PHL 3305 Lecture 2

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Reading Notes

modern learning institutions limit scope to "necessities of life"
- get highest-paying job
"liberal" = "free" ... as in, what is proper for the free man.
- wanting what is desireable for its own sake, not in utilitarian sense
- if everything is a means to another means, then what is the end goal?

trivium: grammar, logic/dialectic, and rhetoric; arts of the word or human speech; students learn "to speak, reason, and convince (and discern how well others do so)"
quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy; arts of quantity or number; students learn "to articulate order in the physical, sensible world we inhabit"

Natural fit between the Catholic Church and Liberal education
Liberal arts interest has exploded within Catholic education
- How to get this to St. Joseph Catholic School back home?
Reading
- If it's worth reading, something new will come to mind when reading again together
- There is no such thing as philosophical reading, only philosophical re-reading

Note: Look up works by author Christopher Dawson

Human beings have distinct nature that can be known.
- Human nature does not evolve into something else
- Rather, humans develop within the bounds of our nature
Education:
- "perfects the natural powers of the mind"
  - We receive sensation from outside world
  - Imagination, memory, discursive reasoning, intuition
- "embraces and develops a tradition"
  - Catholic Church? Tradition? Yes!
  - classics, culture, etc.
  - toward the Good, Beautiful, and True Fulfillment of the soul according to philosophers, i.e., to participate in the divine.
Admiration for tradition:
- it satisfies mind and heart
- it answers the most searching questions (we don't run from knowledge)
- emphasizes beauty of life without hiding evils
- humility: seek and find truth wherever it may be found

Problem of modern education (according to Newman) is that education has become too parochial: fields know less and less of other fields (e.g. scientist who knows no ethics).

...

Note: St. Augustine: Cassiciacum, City of God

True liberal education transforms the soul of the educated
- "To be the best man he can be"

training vs. education
- animals can be trained, but only humans can be educated
- education is for the sake of the person himself (or herself)
- both servile arts and liberal arts
teaching through words: a connection between minds

Liberal education is surest, most time-tested way to direct (not force) students toward a life that is truly free.