so. Furthermore, the arts which contain the quadrivium—geometry and astronomy, arithmetics and music— are all mathematical. (The astronomy and music which are liberal arts explain their subject-matters by mathematical principles exclusively, since such explanations are proportioned to beginners.)

In that location is probably no part of aboriginal learning more similar science as information technology is now conceived than these, for modern natural science is predominantly mathematical in method. Thus, the view which identifies liberal arts with the humanities cannot claim continuity with the older tradition of liberal education.

Some other View of Liberal Education
These difficulties, among others, immediately ascend when we take the mod distinction betwixt the sciences and the humanities. They were not proposed in order to refute conclusively, merely in gild to ready the style for an alternate view of the division and order of liberal studies. This view, of course, is not a new one but goes back, in its essentials, to the best of Greek learning. Our presentation of it volition involve a deeper criticism of the modern curriculum and its consequences.

To begin with, we define liberal didactics as the education of a free man, much as the moderns do, although our agreement of freedom is somewhat different from theirs. A free man is a human who lives for himself in this sense: He realizes within himself the terminate for which he lives and is joined to it in his own person. He is assorted with a slave, for the good which the latter realizes past his activeness exists in other men or even in other things. Thus, a free human being is 1 whose life has intrinsic meaning, and liberal educational activity will exist that which befits such a person and enables him to alive in such a fashion.

Now some would immediately dismiss this distinction between the liberal and servile as something entirely relative to those societies — happily long gone — in which at that place were masters and slaves. Just here we do not hateful that sort of slavery, the condition of certain men in certain places at certain times. Rather we are thinking of a universal slavery which oppresses all men, for homo nature, every bit Aristotle says, is in many ways in bondage. For we see that, despite the legal freedom of which we avowal, the improve function of our lives is taken upwardly with actions which are only necessary; they are non desirable in themselves and are no function of happiness, simply are needed for something else. And this something else is all too often no more than merely to continue to be. Already a third of our lives is taken up with slumber, and if we as well decrease the time spent in necessary work or in entertainment (which is also necessary in a way), the remainder is precious little and seems hardly enough, in quantity or quality, to justify the trouble of living.

Perhaps the most bitter office of this status is the bondage of the intelligence, which in spite of being the best and almost divine thing in man, spends nearly all its time and effort in caring for the body and has little or null for itself. For the proper adept of the intelligence is truth and knowledge, but considering of the necessities of this mortal life, information technology is compelled to put aside its quest for wisdom in order to attend to the inferior parts of man. In consequence, life is not intrinsically worthwhile; we are ever preparing to be happy, merely we never are happy.

Nevertheless, this nowadays life does permit some leisure to some of the states, and liberal pedagogy seeks to exploit this leisure so that we might achieve every bit much liberty as possible. Accordingly, it is directed to the kinds of cognition that human being understanding seeks for its own perfection. Thus information technology is not concerned primarily with practical knowledge — the knowledge of making and doing—for no such knowledge is desirable in itself. If we could have the applied results without the noesis, we would not bother with the latter; for example, if the sick could go well past themselves, no one would report medicine. We might say, then, that the gratuitous human being does not desire learning in order to alter the world, simply sees in learning itself the kind of change that the world needs. While he cannot neglect the necessities of life, he finds his end and freedom in cognition. And this knowledge is primarily theoretical—that is, it is sought, and is worthy of being sought, for its own sake.

Just what is this knowledge which is a free man's happiness? Surely it cannot be a noesis of things inferior to man. Tin it and so exist a noesis of man himself and of the various expressions of his humanity? Or does this depend upon some other question: Is man the most excellent of all things that are? If he is, we shall have an answer, since the knowledge of homo will then be the most first-class and worthwhile noesis, and the poet's statement will be true: The proper report of mankind is man. For what ameliorate use could he make of his life?

On the other hand, if homo is not the primary existence, but the upshot of superior causes and derives all the excellence he possesses from them, he will not achieve happiness through knowledge of himself, but rather through the knowledge of those causes. Liberal teaching, and so, will non be humanistic — information technology volition not be ordered to the man only to the divine. Even though information technology may humanize man through self-awareness, this volition not exist the mensurate of its success. This is Aristotle'south argument in the 10th book of the Nicomachean Ethics:

But such a life would be besides loftier for man; for it is not insofar as he is human that he will live so, just insofar as something divine is present in him; and by then much as this is superior to our composite nature is its action superior to that which is the practise of the other kind of virtue. If reason is divine, then, in comparison with homo, the life according to it is divine in comparison with human life. Merely nosotros must not follow those who propose us, being men, to think of human things, and, being mortal, of mortal things, merely must, then far as we can, brand ourselves immortal, and strain every nerve to live in accordance with the best thing in us; for even if it exist pocket-size in bulk, much more does information technology in ability and worth surpass everything.

On these premises, humanistic studies will never be the core of liberal education.

An Orientation to Things Better than Man
The traditional liberal arts are a sign that liberal education was not originally humanistic, but rather followed Aristotle's doctrine. Inside the quadrivium particularly, we find this doctrine confirmed; for astronomy and music are principal in that segmentation, since geometry is ordered to the erstwhile and arithmetic to the latter. Now it is reasonable to suggest that astronomy is a prefiguration of the theoretical sciences generally, where noesis is the stop, since the stars are non things nosotros can practise something about—nosotros tin can only acquire about them. And the stars certainly seem to be, and were originally idea to be, of a higher social club than human being, immortal, and fifty-fifty divine.

Furthermore, theoretical studies are ultimately concerned with the order of the universe as a whole, and it is from star-gazing and astronomy that we first begin to apprehend and wonder near that order. And the image of the astronomer, the man who does not see the things at his feet because he is looking up, forcefully suggests that liberal education concerns the things higher than human.

This is peradventure the reason why mechanics, as interesting as it is, is not one of the liberal arts. For in mechanics, geometry is practical to sure problems which are sublunar and on our ain level, then to speak. Thus, it does not express the fundamental orientation of the homo mind, which is toward things better than man. Now whether the stars are actually as the ancients supposed is not important for this statement; what is important is that they fabricated astronomy rather than mechanics a liberal art.

The science of music, on the other hand, would seem to prefigure the applied or moral sciences, which business the ordering of human's soul. For inasmuch as music imitates the passions of the soul, the discovery that arithmetic principles may be applied to musical tones suggests that a parallel order exists inside the passions themselves. Ane is thereby led to suppose that the inclinations and affections can be ordered by reason and that it is possible to understand how they ought to be ordered. Notwithstanding, the fact that the science of music is completely theoretical in manner as well suggests that the basis of human being's moral life is given by nature, rather than instituted by man himself. This runs against the first principle of humanism, that man is the measure of all things, besides equally against its corollary, that beauty is simply in the heart of the beholder. (Hence the intimate connectedness that nosotros observe between moral relativism and the denial that there is a natural musical harmony is understandable: The one view is very much akin to the other.)

If, therefore, human is not the measure of all things, liberal teaching does non consist primarily of humanistic studies, and philosophy in item is non rightly classed amidst the humanities. Rather, as Aristotle argues and the traditional liberal arts propose, it is concerned principally with things ameliorate than man. At present, in conclusion, we are going to accept this argument i step farther and attack something we conceded beforehand. We said that if man is the highest being of all, and so education will primarily exist concerned with human being. Even as a hypothetical statement, this is non quite true. For even if human is the most excellent of beings, he is still something which comes to be and passes away. Therefore, there must be explanatory causes and principles of man, for we inquire the question "Why?" first and foremost in the case of beings which come to be and pass away. And, in betoken of fact, at that place is no philosopher, even among those who concord that man is the supreme being, who does not think that man needs to be explained and who does not expect for principles in terms of which to make an explanation.

At present, if these principles are to explain the human, they must be other than human. Only too, past our present hypothesis, they would accept to be subhuman. Therefore, the homo would have to exist explained in terms of the subhuman and the rational in terms of the sub-rational, and, furthermore, they would have to be fully explained in such terms. Now what this means is that human could not exist, in terminal assay, anything substantially amend than the nonhuman and nonrational. This consequence may be gathered from the testimony of the philosophers themselves. For not 1 of those who endeavor to explicate human nature in terms of the subhuman has not finally said that man is essentially no different from the residuum of things. For example, the atomists, both ancient and mod, hold that higher beings are simply combinations of various simple particles, and not substantially different from or better than those particles or the other things made out of them. We meet this also in the evolutionary philosophers. Darwin, for instance, holds that the difference between ane species and some other is at lesser the same sort of difference as that betwixt one diversity and some other. So the difference between man and horse is in principle the same equally the divergence between ane horse and another. Teilhard de Chardin is a more recent example of this point of view. And, given the bounds, this is the only reasonable point of view, for to assume otherwise would be to assume that an effect is more than all its causes put together.

The final outcome of humanism, then, is that nosotros are led to regard the difference between human being and the animals (equally nosotros ordinarily conceive it) as an illusion. Thus, all the reasons given for the preeminence of humane studies are finally destroyed by the logic of humanism itself. The upshot is that each human being orders his education by his ain particular taste or by what is currently fashionable, for he can no longer observe any reasons for preference in the natures of the objects he studies. The wonder which characterizes the philosopher has been replaced past curiosity.

It would be a mistake, of course, to attribute the mindless disorder of mod didactics to a bad sectionalisation of the curriculum. Nevertheless, those who are attempting to restore some order usually fail to realize how much a defective understanding of such matters stands in their manner. The alternative to such "muddling-through" is a wholehearted return to older traditions of liberal education, particularly as regards the natures of the diverse disciplines, the order of their importance, and the order in which they are to be learned.

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Source: https://www.thomasaquinas.edu/a-liberating-education/about/seminal-documents/liberal-education-and-humanities

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