PHL 3305 Lecture 3

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Liberal Education

• Trivium (arts of the word) often taught in light of Christ as the incarnate Word
  • how we communicate with each other
• Quadrivium (arts of number)
  • discrete and continuous quantities (arithmetic and geometry, respectively)
  • music is discrete intervals (arithmetic) over time
  • astronomy is geometry over time
  • how we "communicate" with the cosmos

The Lost Tools of Learning

by Dorothy Sayers at Oxford in 1947

• member of Inklinks, a Christian group of thinkers including Lewis, Tolkien, etc.
• well-versed in rhetoric

Article overview

• "It is in the highest degree improbable that the reforms I propose will ever be carried into effect. Neither the parents, nor the training colleges, ... would countenance them for a moment." (MR 7)
  • actually set the framework for education in the US
• "We often succeed in teaching our pupils "subjects," we fail lamentably on the whole in teaching them how to think: they learn everything, except the art of learning." (MR 9)
  • "Trivial" arts are means by which we learn how to learn through language

• Her approach to the trivium
  • parallels child's development
  • "everything has a grammar"
    • problematic: no clear definition on what is the "grammar of history"
    • what about the literal sense? i.e. grammar, logic, and rhetoric classes?
• She misunderstands the Quadrivium
  • "consist[s] of 'subjects'"
  • in the classical sense, it is more universalizable
  • Mathematics is not a "sub-department of logic"
    • logic finds its application in mathematics, as it does in every other area.
    • mathematics has less to do with "measurement" than it does to do with abstraction apart from the physical

Critical Thinking and the Culture of Skepticism

by R. R. Reno

• "critical thinking" should not be an end in itself
  • what is "critical thinking"
    • in the traditional sense, critical thinking = deductive reasoning
    • skepticism: not believing anything unless it can be proved
    • should be tempered by belief
  • Reno calls for giving "priority to piety, not critical thinking"
    • Criticizes Descartes for prioritizing doubt and attempting to rebuild all knowledge